CDP Institute

The growth of Oracle’s cloud business (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure OCI) in India is clocking a rate almost double that of its global growth. The cloud consumption for OCI grew 125% in India in the first half of the fiscal year 2023, compared to the corresponding half year last fiscal.

The network is designed to help Australian businesses optimize the use of AI and to practice in a responsible way. The program will include best practice guidance, tools and learning modules centred around six core pillars: Law, Standards, Principles, Governance, Leadership and Technology.

Attentive, the SMS-first commerce platform, works with more than 8,000 brands to drive more than $15 billion in hyper-personalized programs globally. The move into Australia is intended to present an opportunity for marketers to leverage the Attentive platform and engage customers through conversational commerce.

Funding for Latin American startups hit its lowest point in January in the past five years, with no signs of improvement in February, according to the latest report by SlingHub. Latin American startups secured US$290 million in February, a 75% decline year-over-year. February recorded the lowest number of investment rounds since 2017. SlingHub listed 53 funding rounds for the month, down by 37%. Of total transactions, 28 took place in Brazil, and six each in Argentina, Chile and Mexico.

Zadara has acquired Brazil-based tech provider ZVS to provide better service to enterprises in Brazil and throughout Latin America. Zadara offers fully managed, distributed cloud architecture, supporting innovative use cases without requiring investments in additional hardware, technology, or human capital. The acquisition is part of Zadara’s increased presence and momentum in LATAM.

MENA-focused seed investor Flat6Labs has announced the launch of a new US$95 million fund to nurture the growth and development of early-stage tech startups on the African continent. Flat6Labs is the MENA region’s leading seed and early-stage venture capital firm, running a host of startup programmes and active in Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Bahrain, Jordan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

Naspers, Africa’s most valuable tech company by market capitalization, has wound down the operations of its R1.4 billion ($100 million) South Africa-focused venture capital fund Naspers Foundry, according to local news outlet BusinessDay.

Nigerian credit-led digital banking platform FairMoney has acquired PayForce (sub-brand of YC-backed CrowdForce), a merchant payment services that serves small businesses, as the digital lender looks to broaden its financial services proposition to merchants.

NTT, the world’s third-largest data centre service provider, said increasing competition in the sector in India will likely lead to short-term margin pressure as clients become pickier about using cloud services. In addition to global technology giants Microsoft and Amazon, many local companies have cropped up since the pandemic to build data centres in India. However, NTT said the increasing competition isn’t expected to be a threat beyond the current short-term margin pressure.

Sonata Software, a leading modernization and digital engineering company, has announced that it has signed up with Mumbai Indians as an associate partner for T20 women’s league in India. This partnership marks Sonata software first ever cricket sponsorship globally.

Despite bans by numerous big firms when it comes to use of the controversial ChatGPT, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is encouraging its Australian employees to try out the chatbot. In a memo recommending its use, News Corp also alluded to forthcoming plans to explore 10 other high-value opportunities for AI.

Plans are for Atlassian to cut 500 jobs, which represents 5% of its global workforce, 120 of which will be jobs in Australia. The company called the move a rebalancing of priorities due to changing economic conditions.