Author: Staff

Categories
Business

Serena Williams’ VC Firm Leads Numida’s $12.3 Million Pre-Series A Funding Round

Uganda-based digital lending fintech startup, Numida, has revealed plans to take its digital lending business outside the country after securing $12.3 million in its pre-series A equity-debt funding. The funding round was led by the U.S. tennis star Serena Williams’ venture capital firm Serena Ventures. 

Breega, 4Di Capital, Launch Africa, Soma Capital, and Y Combinator also participated in the funding round.

Co-founder and CEO Mina Shahid commented on the company’s successful raise and reportedly touted the impact of the financial products his company has been availing to small businesses in Uganda, and how this can be replicated in other African countries. 

Shahid said:

“I’m most excited about continuing to build and provide financial products for these micro and small business owners. There are so many of these businesses across the continent, we really do believe that we’ve proven a model in Uganda that can be Pan-African and unlock the potential of these businesses to grow and achieve great things.”

Additionally, according to TechCrunch, Numida has made it a priority to work with MSMEs because they are routinely overlooked by established financial institutions.

Numida stated that it intended to bring the number of its active clients to 40,000 using the recently received funds. According to the source, the fintech company intends to achieve this by boosting its operations in two nations selected from Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt or Kenya.

TechCrunch also reported that Numida, which raised $2.3 million in 2021, has so far granted $20 million in working capital to MSMEs. With the backing of Lendable Asset Management, which recently lent $5 million to the startup, Numida will increase the value of its loans and will at the same time remodel its products to ensure their affordability.

Since raising its seed funding last year, Numida has grown over 7.5 times propelled by the soaring demand for quick loans. The startup has to date issued $20 million in working capital to micro and small businesses, having grown from issuing $250,000 a month to $2 million.

Categories
Business

Coinbase Halts Payments and Withdrawals For US Bank Accounts

Coinbase account holders with U.S. bank accounts found themselves unable to conduct transactions on Sunday morning. 

The company stated on its site, “We are currently unable to take payments or make withdrawals involving US bank accounts. Our team is aware of this issue and is working on getting everything back to normal as soon as possible.”

The company said it’s readying a fix, and identified the issue as a problem with ACH withdrawals, deposits, and buys failures. The Automated Clearing House Network, sometimes known as ACH, is a mechanism for electronically moving money between bank accounts in the United States.

Affected users on the platform are still able to make direct purchases using a debit card or PayPal account, the company clarified.

Coinbase’s support page classified the issue with U.S. bank accounts as a “Major Outage.” Every coin supported on the platform was still fully tradable except for Solana, which was experiencing “Degraded Performance” due to its own outage on Friday night.

The official support page for Coinbase on Twitter later released a statement assuring its account holders that their “funds are safe,” adding it will provide further information when functionality resumes. 

According to decrypt, the issue was not yet resolved as of 11:30 am EST (06:00 pm EAT) on Sunday.

However, in the past hours, Coinbase has seen nearly $569 million worth of trading volume on its exchange, according to CoinGecko. Over half of that volume consisted of BTC and ETH, followed by SOL at 4% or $23 million.

Categories
Business

Cardano reaches 3.9m wallet addresses and invests $200m to boost the ecosystem

Ken Kodama, founder of Cardano development lab, Emurgo, recently revealed that the company would invest more than $200 million to boost the ecosystem’s growth over a 3-year period. Kodama disclosed this during the ongoing token 2049 conference.

Emurgo will use the funds to work on projects being built on the Cardano network and projects from other networks whose products are integrated on the Cardano network and their own.

Kodama noted that the funds are from Emurgo’s capital, and the company has set aside $100 million to invest in projects from Africa under its African investment program. According to him, using crypto services for lending and borrowing purposes for everyday living in contrast to speculative purposes was a key growth driver in the region.

The Emurgo founder also admitted that the Cardano network growth has been slow compared to other networks however the network now has the necessary infrastructure to securely expand, and the network will grow significantly over the next few years. 

Last week, Cardano’s hugely expected Vasil upgrade went live.

The upgrade will make it possible for smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps) to operate on the network without the need for a central administrator.

