Fintech

In 2019, Swedish coworking space and investment fund Norrsken Foundation announced the launch of its first entrepreneurship hub outside the Scandinavian nation in Rwanda. The center, located in Kigali, has finally opened up to the region, though it is happening in two phases. The first, which took

Credit card companies are seeking to push further into the “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) market. American Express (Amex) announced today that it plans to partner with Opy, the U.S. subsidiary of Australian fintech Openpay, to allow all of its U.S. cardmembers to pay in installments for qualifying

Thought Machine, a 2014 (Xoogler) founded startup that sells cloud-based b2b banking services, has closed a $200 million Series C round and announced that it’s achieved unicorn status (aka, passing a $1BN valuation). The new funding follows an $83M Series B round last year — when it des

In December 2020, Beijing laid out a guideline for Ant Group to “rectify” its business after calling off its IPO, which could have been the largest initial public offering in history. In the plan, regulators asked Ant to revamp its credit business, among other changes that would make it

Last year, fintech API infrastructure players came into the African tech scene, ushering in Plaid-like services to businesses and developers. And the attention on these companies, particularly from venture capitalists, spiralled into this year, with each significant player raising large seed to Ser

Mobile income tax software Column Tax announced today that it raised $5.1 million in seed funding and is launching its first commercial product, which will provide users with early access to their tax refunds.  Bain Capital Ventures led the seed round alongside South Park Commons, Core Innovation

Twitter is rolling out its in-app tipping feature to all Android users above the age of 18, following the iOS launch in September. The social media giant says the “Tips” feature is geared toward users looking to get a little financial support from their followers through Cash App, PayPa

One of the most noticeable — and noted — effects of climate change has been its impact on how other events in the environment — be they natural or man-made occurrences — play out: forest fires burn more violently and for longer; floods happen more often and are more severe w

Google will roll out support for Hinglish, a mix of Hindi and English, and a range of additional features to its payments app Google Pay in India as the global tech giant makes a further push to expand its reach in the South Asian market. “For technology to truly fulfill its purpose of transformi

Google has formed a key partnership to help provide loans to micro and small businesses in India, the firm announced at its annual event for the South Asian market. The company said it has partnered with Small Industries Development Bank of India, the country's apex regulatory body for overall

Jiko, a fintech startup that uses customer deposits to purchase short-term treasury bills, announced its first banking-as-a-service (BaaS) client today. It will partner with Euphoria, a technology suite for the transgender community that helps alleviate the struggles associated with gender transiti

Entrepreneur Avi Dorfman, who sued Compass seven years ago for not recognizing him as a co-founder, received a settlement and key acknowledgement today from the now-public real estate company Compass. The result comes just months before an expected trial date for the ongoing lawsuit, in which Dorfm

Fintech company Upgrade has raised a Series F round just four months after raising its previous round. Today, the company is announcing $280 million in new funding at a $6 billion pre-money valuation. In August, the company announced its Series E round — $105 million at a $3.325 billion valuation

Pan-African e-commerce company Jumia released its third-quarter financial performance today, detailing a mix of expected and surprising results. When technewss discussed the company's Q2 2020 financials, Jumia had a market cap of a little over $2.1 billion, based on a per-share price of $22. S