CDP Institute

Mexican platform Beek, a type of Audible for the Spanish language, announced a US$13 million Series A. Beek started out as a book review platform. Today it also functions as a marketplace for audio content creators, where they can offer premium content. They plan to use the capital to boost content creators and improve the user experience.

Seven years after creating Mexican Zenfi, a financial health platform, the company has more than 3 million users, many who use the platform to consolidate and pay off their debt. Having reached profitability Zenfi recently took a new round of funding, this time $8.5 million. Zenfi intends to deploy the new funds into debit and credit products. He is also eyeing three countries in Latin America.

Partech, the global VC firm with several funds that focuses on early- and growth-stage startups, has reached first close of Partech Africa II at €245 million (~$263 million), making it the largest Africa-focused fund yet. The African fund will now seek to reach a final close of not more than €280 million (~$300 million).

The Nigeria Data Protection Bureau, NDPB, says it will be training 250,000 data protection officers on enhanced management of data across organisations. The move is prompted by the need for data protection officers operating in the public sector to better understand the difference between data security and data privacy as they carry out their duties.

Starlink, a satellite internet service owned by Elon Musk, is now available for customers in Nigeria.  The development is coming weeks after preorder sales were announced – and after a statement last year that Nigeria was viewed as a critical market.

InnoPhase IoT, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in ultra-low power Wi-Fi IoT solutions; Eoxys, an IoT solution provider; and Nuvoton, a global leading microcontroller unit (MCU) supplier, announce a market-ready solution targeting intelligent and secure IoT devices for smart home, industrial and medical automation applications.

The Maharashtra government announced at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland this week that it had signed memoranda of understanding (MOU) with two companies, worth ~$3.9 billion or Rs 32,414 crore to build two data centers in the city of Pune, in western India.

BioCatch, the global intelligence and fraud prevention technology provider has established an Australian headquarters in Melbourne as it expands operations across the Asia Pacific. The announcement comes as the company shared highlights from 2022 including that their solutions protected more than a quarter billion people globally and detected $1.5 billion of fraud through their proprietary behavioural insights.

Australian Hospitality technology platform Redcat is coming to join automated customer retention experts Impact Data and time and attendance specialists Workforce.com, to recreate the technology stack that services some of Australia’s favourite brands. Redcat manages end-to-end EPOS, click & collect, QR code ordering, apps, loyalty, and more from a single platform and then partners with other best-of-breed solutions to provide total solutions fast casual brands are looking for. The rise in online ordering and demand for virtual brands plus increasing consumer expectations for omnichannel loyalty prompted the UK move.

Capital A Berhad, the parent company of Asia’s leading low-cost carrier, AirAsia, has on Wednesday reiterated its commitment to transparent communications and better customer experience, as part of its vision to become the most communicative, responsive and answerable brand in the region. In response to guests, it is switching out its chatbot, for the new ‘Ask Bo’ which has enhanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities.

Google’s year-end rankings in Search for Singapore in 2022 have revealed that Singaporean consumers are seeking to be in control of their identities, lifestyles, and what they value. The report has identified three key consumer trends based on search behaviours by Singaporeans that marketers can leverage to optimise their marketing strategies. These are ‘soul searching’, ‘value hunting’, and ‘finding joy’.

Egyptian fintech and e-commerce ecosystem MNT-Halan has raised up to $400 million in equity and debt financing from local and global investors as it continues to serve underbanked and unbanked customers in the North African country.