Leading global wireless technology firm Qualcomm has launched its African Innovation Platform, a suite of mentorship, education, and training programmes created to support the development of Africa’s emerging technology ecosystem.
Kouna, a SaaS platform for brands to optimize prices, promotions, orders, and inventory through artificial intelligence, announced raising US$6 million in a seed round, led by Mexican VC Cometa. Kouna focuses on the optimization of promotions, an aspect where mass consumer brands and retailers would allegedly not have good guidance, a problem that Kouna promises to solve thanks to machine learning.
Sun King, a provider of off-grid solar energy products in Africa and Asia, has secured a $70 million equity investment led by LeapFrog Investments. It’s an extension of the $260 million Series D round the solar company announced this April, which was led by BeyondNetZero, the climate investing venture of General Atlantic and M&G Investments’ Catalyst and Arch Emerging Markets Partners.
Changes in marketing channels and data access have made advertising measurement more important, and challenging, than ever. Taking advantage of growing interest in the topic, Bain Capital is selling Kantar Group’s audience measurement division, Kantar Media, to global investment firm H.I.G. Capital for “approximately $1 billion”. Kantar Media accounts for 4,500 of Kantar Group’s 25,000 employees.