Kenyan B2B e-commerce platform Twiga has raised a US$50 million Series C funding round to help it scale its affordable food solutions across Africa. Founded in 2014, Twiga is a B2B food distribution company that builds fair and reliable markets for agricultural producers and retailers through transparency, efficiency and technology.
Kenyan startup WorkPay, which builds human resources (HR) and payroll solutions for Africa, has expanded into Nigeria. Originally called TozzaPlus until it rebranded in 2019, WorkPay is a cloud-based human resources management and payroll solution for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Africa. The startup’s time tracking and salary disbursement tools help African businesses save money and time by eliminating ghost workers from their payroll and inefficiencies associated with cash payments.
Coinbase is acquiring the startup Agara, which operates an AI-powered customer support platform. The size of the deal is between $40 Mn and $50 Mn. Four-year-old Agara, which started its journey in India and runs operations in the U.S. as well, had raised about $7 million from Blume Ventures, RTP Global, UTEC Japan and Kleiner Perkins prior to the acquisition.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.