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VC Firm Ventures Platform Closes Pan-African Fund II at $84 Million
The firm targets companies that bridge infrastructural gaps and promote prosperity by eliminating access barriers and reducing delivery costs across the continent by identifying companies that address non-consumption through market-creating innovations.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Africa Finance Corporation Launches Infrastructure Climate-Resilient Fund Nigeria to Mobilise Domestic Institutional Capital
Registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a closed-end fund, ICRF Nigeria is designed to channel capital from pension fund administrators (PFAs), insurers, asset managers and other Nigerian institutional investors towards a diversified portfolio of commercially viable high-impact infrastructure opportunities.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Analysis: Big Aid Is Over
"In Africa, governments have little to spend, and—in the short run, at least—these cuts are really going to hurt."
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Analysis: How One VC Burns Through Hundreds of Millions of Tokens a Day to Find the Next Unicorn
For decades, investors backed startups by judging founding teams, products, and markets. But as AI advances at breakneck speed, many now believe they need a much deeper understanding of the technology itself — or risk missing breakthroughs that can create entirely new categories overnight.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Canva Africa, Paystack Partner to Equip Nigerian Entrepreneurs With AI-Powered Creative Tools
"Under the Paystack Small Business Bundle, eligible merchants will receive six months of Canva Business at no cost."
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Missing Asset Class: How Aggregated MSMEs Could Unlock the Next Wave of Impact Investing Deal Flow
Despite years of emphasizing the need to reach underserved businesses, the impact investing sector is increasingly focusing on lower-risk opportunities. According to Adanna Chukwuma at CARE, mature companies have drawn the largest increases in impact assets over the past six years, while funding to seed-stage enterprises has contracted — despite multiple financial instruments designed to serve the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in this segment. As she explains, this trend excludes a vast band of businesses with real revenue, real demand and real growth potential: aggregated MSMEs, i.e., individual enterprises that have joined together to contract and borrow as one. She explores the investment opportunity in these MSMEs, and calls for the creation of a new asset class around them, explaining how this could unlock the flow of impact capital to enterprises that remain systemically overlooked.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
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India’s Software firm Rezolv Raises $12.5 Million Series A Led by Norwest
Rezolv sells software to banks and non-banking financial companies to manage debt collection, from early reminders through legal recovery.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Apple Pay Launches in the Philippines
"An easier, safer, and more secure way to pay using iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac is now available."
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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