CDP Institute

Founded in July 2019, Mexico City-based Flat.mx started out with a model similar to that of Opendoor, buying properties, renovating them and then reselling them. Flat.mx is growing sales by 70% quarter-over-quarter and has increased its inventory by 10x over the last year, according to its founders. It has also nearly tripled its headcount from 30 at the middle of last year to over 85 today.

Autochek, a Nigerian automotive online marketplace, announced that it has purchased Cheki Kenya and Cheki Uganda from Ringier One Africa Media (ROAM) for an unspecified sum. The company had previously acquired Cheki Nigeria and Ghana as part of its West African launch.

Safaricom’s flagship mobile money platform M-Pesa has hit 50 million active customers in Africa, boosting its position as the continent’s largest fintech company.  M-Pesa is run by Safaricom and Vodacom and is now available in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Ghana and Egypt. It provides customers with access to the widest agent network across the continent with more than 430,000 agent outlets and cashless payments in more than 400,000 businesses.

Dukaan, a year-old startup that helps merchants in India set up digital stores quickly and easily using no-code tools, has received $11 million in funding. Plans are to expand the company’s offerings and expand more broadly in the South Asian market.

New report shows India with 140 million e-retail shoppers, just behind China and the U.S., with $38 billion total sales in the fiscal year ending March 2021. Projections are for India’s e-retail market to reach $120-$140 billion by 2026.

Australian buy now, pay later company Zip this week acquired South Africa-based BNPL player Payflex for an undisclosed amount.

Ever-sophisticated use of intent data and predictive intelligence, along with a stronger emphasis on marketing’s contribution to revenue, are firmly in the sights of Boomi’s marketing chief as she looks to fuel growth at the tech vendor.

Apple, Google, Facebook and other big tech companies are facing tough new regulations in Australia to rein in their anti-competitive behaviour.

Borzo says its gig economy workforce enables delivery via any route, any transport, any weight or size. The startup says it has built algorithms to optimize numerous parallel delivery routes, taking into account the geographical routes, packages’ contents, couriers and other factors. it now has a customer base of 2 million users, 2.5 million couriers and operates in 10 countries, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey and Vietnam.

This is the case of the renowned global network of startups and mentors Founder Institute , which opened the call for its 2021 startup program, with which it seeks to incubate projects in the ideation stage through the accompaniment of experts and experienced CEOs, via workshops. They will have virtual events in the next month in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil. Currently the Founder Institute operates in more than 200 cities around the world.

The company, owned by Singapore-headquartered Sea, is hoping that the cringeworthy earworm will keep the platform top of mind for customers as it seeks to expand in Latin America’s $105bn online shopping market. It launched Shopee Brazil in 2019, initially only allowing people to buy items from merchants outside the country. It now offers access to local sellers and this year launched services in Mexico, Chile and Colombia.

Kenyan startup MotiSure has launched an API-powered insurtech platform that provides personal accident cover for commuters and riders through embedding insurance in tickets and other points of sale within mobility.