Africa Roundup: Kenya’s BRCK acquires EveryLayer, Nigeria’s TeamApt eyes global expansion

Kenyan  communications hardware company BRCK acquired the assets of Nairobi based internet provider Surf and its U.S. parent EveryLayer in a purchase deal of an undisclosed amount in February. Based in Nairobi, Surf is a hotspot service provider aimed at offering affordable internet to lower income segments. BRCK is a five year old venture that pairs its rugged WiFi routers […]

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Nigerian fintech firm TeamApt raises $5M, eyes global expansion

Nigerian fintech startup TeamApt has raised $5.5 million in capital in a Series A round led by Quantum Capital Partners. The Lagos based firm will use the funds to expand its white label digital finance products and pivot to consumer finance with the launch of its AptPay banking app. Founded by Tosin Eniolorunda, TeamApt supplies […]

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How students are founding, funding and joining startups

Shawn Xu Contributor Share on Twitter Shawn Xu is a managing partner at The Dorm Room Fund. There has never been a better time to start, join, or fund a startup as a student.  Young founders who want to start companies while still in school have an increasing number of resources to tap into that […]

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Solo.io raises $11M to help enterprises adopt cloud-native technologies

Solo.io, a Cambridge, Mass-based startup that helps enterprises adopt cloud-native technologies, is coming out of stealth mode today and announcing both its Series A funding round and the launch of its Gloo Enterprise API gateway. Redpoint Ventures led the $11 million Series A round, with participation from seed investor True Ventures . Like most companies […]

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“Rent tech” focused RET closes first fund; pours $5M into management platform SmartRent

Today, Real Estate Technology Ventures (RET) Ventures announced the final close of $108 million for its first fund.  RET focuses on early-stage investments in companies that are primarily looking to disrupt the North American multifamily rental industry, with the firm boasting a roster of LPs made up of some of the largest property owners and […]

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Datacoral raises $10M Series A for its data infrastructure service

Datacoral aims to make it easier for enterprises to build data products by abstracting away all of the complex infrastructure to organize and process data. The company today announced that it has raised a $10 million Series A financing round led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from Social Capital, which also led its $4 […]

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Electric flying taxi service Lilium poaches key hires from Audi, Airbus

Lilium, the developer of a new, electric, vertical take-off and landing vehicle for a novel flying taxi service, has poached some pretty big former executives from Airbus and Audi as it builds out its technology and gets ready to bring its service to market. Mirko Reuter, the former head of automated driving at Audi, has […]

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Minds, the blockchain-based social network, grabs a $6M Series A

Minds, a decentralized social network, has raised $6 million in Series A funding from Medici Ventures, Overstock.com’s venture arm. Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne will join the Minds Board of Directors. What is a decentralized social network? The creators, who originally crowdfunded their product, see it as an anti-surveillance, anti-censorship, and anti-“big tech” platform that ensures […]

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Taking the pain out of accounting and payroll for small businesses, ScaleFactor raises $10 million

ScaleFactor, the Techstars alumnus that’s selling accounting and payroll management software as a service, has raised $10 million in a new round of funding as it looks to scale up its sales and marketing efforts. Founded by longtime accountant, Kurt Rathmann, the Austin-based company has created a software service that collects and analyzes data from […]

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Blavity raises $6.5 million Series A round led by GV

Blavity, the digital lifestyle media company geared toward black millennials, recently closed a $6.5 million Series A round led by GV with participation from Comcast Ventures, Plexo Capital and Baron Davis Enterprises. As part of the investment, GV Partner John Lyman is joining Blavity’s board of directors. As the media landscape continues to change, with […]

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Fortem gets a $15 million Series A for its drone-hunting tech

Startup pitches invariably involve futures where the skies are thick with drones — delivery, transportation, emergency response. In that seemingly inevitable scenario, tracking and hunting down out of control and malicious unmanned vehicles will likely be a pretty lucrative field. It’s something Fortem’s been working on for a few years now. In May of 2016, […]

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