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Jumia’s IPO filing shows just how costly it is to crack e-commerce across Africa
Being upfront and extensive about possible business risks are routine when filing for initial public offerings. And while some the 23 “risk factors” Jumia lists in its filing can be seen as generic business risks (political instability, regulatory uncertainty and active competitors), others offer an insight into the difficulties of achieving e-commerce in some of the continent’s markets.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- e-commerce
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Businesses ‘doing good’? Prove it
“It is a bit of a dark art, measuring impact,” Jessi Baker, founder and chief executive of Provenance, a British social enterprise that uses blockchain technology to make supply chains more transparent, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Technology
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
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Press release: SoftBank Group Corp. Announces Launch of New $5 Billion Technology Growth Fund for Latin America
The unique traits and rapid economic development of the Latin American market, coupled with the fact that it represents 10% of the world’s population and 8% of the world’s GDP (two times the GDP of India and half that of China), present significant growth opportunities for rapid technology deployment at scale and disruptive innovation.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- impact investing
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Paypal to invest $750M, and Dragoneer $100m, into MercadoLibre, Argentina’s e-commerce powerhouse
“Digital commerce in Latin America is experiencing tremendous growth and MercadoLibre is well-positioned for continued leadership,” said Dan Schulman, president and CEO, PayPal, in a statement. “We’ve been impressed with the digital commerce and payments ecosystem Marcos and his team have built.”
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Safaricom increases e-commerce stakes after Alibaba Group deal
“This partnership seeks to connect Kenyans to even more business opportunities by enabling them to seamlessly source, purchase and import goods from the world’s leading manufacturers,” Safaricom Chief customer officer Sylvia Mulinge said.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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AI-Powered Robot Maker TartanSense Raises $2 Mn From Omnivore, Blume
TartanSense has planned to use this fresh funding to scale up its first product, BrijBot. Which is an artificial intelligence backed robot, designed to assist small cotton farmers in the weeding process.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Who are the next billion users and what do they want?
Ubiquitous cheap phones and increasingly affordable phone plans such as Jio in India are helping another billion users join the internet. What do those users want though, and how are they the same and different than existing internet users?
- Categories
- Technology
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MTN to launch ‘WeChat of Africa’
The app will be launched in MTN markets in West Africa first as part of a “beta-testing” phase. The plan is to introduce it to all the countries in which it operates, including South Africa
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech