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Startups and Venture Capital vs. COVID-19: How an INR 1 Billion Grant Program Is Boosting India’s Pandemic Response
India is home to many innovative startups that are leveraging technology to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. To support them, a group of prominent venture capital funds and founders recently launched ACT Grants, an INR 1 billion effort to fund scale-ready solutions to COVID-related challenges. NextBillion spoke with Mekin Maheshwari, founder of Udhyam Learning Foundation – a key partner in the initiative – about how it is helping India’s startups ramp up their battle against the virus.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Investing, Technology
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The Quest for Financial Inclusion in Sri Lanka
Financial Inclusion is essential for continuous and sustainable economic development, according to the IFC (International Finance Corporation). This is no exception for Sri Lanka despite showing strong numbers in bank penetration.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- financial inclusion, MSMEs
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African Money Transfer Firms Thrive as Pandemic Spurs Online Remittances
Having fled an economic implosion in his native Zimbabwe, Brighton Takawira was able to support his mother back home with modest earnings from a small perfume business he set up in South Africa. Then the pandemic struck. Borders closed. The buses he had used to send his cash stopped running.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Is COVID-19 Driving Growth in Digital Currencies?
With purchases and transactions increasingly moving away from cash and towards digital channels during the pandemic, both central banks and private institutions around the world are continuing to explore the potential of digital currencies.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments
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Fintech Startup TeamApt Now Operates Nigeria’s Largest Non-Bank Mobile Money Platform
Moniepoint, the mobile money platform launched last year by Nigerian fintech startup TeamApt, has become the largest non-bank mobile money service in the country, processing 13 million transactions monthly.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Ilara Health Secures $1.1 Million Grant To Improve Maternal Health Outcomes in Kenya
Ilara Health, the healthtech company which provides point of care diagnostic testing to small primary care clinics in Kenya, has received a $1.1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- impact investing
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Sudan’s Record Wheat Harvest Is Proof That Bank Agricultural Transformation Program Will Boost Breadbasket Goal
Despite coronavirus-related lockdowns, travel and transport restrictions, Sudan has just recorded its largest wheat harvest. According to Sudanese officials, the nation saw a wheat production level of a 1.115 million-ton harvest from 315,500 hectares of farmland. That’s quite an improvement from just five years ago, when farmers in Sudan working about a quarter-million hectares of land harvested just 472,000 tons of the grain.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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ShopUp Raises $22.5 Million To Digitize Millions of Mom-and-Pop Shops in Bangladesh
A startup that is aiming to digitize millions of neighborhood stores in Bangladesh just raised the country’s largest Series A financing round.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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