Google announced the list of startups for the second cohort of ‘Google for Startups Accelerator Middle East and North Africa’, a three-month digital accelerator programme for Seed to Series A technology startups based in the region. The twelve technology startups come from six Arab countries across automotive, agriculture, fitness, fintech, real-estate, e-commerce and entertainment.
CRMNEXT, the digital and customer experience platform for enterprise banks & financial service providers globally, announced $16M in Series B funding co-led by Avataar Ventures and Ascent Capital. Headquartered in India, CRMNEXT is currently servicing almost 100 large global enterprises in the banking and insurance space. Their customer base includes HDFC, SBI, Arab Bank, and Metlife.
Bevy, the only enterprise community event engine, today announced the acquisition of Eventtus. The acquisition adds more than 20 engineers to the Bevy team, including Egyptian founders Mai Medhat and Nihal Fares. It also extends Bevy’s event technology stack with the addition of a mobile in-person conference app, and several other engagement tools for attendees.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.