Author: Akin Naphtal

Oxx, the London and Stockholm-based B2B software investor, has closed its second fund generation at $190m (£172.9m) to further its investment goals in the European software as a service (SaaS) market. The investor, which has backed UK software startups such as Peak, Black Swan and CyberSmart, said that its new funding will support its investment goals within the “AI paradigm of SaaS”, in which AI technologies massively overhaul the market. “It’s a landmark moment to be investing in European software: AI and novel data technologies have created a step change in the opportunity size,” said Oxx partner Bob Thomas. “At…

Cabinet Secretary for Kenya’s Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy, Eliud Owalo, has urged Public Relations (PR) practitioners to embrace data-driven public relations and communications practices to address rising fake news, ChatGPT, and deepfakes. CS Owalo stated this during the official opening of the 2023 Public Relations Society of Kenya (PRSK) Annual Summit held on Tuesday, 28th November in Kwale County. The summit, themed “The Financial Service Industry and the Judiciary, Upscaling for a Sound Economic Ecosystem”, brought together PR practitioners from various sectors to discuss the emerging trends and best practices in the field of public relations…

Tech giant Microsoft announced its proposed offer of £2.5bn to build AI infrastructure in the UK as part of a raft of overseas investments announced by the government recently. The investment will bring more data centres and “thousands” of graphics processing units – circuits used to power AI applications – to the UK. It forms part of a £29.5bn capital commitment into the UK by businesses, unveiled by the government at the Global Investment Summit at Hampton Court Palace on Monday. Other technology investments include the Ellison Institute of Technology putting £1bn into its recently announced Oxford Campus for R&D.…

A fast-growing IT service provider, Knit Technologies Founder, Mr Fela Bank-Olemoh, says digital technology has the potential to transform commerce and business in Nigeria. Speaking at the unveiling of a listing and ticketing app, called Knit, Olemoh stated that increased access to markets through digital platforms would help businesses to reach new customers and markets more easily and cost-effectively. Olemoh, in a statement, revealed that the Knit app used location-driven and interest-based technology to connect people to events and activities. The statement added, “Knit enables people to discover and engage in events and activities through a user-friendly platform. It combines…

TikTok parent company, ByteDance, has announced its plans to lay off a significant number of its gaming staff as it restructures its gaming business, called Nuverse. The company said that the decision was made after a regular review of its businesses and a focus on long-term strategic growth areas. The layoffs, which began on Monday, 27th November have left many Nuverse employees in limbo, as the exact number of affected staff remains unclear. Nuverse, which was established in 2019, boasted about 3,000 personnel in 2021, and has maintained a similar size in recent years. The gaming division has also invested…

Uber plans to allow black-cab drivers to use its ride-hailing app starting next year, however, the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association (LTDA) has opposed the move due to it not being consulted. The LTDA believes that joining Uber would tarnish the reputation of the trade. Despite this, a small number of black-cab drivers have already signed up with Uber, and the company hopes to recruit several hundred more by January. The LTDA’s Steve McNamara argues that there is no demand for this partnership among the drivers it represents, as they have seen significant growth and investment in the industry since the…

Apple Inc. has given Goldman Sachs a proposal to end its credit-card and savings account partnership within the next 12 to 15 months, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC’s Leslie Picker. The move, if it were to happen, would effectively end one of the highest profile partnerships between a bank and a tech company. It would also mean that Apple would need to find a new financial partner for its popular credit card, Apple Card, and its high-yield savings accounts under the Apple brand. While Apple offers both its credit card and savings account through the wallet app on iPhones, the…

Amazon released its own AI chatbot intended for businesses, about one year after ChatGPT took the world by storm. “Q” will be available only to Amazon’s AWS cloud computing customers and will be in direct competition with OpenAI’s ChatGPT as well as Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s copilots that also run on OpenAI’s technology. Chatbots targeted at businesses have become the main battleground for generative AI, a year after ChatGPT wowed the world with its ability to churn out expert and human-like content instantaneously. Costing $20 monthly per user, Amazon Q will perform a variety of tasks including summarizing uploaded documents…

Nigerian co-founded payment service startup, LemFi, has halted its operations in Ghana just one week after the country’s Central Bank declared that the company was operating without regulatory approval. In a notice to its customers, Lemfi stated, “LemFi users will be unable to send money to banks and mobile money in Ghana.” This move follows the Ghanaian Central Bank’s decision to bar eight remittance companies, LemFi included, from payment services earlier this month. Under Ghana’s Foreign Exchange Act, the Bank of Ghana has the authority to impose fines on companies operating without approval and can even go as far as…

President William Ruto of Kenya has officially announced that the Startup Bill 2022, designed to create job opportunities for Kenyan youth and provide tax breaks for startups, is underway to be signed into law by April 2024. The revelation came during the Kenya Innovation Week (KIW), where the president and other government officials were in attendance. Ruto spoke on the positive impact of the legislation, stating that it will assist innovators in transforming their creations into sustainable businesses while decreasing risks. The Startup Bill has been under consideration in the Senate since 2021, initially introduced by the current Nairobi governor,…