CDP Institute

Nigerian startup Renda is providing access to the end-to-end fulfillment infrastructure that enables e-commerce businesses and major brands to easily grow, scale and expand across Africa. Launched in January 2021 by co-founders Ope Onaboye and Bimbo Onaboye, Renda allows businesses to access on-demand flexible storage across Africa, track and manage their inventory across all locations, process large volumes of orders for same-day delivery, manage and track all deliveries in real-time, and also manage and reconcile cash collections.

South Africa’s Revio, a payment orchestration platform that helps merchants optimise their order to cash lifecycle, is making waves in addressing payment failures across Africa, and is planning major expansion after banking US$5.2 million seed funding. Revio is a Africa-focused payment orchestration platform that minimizes the complexity, cost, and risk of payment operations, to help merchants reach and retain more customers.

IQVIA, a leading global provider of advanced analytics, technology solutions and clinical research services to the pharmaceutical and broader life sciences industry announced that Sanofi will use the IQVIA OCE platform in select countries across Africa and the Middle East. OCE delivers best-in-class CRM for life science companies that is built and maintained on the latest Salesforce technology.

Core42 has partnered with Publicis Groupe Middle East, a regional leader in marketing, communication, and digital business transformation, to further enhance its Jais Arabic large language model (LLM) and increase its ability to generate content that is specifically suitable for the marketing and communications industry.

Airtel has announced the launch of Airtel IQ Reach, what the telecom service provider labels a ‘first-of-its-kind self-serve marketing communications platform. This will enable brands to drive targeted customer engagements through personalized communications.  Through this, Airtel wants to enable small and medium businesses to make the most of their marketing investments to connect with their target audience in a cost-effective manner with prepaid pay-as-you-go plans.

NTT Ltd, a Japan-based information technology (IT) infrastructure and services company, has launched its new data center in Malaysia with an investment of over MYR 234 million (US$50 million). In a joint statement, NTT and Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) said that NTT through its subsidiary NTT Global Data Centers Corporation has announced the launch of its new data center in NTT Cyberjaya campus.

Google Cloud has announced a strategic partnership with leading game developers in Vietnam, including VNGGames, Amanotes, and Wolffun Game. This initiative is set to boost the country’s status as a global powerhouse in the games industry. Harnessing Google Cloud’s infrastructure, analytics, and AI capabilities, these gaming companies will improve their services to larger audiences, gain critical insights, accelerate their market introduction, and revolutionise real-time player experiences.

Wareclouds, the promising Chilean collaborative logistics startup founded in 2020 by Nicolás Aramayo and Arturo Quiroz, has successfully concluded its third financing round, attracting USD $2 million. The innovative proposal of Wareclouds lies in a business model where a digital platform connects individual households with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large e-commerce operations. These businesses can store their inventory in these households, significantly streamlining logistics. Wareclouds’ owned fleet of dispatchers further bolsters this ingenious solution.

Kushki, a unicorn payments technology company connecting Latin America through payments, has become the first next-generation merchant acquirer in the region; following primary membership with Visa and Mastercard in Mexico, Chile, Peru and Colombia. Before this development, merchants and payment companies in Latin America had to depend on one or more local acquirer processors per country which usually operated as monopolies established in the 1990s. Seven years since its founding, local regulators in the named countries have approved the company, making it the first non-bank entity to receive approval to operate as a merchant... Read More >

LeapFrog Investments, a private equity firm that is keen on the financial and healthcare sectors, plans to raise US$1 billion for a new fund targeting businesses in “global growth markets,” including Africa. The Emerging Consumer Fund IV is set to hold a final close in February 2024, having already secured the backing of several institutional investors, including the European Investment Bank (EIB) and World Bank’s IFC, which have committed US$60 million and US$50 million, respectively.

South African startup Cue, a frontrunner in AI-driven customer service solutions, has raised US$500,000 in funding to enhance its mission of improving customer service by harnessing the potential of cutting-edge large language models (LLM).

Cape Town-based digital identity startup iiDENTIFii has partnered Zambian bank Zanaco to roll out its identity solution to Zambian consumers and citizens. iiDENTIFii has developed advanced face authentication technology that safely authenticates users via their cell phones or PCs within seconds. The startup operates across several industry verticals and is used by the largest pan-African banks, insurers and mining houses for both customer and employee authentication.