Author: Gugu Lourie

Jeff Bezos and other Silicon Valley investors are taking a bet on an accounting startup Pilot that seeks to help small businesses and startups outsource back-office tasks. The San Francisco-based company closed a $100 million (R1,5 billion) funding round this week, doubling its valuation to $1.2 billion (R18 billion). The funding was led by Bezos Expeditions (the personal investment company of Bezos) and Whale Rock Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures. Stripe and Index Ventures co-led Pilot’s $40 million (R600 million) Series B in April 2019. The latest financing brings the company’s total funding raised to over…

New York-based Chainalysis has raised $100 million (R1, 5 billion) and is now valued at over $2 billion (R30 billion). The blockchain analysis company announced on Friday that this latest round was led by Paradigm, with participation from TIME Ventures, the investment fund for Marc Benioff, and previous investors Addition and Ribbit. Chainalysis was founded in 2014 as the official investigators into the hack of Mt. Gox, then the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. “We’ll use the funds to accelerate business growth, expand our product portfolio and continue our mission to build trust in blockchains,” Chainalysis Co-Founder and CEO Michael Gronager and Jonathan…

In townships, people pay data by the minute, by the text, and by the gigabyte. This simply means any new network wanting to bring affordable data to this market needs to fit in with these township consumer habits. South Africa’s big mobile phone operators and fibre providers have so far failed to satisfy township consumers with their expensive products to access the Internet. As a result, many people continue to be excluded from the digital world. Eduard Walker, CEO of FibrePoynt, says an opportunity for a wireless fibre operator to connect townships, peri-urban areas, and small towns to the digital…

Remote work has created new job opportunities for some, offered more family time, and provided options for whether or when to commute. But there are also challenges ahead. The first annual Microsoft Work Trend Index reveals that high productivity masks an exhausted workforce working from home. “Self-assessed productivity has remained the same or higher for many employees over the past year, but at a human cost,” said Microsoft’s 2021 Word Trend Index. The survey finds that one in five global survey respondents say their employer does not care about their work-life balance. Fifty-four percent feel overworked. Thirty-nine percent feel exhausted.…

MetroFibre has secured R2.5 billion debt package from Investec to support its fibre network rollout across South Africa. The debt package complements the recent R1.5 billion equity raise supported by new shareholder AIIM together with current shareholders. MetroFibre, which launched in 2010, is a high-growth player in South Africa’s Fibre-To-The-Home (“FTTH”) and Fibre-To-The-Business (“FTTB”) markets. Over the last 10 years, MetroFibre has expanded its service offering to both residential and corporate customers in line with its strategic objective of being a diversified operator. MetroFibre owns and manages its core network which is a globally compliant Carrier Ethernet 2.0 open access…

London-listed telecom firm Airtel Africa today announced that it is exploring the listing of the mobile money business, the Airtel Mobile Commerce BV. The company, which has a presence in 14 countries across Africa, said on Thursday in a statement that The Rise Fund will invest $200 million in Airtel Mobile Commerce BV. The Rise Fund is a global impact investing platform of leading alternative investment firm TPG. AMC BV is currently the holding company for several of Airtel Africa’s mobile money operations and is now intended to own and operate the mobile money businesses across all of Airtel Africa’s…

The BMW i4 is a fully electric 4 door Gran Coupé and will enter the market during the course of 2021, including a BMW M Performance model. Its refined balance of BMW typical sportiness, comfort and sustainable performance are unique in its segment. The BMW i4 model line will be available in different versions covering ranges of up to 590km. With a power output of up to 390kW, the new all-electric car can accelerate from zero to 100km/h in around 4 seconds. “With its sporty looks, best in class driving dynamics and zero local emissions, the BMW i4 is a…

Nedbank, one of South Africa’s largest banks, says it now has more than 2,2 million digitally active customers as of end-December 2020, reflecting a 25% increase versus the same period in 2019. “We implemented our end-to-end digital onboarding, sales and servicing capabilities as part of our Managed Evolution (ME) technology journey, which have proven to be beneficial in this time, with digital sales in Retail Business and Banking (RBB) increasing to 49% (from 21% in 2019),” Nedbank said on Wednesday. “Excluding MobiMoney, digital sales increased to 26% (from 12% in 2019). Our clients’ access to banking improved, as digitally active…

Nedbank, one of South Africa’s largest bank, announced that its Money app is now actively used by 1,2 million clients for the year to end December 2020, up by 42% from 2019. The Money app, which first launched in September 2019, makes banking more convenient for retail clients. It is an easy-to-use, on-the-go banking app that enables you to do all your banking on your smartphone or tablet. “It continues to be rated highly on the Apple and Google app stores, with an average client rating of 4,4 (out of five),” said Nedbank on Wednesday. The banking group added that…

Nedbank’s super app Avo, launched during the national lockdown height, is slowly gaining traction as more customers signed up to use its services. In response to the coronavirus crisis, which created challenges for many clients in accessing essential services such as healthcare and home repair services, Nedbank launched its innovative super app Avo. The is a one-stop super app enabling clients to buy essential products and services online and have them delivered to their home, with payment via the Nedbank digital wallet. Nedbank first launched the Avo ‘super app’ in June 2020, offering customers and broader South African consumers access…