Despite raising $55 million Series A in 2021, MaxAB, the food and grocery B2B e-commerce and distribution platform serving a network of traditional retailers across Egypt and Morocco, has raised a pre-Series B fund of $40 million to continue growth due to the rising demand for food and groceries and fuel its expansion across the MENAP region.
Bumpa, a Nigerian startup building the infrastructure to power online commerce and enable African small business owners to start, manage and grow their businesses from their mobile devices, has raised a $4 million seed round.
Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, announced collaborations with GiftAbled, an organization that empowers people with disabilities; Skillible, an upskilling platform to help women start or restart their careers post a long break and the Pride Circle Foundation, a non-profit that works actively to uplift, and empower the LGBTQIA+ community in India. These collaborations aim to strengthen Salesforce India’s commitment to ensuring inclusion and diversity in the Salesforce ecosystem.
Disney has agreed to license more than 200 characters, costumes, and environments (but not voices or talent likenesses) to OpenAI for Sora, its gen AI video platform. This is highly unusual for Disney, which generally sues AI models for copyright infringement; in fact, it sued Google for that a day before announcing the OpenAI deal. Disney will also invest $1 billion in OpenAI, nicely illustrating how very eager they are to join the AI party.