Cardano joins the Near and Avalanche networks in using a comparable strategy to accelerate the development of their networks. While Cardano’s founding organization contributes funds to further the network’s development, Near and Avalanche’s ecosystem contributes monies to further the development of their own networks.

Wallets holding ADA have topped 3.9 million, according to statistics from the on-chain analytics platform Messari, signaling the network’s continued growth in usage.

The information also reveals that at least 1 million ADA tokens are held in over 2,800 wallets. As a result, it shows that Cardano has more whales than the majority of its rivals, perhaps as a result of its low cost.

As a founding entity of the Cardano protocol, Emurgo creates products, applications, and services that promote the network’s growth.

Categories
Business

Introducing The Winners Of The Hack The Mara Hackathon

Mara Foundation has revealed the winners of its 2022 ‘Hack the Mara’ hackathon that was launched in July. The top three teams with the most viable business ideas have been honored with rewards that will promote long-term positive social and environmental change in the Maasai Mara, Africa, and beyond.

The Mara Hackathon celebrates African Web3 developers and innovators working to solve last-mile payment tracking challenges and strengthen the financial sustainability of ongoing conservation projects in the Mara for better livelihoods. 

The winners emerged after proposal submissions and a week-long physical hackathon that was held in the Maasai Mara, Kenya, where they built prototypes of their solutions.

The winning teams include Team Masterminds, Team Blocverse, and Team AfroLabs, all from Nigeria.

With a focus on building impactful USSD blockchain solutions in Web3, team Masterminds developed a funding solution using blockchain with NFTs to provide a means of livelihood for Maasai rangers, conservancies, and land owners. 

The team is made up of Babatide Ayoade, a blockchain developer, Oluwasegun Abisagbo, a front-end developer, and Patience Adajah, a front-end d-App engineer skilled in UI/UX design.

Abisagbo expressed her merriment saying “The preservation of wildlife is critical to the sustenance of the Maasai ecosystem. Our solution offers people an opportunity for sustainable funding to reach the critical stakeholders in the Maasai while offering an opportunity for everyone to experience the Mara, even if they have never been there.”

Adajah emphasized adding, “We are so thrilled that the judges found our solution worthy to win the competition. We are excited about the future and we look forward to building the final version of our product.”

On a mission to drive blockchain adoption in Africa through building everyday products with Web3 technologies,  team Blocverse created a solution that gives back to nature and helps conservancies become more sustainable so they can also autorun even without donations. 

The team is made up of Toochukwu Okoro, a smart-contract developer, Joshua Avoaja, a software developer with technical implementation skills, and Teresa Amanwachi, a researcher and technical writer. 

Avoaja commented on their win saying, “We are building our solution as a financial power horse that will champion inclusiveness in conservation because we truly believe that conservation is everyone’s duty and we should all contribute to conservation.”

Keenly interested in building Web3 solutions, breeding a culture, and building Africa, team AfroLabs of young blockchain explorers developed a solution to help the Maasai Mara community receive money from anywhere directly into their accounts so land owners can get paid easily and wildlife is preserved. 

The team took third place and is made up of Obinna Oba, a full-stack developer with an interest in building in the web3 space for start-ups in Africa, Anthony Nwobodo, a full-stack software engineer and blockchain developer, and Chisom Aniefuna, a 400 level Pharmacy student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Commenting on their solution winning the competition, Nwobodo said, “During the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the land owners lacking funds and started thinking of selling their lands or converting them to farmlands, ultimately affecting the ecosystem of wildlife. With our solution, they will be able to get funding even in hard times while preserving the wildlife ecosystem.”

The Mara Foundation is poised to find and develop African talents, empowering them to create significant solutions for the continent and the rest of the globe. This is thanks to a vibrant new tribe that is expanding across Africa.

Kate Kallot, Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer at Mara commented, “African developers and innovators are trailblazing with their creative blockchain solutions today. We believe that these Africans can act as the spark for igniting blockchain solutions that will advance the future of finance in Africa on Web3.”

“Mara Foundation is committed to helping people realize their full potential through initiatives like this. We want these Forward Thinkers and Builders to be equipped and empowered to create a long-term positive social impact on our continent through blockchain technology,” she added.

The top three winning teams emerged out of over 800 applicants who entered the competition. With three Kenyan teams and five Nigerian finalist teams participating in the week-long physical hackathon, the top three winning teams emerged from Nigeria.

Categories
Business

UAE Ministry of Economy announces its Metaverse Headquarters

As the Metaverse undoubtedly lures in many countries and cities, the Middle East has finally given in. Time and again the country has expressed its interest in innovative tech. The country has now decided to take a plunge into the virtual world with its latest announcement.

The UAE Ministry of Economy recently revealed that its brand new headquarters would be located in the Metaverse. Speaking at Dubai Metaverse Assembly, the Minister of Economy Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri suggested that this was the ministry’s third address and wasn’t a mere proof of concept.

The Ministry currently has two offices in the UAE. While one sits in Abu Dhabi the other one is in Dubai. The metaverse office is now its third.

The Dubai Metaverse Assembly lured in over 20,000 people on the very first day. Attendees were given a live tour of the virtual headquarters and noted how anyone in the world could visit it.

The headquarters was a multiple-story building. Visitors would require a ticket to enter the building. Each of its floors is expected to serve a different purpose.

Khalifa Al Jaziri, the avatar representing the ministry in the metaverse noted that the interaction in the metaverse would be voice prompted since it’s a 3D setup.

People no longer need to visit the ministry’s physical location because all of its services are provided in the metaverse. In the digital office, for instance, contracts could supposedly be signed.

Jaziri added,

“So, anyone around the world who has a transaction with the ministry no longer has to come to the UAE to sign an agreement.”

UAE’s latest move has certainly pushed the country ahead in the metaverse race. While several countries were still exploring the prospects of the technology, UAE has already started building on the same.

Categories
Business

NEAR Protocol Foundation Allocates Roughly $33 Million to three Regional Hubs

The NEAR Protocol Foundation revealed in its 2022 transparency report that it committed around $33 million to three regional centers in Kenya, Ukraine, and the Balkans respectively, to help connect with people where they are.

According to the report, $100 million in total was allocated to set up regional hubs in Ukraine, Kenya, the Balkans, Vietnam, the United States, India, and South Korea.

In a statement, the NEAR Foundation said:

“As part of NEAR’s ambition to reach a billion people, the Foundation believes we need hubs around the world to connect with people where they are  –  with local events, in local languages, to find the best people wherever they are and forging partnerships with local organizations.”

The Foundation has chosen these locations based on a variety of factors, including Web3 adoption, number of developers, regulatory environments, and available capital.

To further grow and decentralize the NEAR ecosystem, the Foundation will implement an ecosystem-wide self-governance treasury called the NEAR Digital Collective (NDC).

In order to make the community more robust, open, and fair, the NDC aims to further decentralize the governance of the NEAR ecosystem, distribute more of the Foundation’s token holdings to the community, and shift decision-making onto the blockchain.

Sourced from BitKE

Categories
Business

Warner Music Group Announces Partnership With OpenSea

Global Music and entertainment company, Warner Music Group is partnering with OpenSea marketplace, the world’s leading peer-to-peer marketplace for NFTs, to provide a platform for select WMG artists to build and extend their fan communities in Web3. 

WMG stated in its press statement, “As part of the engagement, WMG artists would get early access to OpenSea’s new drops product, along with improved discoverability, personalized storytelling on customized landing pages, and OpenSea’s industry-leading safety and security features. This would also unlock dedicated support and best practices from the OpenSea team, helping WMG artists build new Web3 communities, and introducing existing fan communities to new forms of connection and creativity powered by NFTs.”

Oana Ruxandra, Chief Digital Officer & EVP, Business Development, WMG said, “Fundamental to music’s DNA, is community – it’s artists and fans coming together to celebrate the music that they love. Our collaboration with OpenSea helps to facilitate these communities by unlocking Web3 tools and resources to build opportunities for artists to establish deeper engagement, access, and ownership.”

