Mygarage.africa, an online platform is tackling the challenges of leasing public transportation busses in Nigeria by digitising the entire value chain in this market, from the way owners and verified drivers connect, to how the vehicles are maintained and rental fees collected.
Influencer marketing is on an upswing worldwide, with TAM projections revealed by The Influencer Marketing Hub indicating that the sector is expected to grow to $14 billion this year, with nearly half of marketers saying they are spending more than 20% of their budget on influencer marketing. Influency.me’s home market of Brazil is following this market trend. This is shown by Influency.me’s earnings, which grew by 145% over the last 12 months.
Nigerian auto-tech startup Autochek has raised a US$13.1 million seed funding round to bolster its core auto loan processing platform and deepen its footprint in West Africa. Autochek aims to build digital solutions that will enhance and enable a seamless and safe automotive commerce experience across Africa, starting with Nigeria and Ghana.
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.