Author: Staff Writer

VALR, a cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in South Africa, today announced that it has raised $50 million (over R767 million) in Africa’s largest ever crypto funding round. This values the company at $240 million (R3.7 billion). VALR’s oversubscribed Series B equity funding round was led by Pantera Capital with participation from Alameda Research, Cadenza, CMT Digital, Coinbase Ventures, Distributed Global, GSR, Third Prime, Avon Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with the parent company of Fidelity Investments, along with existing investors Bittrex and 4Di Capital, and others. VALR offers its customers the ability to safely buy, sell and store Bitcoin and…

Telkom has unveiled the March Big Deal to suit your monate needs, whatever that looks like. The SIM-only month-to-month deal gives you 80GB of data for R149 per month. The Telkom March Big Deal includes the following: 20GB Anytime Data (Validity period 61 days) 20GB Night Surfer data (Midnight to 7 am and Validity period 31 days) Plus 20GB additional Anytime data and 20GB Night Surfer data Huawei B535 LTE router Out of bundle rate for data: R0:30 per MB You can connect up to 64 devices at a time so you can share the monate with friends and family everywhere you…

GetWorth an innovator in South Africa’s pre-owned vehicle industry has been acquired by Motus, SA’s largest vehicle retailer. Thanks to this investment it is expected that GetWorth will become a formidable player in the pre-owned vehicle market while at the same time offering an innovative solution for motorists looking to sell their vehicle. “Going into business with a large dealer group like Motus was always a goal as it allows us to scale our business quickly and provide our customers with a world class option when the time comes to sell their vehicle,” says Jamie Surkont, co-founder and CEO of…

MTN today became the first African company to enter the metaverse by purchasing land in Africarare. Africarare which made its debut in South Africa in October 2021, is the first African Virtual Reality metaverse featuring digital land. This purchase will see MTN owning 144 plots of virtual land with an overall area of 12x12m. Bernice Samuels, MTN’s Group Executive for Marketing said, “This is an exciting moment for us as we lead businesses on the continent to enter the metaverse marketplace. This is exactly what our Ambition 2025 strategy is premised on – leveraging trends that amplify consumer’s digital experiences…

Safaricom Telecommunication Ethiopia Plc has selected VMware as its Telco Cloud Platform partner. Safaricom, as part of an international consortium named the Global Partnership for Ethiopia, was granted the second Unified Telecommunication Service License in July 2021. Currently, Safaricom Ethiopia is building a telecom network for commercial launch and to contribute to Ethiopia’s digital transformation and inclusion objectives. Pedro Rabacal, Chief Technology Officer at Safaricom Ethiopia, said, “Building a world-class network in Ethiopia will unlock its economic potential as well as build a positive future for people across the country. We aim to contribute to the country’s digital transformation and…

South African advertising agency, M&C Saatchi Abel, has purchased ‘land’ in the newly created Africarare metaverse – Ubuntuland – marking its move as the first South African and African agency to set up shop in this digital world. Africa’s first digital domain Africarare, is a 3D virtual reality immersive hub that houses a metaverse marketplace set in Ubuntuland.  Ubuntuland will showcase some of the best of African art, fashion, entertainment, sport, tech and creativity and will provide a platform for artists from across the continent to showcase their work. “The unique afro-themed metaverse establishes local representation in a growing global…

At the HUAWEI Spring 2022 Smart Office Launch, Huawei Consumer Business Group today announced the launch of seven new products, including: its latest flagship laptop, its first all-in-one PC, a new 2-in-1 laptop, its first E-Ink tablet, a new HarmonyOS tablet, the company’s first-ever printer, and a new portable speaker. These releases were part of a larger plan Huawei announced to create smart offices and fresh experiences for global consumers. The advanced collaboration and ecosystem capabilities allow users to create a smart office Super Device system. Under this system, users can drag icons from other Huawei devices onto their PC,…

At the Huawei Day0 Forum held the day before MWC22 Barcelona, Ryan Ding, Huawei’s Executive Director and President of the Carrier BG, gave a keynote speech entitled “Lighting up the Future”. Ding said that operators can work on three factors: connection density, computing diversity, and carbon reduction intensity, and called on operators to join Huawei in its GUIDE business blueprint to create a better digital economy together. The global digital economy is developing rapidly, and over 50% of global GDP will be digitalized in 2022. Many countries and regions, like China, South Korea, and the EU, have already announced huge…

It should come as no surprise that there has been a massive spike in interest and uptake of solar installations of various sizes. Load shedding and unplanned outages have affected businesses and households alike. This has had a massive impact on businesses as well as households, and so many have decided to install various systems to try to mitigate the effects of the unstable grid. However, concerns about the environment have changed the way many, if not most, people see energy and this trend is going to continue accelerating. At a global and national level, renewable energy is gaining traction…

Teraco Data Environments, a leading provider of colocation data centres and interconnection in Africa and a current member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced it will offer connectivity directly through Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) FastConnect at its Isando Campus for the Oracle Cloud Johannesburg Region.  Oracle customers are enabled to harness the power of Oracle Cloud locally, including Oracle Autonomous Database, to help enable them to unlock innovation and drive business growth.  ­­­­ Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect, now also via Teraco’s Africa Cloud Exchange, may potentially provide higher -bandwidth options and potentially more reliable and consistent networking experience compared to…