Additionally, according to Warner Music Group, its artists will get early access to OpenSea’s new drops product. This will come with improved discoverability, and storytelling on customized landing pages. It also includes OpenSea’s industry-leading safety and security features. As a result, this gives artists a new form of connecting with their fans in Web3.

 Shiva Rajaraman, OpenSea’s Vice President of Product also commented, “For artists and musicians, NFTs represent a new creative medium and a mechanism to build community, engage directly with fans, and express themselves across borders and languages.”

Rajaraman added, “As a massive music fan myself, I’m thrilled to work with a partner who understands the significance of this technology, and wants to use it for good to empower artists to own their fan connections directly.”

She further stated that OpenSea is excited to provide the support and infrastructure to help welcome the Warner family of artists into the exciting NFT ecosystem.

According to WMG, the first collection of this new relationship is now being created. For the initiative, Warner Records UK will work with Web3 firm, Probably Nothing.

Categories
Business

Polygon Announces First African Bootcamp and Hackathon

Polygon, the leading Web3 infrastructure used by some of the world’s biggest companies including Meta, Stripe, Reddit, and Xend Finance recently announced the Polygon Fellowship, an eight-week intensive certified mentorship program, and hackathon in Africa. 

The Polygon Bootcamp and Hackathon will be the company’s first in Africa and introduce developers in the region to the Polygon ecosystem using Xend Finance and Polygon technologies.

Those selected for the mentor-led program will gain knowledge about creating decentralized apps on the Polygon blockchain and, following successful completion, be awarded the Polygon Africa Bootcamp Certification.

The Bootcamp will include a track for beginner and expert developers. The beginner track is for Web3 newbies and Web2 developers looking for a change. This is their start to a different career, a new web, and capturing more of the value you create. Participants will learn all about blockchain mechanics, writing smart contracts, decentralized computing, and what it takes to launch an app. 

The mastery track is for the well-traveled Web3 builders with a few feathers in their cap. You might be moonlighting as a Web3 developer, or maybe you’ve committed your career to the new web. Participants will learn the ins and outs of Polygon’s scaling solutions.

Mentors and judges include Shodipo Ayomide, Global Head of Developer Advocacy of Polygon, Ugochukwu Aronu, CEO of Xend Finance, Victor Osaretin Asemota, and Yele Bademosi, CEO of Nestcoin, amongst others.

Sandeep Nailwal, COO and Co-Founder of Polygon stated, “Africa has the greatest potential to harness the power of Web3 and bring a borderless economy and stability to its people. We are excited to hold our first hackathon and fellowship in Africa, which we hope to do for years to come.”

Ugochukwu Aronu, CEO of Xend Finance also commented, “As a Web3 infrastructure for developers, which includes a crypto payment API and wallet infrastructure, we are very excited to help a generation of developers reach a global audience. Working with Polygon allows our existing developer base, along with new developers, to tap into the power of the Polygon blockchain and ecosystem using our technology. We are Africa and we are proud to support our community.”

Polygon and Xend Finance are expecting more than 2,000 developers, working with numerous developer organizations in Africa, including GDG Nairobi, amongst others. The Polygon Bootcamp is open to all applicants, with the application period starting, on September 26, and the deadline commencing on October 7.

Those selected will start the program on October 10 and end on December 2. Over $60,000 in prizes will be given out following the Hackathon, with two divisions, a Beginner’s and Master’s with first place receiving $10,000, followed by $7,000, $5,000, and $750 for the top 30 projects. 

The winning projects will also be given consideration for seed funding from Polygon and exposure on Xend Launchpad, a decentralized platform giving projects exposure to international investors.

Categories
Business

Bybit Launchpool lists the Angola Project governance token AGLA

The utility token of the Angola Project, AGLA, has been listed on the Bybit Launchpool by Bybit, the third most visited cryptocurrency exchange in the world.

The Angola Project is a social NFT system built upon the blockchain-based Web3 creator economy. Its aim is to become a mainstream NFT ecosystem by enabling people to create NFT content in people’s lives. 

Users, as participants in the Angola project, can issue NFTs with images and video content using NFT cameras for a variety of purposes in the NFT social system. Once users issue NFTs, their value will be appraised by community members within the Angola ecosystem and other marketplaces within the system, and users will have opportunities to earn reasonable yields.

