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Good morning!
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All through the year, what we saw with the African tech ecosystem was an industry that was beginning to come into its own on the global stage. The ecosystem has been able to present a new normal for both startups and founders alike; mediocrity does not cut it. But also, that venture firms are not just in the business of doling out cash to any founder who claims to be building the best thing since sliced bread.
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It is about an intentional path to profitability and not just about how well the founder is dressed and how good his English is. VCs and investors have become more laser-focused on products they want to support because of the viability of the business. Case in point Ventures Platform, the VC that just closed its fund at $45 million.
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It will not just be spraying the fund across the tech ecosystem anyhow. If your company is not what it described in an interview as an early-stage “category-leading,” startup, then no credit today, come tomorrow.
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| Below are the tech stories and news you need to know to start your day, carefully curated by Technext. |
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Summary of the news
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- MetaMask has teamed up with PayPal to make the purchase of crypto easier
- MTN South Africa said that it has landed 2Africa subsea cable
- Elon Musk has sold another big chunk of Tesla's stock
- Ventures Platform has closed its fund at $46 million
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PayPal, MetaMask team up for new crypto products
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ConsenSys, the company behind MetaMask, announced that it would integrate its crypto wallet so that users can buy cryptocurrencies using their PayPal account, TechCrunch reports.
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MetaMask lets users store crypto assets and interact with web3 products with their wallet. Users rely on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken and FTX to buy cryptocurrencies and transfer them to their MetaMask wallet.
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There are already 430 million PayPal accounts in the world according to the company’s most recent earnings report. If MetaMask users see a big button that says you can buy cryptocurrencies with a PayPal account, it will sound easy and familiar. As for PayPal, more activity means more revenue.
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At first, MetaMask users will only be able to buy Ethereum (ETH) with PayPal as the payment method. It will be available to some users in the U.S. before it is rolled out to everyone in the U.S.
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MTN SA lands 2Africa subsea cable
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MTN South Africa has announced that it has landed the 45,000 km 2Africa subsea cable in partnership with MTNGlobalConnect, MTN Group’s digital wholesale and infrastructure services company, and the 2Africa Consortium, TechCabal reports.
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The landing, which took place in Yzerfontein and Duynefontein, Western Cape, is the first in a series of six across five countries: South Africa (two landin sites), Sudan, Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria and Ghana. The 2Africa cable connection will go live in 2023.
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In a statement, MTN stated that the cable will lay the foundation for improved global internet access, connecting people and continents. Once live, it will play a big part in delivering much-needed capacity in Africa from Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
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“We are proud of the progress made on our journey and of the key role we are playing in providing South Africans and the rest of Africa with the benefits of a modern connected life,” stated MTN GlobalConnect CEO, Frédéric Schepens.
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Polygon is a decentralised Ethereum scaling platform that enables developers to build scalable user-friendly dApps with low transaction fees without ever sacrificing security.
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Elon Musk sells another big chunk of Tesla stock
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If Tesla shareholders were already worried that Elon Musk was too distracted by his work at Twitter, they now have more reason to be upset: Mr. Musk disclosed on Wednesday that he had sold another $3.6 billion worth of Tesla stock, possibly to prop up his embattled social network, the New York Times reports.
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Mr. Musk has now sold $23 billion worth of Tesla stock this year, much of it after he pledged in April to stop selling shares to finance his Twitter deal.
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He hinted at what he was up to on Tuesday, tweeting, “Beware of debt in turbulent macroeconomic conditions, especially when Fed keeps raising rates.” That suggests he either plans to buy back some of Twitter’s billions in debt — including the $13 billion it took on as part of his takeover — or, perhaps less likely, buy back some of the company’s equity.
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None of this will reassure Tesla shareholders, who are fretting over the roughly 61 percent drop in the carmaker’s stock price from its peak in late 2021 — and a chief executive who has admitted to spending nearly all of his time at Twitter nowadays. On Wednesday, Leo KoGuan, one of Tesla’s biggest individual investors, tweeted, “Tesla needs and deserves to have working full-time C.E.O.”
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Ventures Platform closes fund, hits $46M
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Ventures Platform, a Pan-African early-stage venture capital firm, has closed its fund at $46 million as it looks to double down on “category-leading” companies across the continent, TechCrunch reports.
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The six-year-old firm, which employs 11 people, initially went to the market to raise $40 million for this fund and reached an undisclosed first close last December. Most of its limited partners in the first close were primarily African based, which was a deliberate effort, according to founder and general partner Kola Aina.
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“For us, it was strategic, getting local capital for our first close. But the second close, as you will see, will be from global fund of funds and DFIs where we’ve got commitments,” he said in the December interview. “Still, ultimately, as much as foreign capital is critical, I think it’s in the interest of foreign capital to be in bed with local capital from a derisking standpoint.”
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Latest in funding
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Other stories we are following
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