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TechCabal Daily, 694 – Nigerian Online Grocery Store, Gloo, Shuts Down Operations

Hello and welcome to the new week! Here is today’s round of TC Daily. Did someone forward this to you? Subscribe so you don’t miss out on this daily bit of goodness.

Nigerian online grocery store, Gloo, is shutting down its operations after a seven year stint in the country. Olumide Olusanya, founder and “Chief Glootian” announced this in a tweet yesterday. He says they have been building a new business in stealth and expect to launch it soon. Goodbye to yet another. E-commerce sites like Efritin, OLX and Dealday have all exited the market in the last two-three years.

Africa Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM), through its AIIF3 fund, has invested $31 million in private equity in BBOXX, a London headquartered solar company.  The investment “will allow BBOXX install two million solar systems by 2022, bringing electricity to 10 million people in these African countries,” the company said in a statement. Last year, BBOXX raised $5.1 million through equity crowdfunding from Togo-based bank Union Togolaise de Banque (UTB).

MEST Africa has announced the launch of applications for its second annual MEST Africa Challenge. The Pan-African pitch competition is looking for scale-ups from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa or Cote d’Ivoire ready to expand into new markets. The regional pitch events will take place between February 27 and 28, 2019 and applicants will be competing for up to $50k in equity investment and an opportunity to join the Pan-African MEST incubator community. Apply here and/or share this opportunity with someone.

Lillian Barnard will replace Zoaib Hoosen as MD of Microsoft’s South African subsidiary. Barnard takes over the reins on March 1, 2019 and will be the first woman to hold the position since Microsoft reinvested in the country in the early 1990s.

Gemalto, in cooperation with local partner SCINTL, has been awarded the contract for the supply of a Border Management System (BMS) including airport self-service eKiosks at Entebbe International Airport in Uganda. Entebbe received 1.5 million travelers in 2017 alone. The new BMSystems will improve border-crossing experience for Uganda’s visitors and citizens and builds upon Gemalto’s Visa Management System deployed in 2014.

60% of organizations globally had suffered two or more business-disrupting cyber events (cyber attacks causing data breaches or significant disruption and downtime to business operations) in the last 24 months. This is one of the findings of a newly released report by Cyber Exposure company, Tenable Inc. The World Economic Forum now lists cyber attacks as one of the top three global threats in the world today.

Our Health-tech Town Hall and public launch of the Nigerian Health-tech Industry Report will now take place on Friday, January 25, 2019.  The time extension will enable us provide a more sturdy and insightful platform to discuss the sector’s current state, progress so far and its future with key stakeholders in attendance. Please sign up here so we can notify you when registration goes live.

UK’s International Tech Hub Network has launched a search for Nigerian start-ups to join the UK’s Go Global 2019 programme. They are looking for start-ups using technology to solve local issues. Successful applicants will be sponsored to join a delegation of ambitious African start-ups to the UK for a 2-week immersive programme in March 2019. Applications end on January 30, 2019. Find out more and apply here.

Digital Lab Africa (DLA) has extended the application deadline into its multimedia incubation program to January 31, 2019. The DLA call for projects #3 is open to anyone from the field of digital content creation: artists, producers, designers, start-ups, SMEs, collectives, students or entrepreneurs based in or nationals of Sub-Saharan African countries. Selected applicants will take part in a pitch competition and a 42,000 rands (~$3,000) cash prize is at stake. Click here to send in an application.

Senior investment executive at AlphaCode, Dominique Collett, has some predictions for South Africa’s fintech sector in 2019 and here they are.

From TechCabal

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A Guide To Understanding Consumer Logistics In Africa

Have a great week ahead. We’ll see you tomorrow. 
 
– Kay.

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