CDP Institute

Kippa, the Nigerian startup improving the lifecycle of small businesses across the country with its financial management and payments platform, has raised $8.4 million in an oversubscribed seed round.

DLF, India’s biggest listed real estate company, is set to construct a second data centre in Noida that has been pre-leased to Singapore-based ST Telemedia Global Data Centres. The developer will invest about Rs 135 crore (US$17 million) to build the centre, which will be spread over 364,000 square feet. The facility is expected to be ready in two years.

LeadSquared, a Bengaluru-based leader of end-to-end sales, marketing, and onboarding automation solutions, has the opened a new office in Melbourne, Australia. As they expand internationally, Melbourne’s innovation culture, technology infrastructure, and talent will play a key role in supporting their efforts, not just from a market expansion perspective in the Oceania and APAC region, but also in leading their go-to-market training efforts globally.

Indonesia e-commerce firm Bukalapak and Standard Chartered have launched BukaTabungan, a digital banking service that leverages the reach of Bukalapak’s all-commerce platform and Nexus technology, which is Standard Chartered’s Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) solution.

Naver Z, affiliate of South Korea-based internet giant Naver Corp., announced Thursday that the company has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Thailand’s biggest communications conglomerate True Corporation to build a global metaverse hub for creators.

Plerk, a Mexican startup offers companies a set of benefits for their workers. It is a platform of benefits that companies can flexibly give to workers ranges from gym passes telemedicine to grocery vouchers. Plerk serves 300 businesses and 40,000 thousand employees, including in Mexico, Colombia, and Chile.

MEDU Protection is a Mexican startup that develops sustainable medical apparel to reduce environmental impact, reducing up to 25 kg of waste per garment in an industry that generates up to 5 million tons annually. MEDU Protection’s business model has been based on creating gowns, surgical hoods, and coveralls with a resistant fabric that protects against 99.9% of viruses and bacteria. Each product has an integrated chip with NFC (Near Field Communication) technology.

This February, Africa and emerging market-focused Nestcoin raised a pre-seed round to build, operate and invest in its web3 applications, including crypto content platform Breach Club and gaming guild Metaverse Magna (MVM). Nine months after its launch last December, the latter has completed a seed sale token round of $3.2 million at a $30 million fully diluted valuation.

Egyptian startup Sharwa has raised a US$2 million seed funding round as it launches its mobile application, which it claims is the first social commerce app in the Middle East.

Nigeria’s Anchor, a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform making it possible to seamlessly build financial products in Africa, has raised over US$1 million in pre-seed funding and announced its public beta launch.

India is on the cusp of a data centre (DC) revolution. Once a small, fragmented industry, colocation DCs are fast transitioning into a large, potentially consolidated industry. Buoyed by the growing demand, plans have been drawn up for over 45 DCs spanning 13 mn sq ft and 1,015 Mw of IT capacity that will come up in India by end-2025.

The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has signed a partnership agreement with Adobe to accelerate digital creativity skills across the country. Under the agreement, Adobe will offer courses and expertise for upskilling educators, and integrate digital creativity into the curriculum, to prepare students with the essential creative and digital literacy skills.