The AGLA token is used as a reward for activities in the Angola system and as a governance token. Users can use AGLA tokens to buy NFTs or stakes in the marketplace. 

Additionally, AGLA tokens earned by NFT sales are partially burned to limit supply and maintain the value. According to Bybit, a total of 3 billion Ethereum-based (ERC-20) tokens will be issued.

 Bybit Launchpool is a component of Bybit Earn, where users can stake and earn tokens for free with attractive APYs. Users can stake and unstake tokens at any time, and earn fees on their staked currency. They can also earn bonuses in Tether (USDT).

The Angola system is organized by a web3 DAO with no intermediaries. The DAO is composed of ecosystem participants and investors of the Angola project.

Categories
Business

Data Mynt Partners with Yellow Card Financial to Enable Cash Payouts and Digital Asset Services for Merchants Across Africa

Data Mynt has announced a strategic partnership with Yellow Card Financial that allows merchants and platforms across Africa to accept and send payments in digital assets in person and online, settle immediately, and now withdraw funds directly to their mobile money or bank accounts in local currency through Yellow Card Financial.

“Yellow Card’s technology allows Data Mynt merchant and platform customers across Africa to settle payments with their mobile money and bank accounts, enabling funds to flow from a shopper’s digital asset wallet into the merchant’s Data Mynt wallet and onto the merchant’s preferred mobile money or bank account,” Data Mynt stated in its press release.

According to the statement, Data Mynt’s digital asset checkout and payments infrastructure allows merchants and other businesses across Africa to use a lower-cost, efficient and safer way to transact with 300 million crypto owners, pay suppliers or teams anywhere in the world, and settle funds from the digital asset ecosystem directly into their mobile money and bank accounts. 

Furthermore, because Africa has over 40 different distinct currencies, it can be difficult and expensive to convert between them.

Alex Christian, Data Mynt Co-Founder commented saying, “We have been planning a launch in sub-Saharan Africa, and partnering with Yellow Card makes sense given the incredible job they’re doing driving rapid adoption of crypto across the continent. Cryptocurrency was always meant to be used like actual money, and nowhere has this been more successful than in Africa. By partnering with Yellow Card, we can rapidly expand our services to Africans and make it leaps and bounds easier to use digital assets when buying and selling goods and services. Data Mynt and Yellow Card are making cryptocurrency easier and better in Africa.” 

“Our vision at Yellow Card is to power the entire crypto industry across the African continent. We want to work with anyone that has a desire to spread access to this technology to anyone. We’re excited to partner with Data Mynt to further the reach of this tech,”  Chris Maurice, CEO, and co-founder of Yellow Card also commented.

The statement further read that, Data Mynt allows shoppers to pay in one of many digital assets across 8 blockchains, which is automatically converted into a stablecoin without price volatility. In this way, merchants and platforms in Africa who use Data Mynt’s technology side-step some of the biggest hurdles to businesses including declines, volatility, and settlement time.

Yellow Card has been rapidly growing in popularity over the past few years, expanding its services to all corners of Africa while driving and capturing a growing market share of African cryptocurrency users. 

It has long been said that Africa is a cryptocurrency continent, and Yellow Card’s blossoming user base and community is proof of the excitement surrounding digital assets in this part of the world. In Africa, cryptocurrency is often used as actual currency, and Yellow Card has made the on and off-ramp into the world of crypto easier than ever for Africans. Now, Data Mynt is making the connection between decentralized finance and traditional commerce more seamless than ever.

Data Mynt has been progressively expanding its services to new merchants and territories this year, with platforms and merchants gaining access to Data Mynt’s solutions in 10 countries across 5 continents. 

Data Mynt has also added more blockchains and digital assets to the roster of supported currencies, allowing their users to pay with popular blockchains and wallet ecosystems such as Binance Chain, Tron, Ethereum Mainnet, Polygon, Solana, and Bitcoin Lightning Network coins such as BTC, ETH, USDC, Tether, MATIC, SOL, DOGE, and BNB, to name a few.