Dimeji Sofowora Tito Ovia Adegoke Olubusi Helium Health Co-founders: Dimeji Sofowora, Tito Ovia and Adegoke Olubusi Here are the top 10 Nigerian startups, ranked by the amount of funds raised year-to-date in 2023 (source: Nairametrics Deal Book): Termii ($3.65 million) – In June, Nigerian communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) startup, Termii, raised $3.65 million to expand its product offerings. The new raise brought the startup’s total funding to $5.05 million having first raised $1.4 million in seed funding in January 2021. Termii’s CEO, Gbolade Emmanuel said the funds were not needed for operational activities but rather to power the company’s expansion initiatives,…
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Winners of the inaugural South African Startup and Investor Awards, an initiative of Startup Club ZA, have been announced. Selected from 60 finalists and through a combination of public voting and adjudication by a 25-person judging committee, the 12 winners are: Zoie Health Founders (L-R): Dr. Nonhlanhla Sitole and Thato Schermer AI & Big Data: Melio.ai – Founded in 2019 by Merelda Wu and Harry Lee, Melio specialises in developing and deploying machine learning solutions and their Highwind marketplace lets data professionals find, benchmark and buy existing machine learning models; Biotech: Maltento – Founded in 2018 by Dean Smorenburg, Maltento aims to overcome…
Moome from Tunisia Emergency Response Africa from Nigeria Dataleum Ltd from Nigeria Coffee Resurrect from Ethiopia Zofi Cash from Uganda BasiGo from Kenya Momint from South Africa Developers in Vouge from Ghana Tech Buzz Hub from Uganda Awabah from Nigeria Zuri Health from Kenya Click images for captions 📸GSA Africa The Global Startup Awards (GSA) Africa – a tech innovation competition scouting all five African regions and 55 countries – recently announced a total of 16 winners across different categories of the startup ecosystem: AGRI TECH: Moome from Tunisia, aims to make smallholder dairy farmers more profitable, traceable and sustainable…
📸 HauteTime The quiet luxury trend is very much alive. The latest category to embrace understated designs — after handbags, ready-to-wear and, most recently, sneakers — is the luxury watch industry. It has been an exciting year of timepiece auctions, but stealing the auction show mid-2023 is the ‘Imperial Patek Philippe,’ which was sold for HK$52 million (US$6.6 million) by Phillips Hong Kong — making history as the most expensive timepiece to sell at auction so far, in 2023. In just six minutes of bidding over the phone, the timepiece which was previously owned by the Last Emperor of the Qing Dynasty.…
Veekee James in one of her designs. Her fee for a fashion design masterclass has shot up from NGN500,000 to NGN1,000,000 Veekee James is renown for her sublime fashion creations, as well as her design Masterclass where, according to her, she opens up on some deep secrets of her professional success, including her signature corsetry and spectacular attention to detail. A Veekee James design Of her upcoming three-day masterclass class scheduled for March 2024, she says: “The 1st edition [August 2023] was life-changing, with so many testimonies. This edition promises to be even better! This is not a class for…
(R-L): Ramin Toloui (U.S. Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs); Tony Elumelu 9Chairman, Tony Elumelu FOundation); Somachi Chris-Asoluka (CEO, Tony Elumelu Foundation 📸 Somachi Chris-Asoluka Recently, representatives of the US State Department paid a courtesy visit to the Tony Elumelu Foundation, and were hosted to an intimate reception that brought together some of the most creative talent in Africa, cutting across music and film. Says Somachi Chris-Asoluka (CEO, Tony Elumelu Foundation): “It was a beautiful day spent hosting the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs, Ramin Toloui, first in a roundtable discussion with some of our #TEFAlumni in the…
Julie Mehretu’s Untitled (2001) sold for $9.32m (with fees) at Sotheby’s Hong Kong contemporary evening 📸 Sotheby’s Last month, Ethiopian-born Julie Mehretu set a new auction record for an African-born artist. At the Sotheby’s Hong Kong contemporary evening on 5 October, 2023, her untitled 2001 diptych sold for $9.32m (with fees). Mehretu’s current record-breaking work previously sold for $2.89m at Christie’s New York in 2015, and so has seen a 227% increase. Julie Mehretu in her Chelsea (New York) studio. 📸 JOSEFINA SANTOS Ms. Mehretu’s result has far surpassed a record previously held by South African artist Marlene Dumas whose 1995 work, The…
Wissal Ben Moussa (Co-Founder, Sand to Green) Wissal Ben Moussa is the proud co-founder and chief agricultural officer of Sand to Green, a Moroccan startup that can transform a patch of desert into a sustainable and profitable plantation in just five years. The company’s innovative irrigation solution is based on three pillars: Desalination: Desalination of sea water and brackish water is used for the irrigation of plantations. Thanks to a reverse osmosis technique and desalination units, fresh water is produced with minimised environmental impact and optimised costs. A drip system: An irrigation technique that brings the water necessary for plant…
Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola (Founder, Flutterwave) Africa-focused venture capital firm, Norrsken22, has raised a total of $205 million, following the backing of more than 30 unicorn founders and institutions. The new tech investments will mostly be spread across Africa, with a focus on startups in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa According to Natalie Kolbe (Managing Partner, Norrsken22), the fund is seeking what it refers to as the next generation of ‘tech giants; on the continent, in sectors such as fintech, edtech and meditech. Among Norrsken22 investors are the likes of Skype’s Niklas Zennström, Delivery Hero’s Niklas Östberg, and Flutterwave’s…
Rokhaya Diagne, 25, a computer science major in Senegal, has channeled her teenage love for video games into a new passion using artificial intelligence to help 📸 Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times Senegalese, Rokhaya Diagne is a 25-year-old A.I. entrepreneur whose clear goals include using Artificial Intelligence to help the world eradicate malaria by 2030. Rokhaya’s drive in using A.I. to improve health outcomes in the region stems from childhood experiences when hospitals struggled to provide consistent, good quality solutions to a spate of illnesses that she suffered. Currently a Computer Science major at the Dakar American…