Author: Kaluka wanjala

The 9th Africa Tech Summit London will convene at the London Stock Exchange on 6 June 2025, reinforcing the critical role of London as a gateway for capital and partnerships in Africa’s continuously evolving tech ecosystem. This year’s summit comes at a pivotal time for the African tech landscape, as tech ventures across the continent experienced a decrease in gross funding, with $3.2bn secured in 2024 – a 7% decline year-on-year, according to Partech’s 2024 Africa Tech Venture Capital Report. The summit, kindly supported by the London Stock Exchange, Amazon Web Services, Flutterwave, Tola Mobile, 4G Capital and more, will host 350+ leaders, including founders, investors,…

Purple Elephant Ventures (PEV) has secured an additional $500,000 investment from Alphatron, bringing its total seed round to $5 million. PEV had previously announced a $4.5M Seed Round in January, led by Clear Creek Investments and Klister Corp. This additional support reinforces investor confidence in PEV’s mission to revolutionize African tourism through technology and sustainability-driven ventures. Emerging from the pandemic with a vision to transform tourism into a regenerative and tech-enabled industry, PEV has been building a portfolio of groundbreaking startups designed to tackle the industry’s most pressing challenges. The venture studio has already launched five high-impact companies: By securing…

PayTic, a Moroccan fintech, PayTic, has secured $4 million extension to its Series Seed funding round. PayTic was founded in 2020 and offers advanced technological solutions that automate traditionally manual and complex banking processes. These tools enable financial institutions to achieve greater operational efficiency and scalability. This latest invstment was led by a number of investors including AfricInvest, Build Ventures, Axian Group, Mistral, Island Capital Partner, and Concrete. Imad Boumahdi, the founder of Paytic, expressed his enthusiasm about the funding, stating, “This investment represents global recognition of the progress we are making. It also brings more expertise to the table…

Vertiv has announced a significant upgrade to its Vertiv SmartAisle solution, designed specifically for edge computing applications up to 180 kW. Now available across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), this complete pre-engineered system combines power, cooling, racks, and advanced management and monitoring capabilities in a single integrated unit, designed to simplify and quicken edge computing deployments. In line with the European Union Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) the system provides energy efficient operation and includes power usage effectiveness (PUE) monitoring to help organisations track operations alongside their responsible business goals. “The upgraded Vertiv SmartAisle really changes the game when…

Nairobi-based fintech Umba has secured a $5 million debt facility to help expand its secured lending operations in Kenya. US-based asset management firm, Star Strong Capital, is the only participant in this round. “With the confidence of key financial backers like Star Strong Capital, Umba is poised to leverage this funding to broaden its market influence,” said Tiernan Kennedy, co-founder and CEO of Umba. “Our Kenyan launch has exceeded expectations, with excellent lending performance. As the only pure-play digital bank in the market, we’re delivering a better way to bank for Kenyans through speed, accessibility, and tailored financial solutions.” Spring…

Kenyan startup FaidiHR is on a mission to fix one of the most persistent bottlenecks for businesses across Africa: manual payroll and HR processes. The cloud-based platform is modernising how companies manage employees, payroll, compliance and financial inclusion—and it could be sitting on a $10 billion opportunity. “We’re tackling the outdated, inefficient systems that many African businesses still rely on,” said Peter recently at the Safaricom Spark Accelerator Demo Day. “Manual payroll, compliance issues, and casual worker payments in cash are problems that cost businesses millions and leave workers out of the formal financial ecosystem.” FaidiHR is positioning itself as…

Kenyan startup Chpter is on a mission to reinvent how small businesses across Africa sell and serve customers by turning everyday chat apps like WhatsApp and Instagram into powerful, AI-powered storefronts. Founded by Mark Kiarie, Kuria Kevin, Tesh Mbaabu and Mesongo Sibuti, Chpter is building an AI-first social commerce platform that helps merchants in emerging markets automate customer engagement, take orders, and process payments — all from the apps their customers already use daily. “We’ve moved from the era of Shopify and Amazon to a new era where people are transacting directly on social media,” said co-founder Mark Kiarie, speaking…

Mastercard has partnered with PayTabs to facilitate digital payment solutions for small and medium enterprises in Egypt. Through this collaboration, PayTabs will leverage Mastercard’s global network and digital payments capabilities to provide merchants with a while-labelled digital payments platform. This solution is designed to elevate payment acceptance capabilities for small and medium enterprises, driving the widespread adoption of contactless payments while accelerating the country’s digital transformation agenda. Karim Eyada, General Manager, PayTabs Egypt, said, “We are excited to collaborate with Mastercard to bring PayTabs white labelled payment orchestration solutions to Egypt. By providing acquirers with this state-of-the-art platform, we are…

Last month, Kenya’s State Department for Parliamentary Affairs unveiled its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy for 2025 to 2030. As the global AI race intensifies, this roadmap aims to position Kenya not just as a consumer of AI technology but as a regional leader in innovation, ethical deployment and inclusive digital transformation. “The successful implementation of AI requires a sound legal foundation. As a department, we are committed to ensuring that AI and digital transformation policies are anchored in law to facilitate innovation, efficiency, and economic growth,” said Principal Secretary Dr. Aurelia Rono. The strategy focuses on ways to use AI…

The itel A20 is one of the latest smartphones from the company to launch in Kenya. The phone is available for Ksh 6,300 through Gadgets Leo, among other online and offline retailers. This is one of the cheapest smartphones you can get in Kenya in 2025. The phone is perfect for anyone looking for their first smartphone or those who are looking for an inexpensive second smartphone under 10K. Itel tends to dominate this market segment and at this price, the A20 does not have many competitors from known brands, except some other devices from the same company. If this…