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There's a new South African incubator on the block and its name is Springlab, and its goal is to "foster entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa" by building highly scalable ventures.Founded by ex-Rocket Internet's Eugen Peterson (co-founder of Zando) and Sheraan Amod (co-founder of Personera), with the help from strategic advisor Randolf Jorberg, SpringLab claims some unique features to separate itself from the incubator pack.First off, Springlab co-founds every single venture it invests in -- taking them right from, as Petersen tells ...
"What exactly is a business plan?" a startup says to me. Life in Nigeria's booming startup scene is not like any other. "We don't really take on a lot of risk," he says to me, but the business he is running will probably hang on risks that he will have to start taking soon.A business plan is not really a fully formed idea for some of the startups I have met. I ask about business models and revenue projections -- ...
Emerging markets media and internet giant Naspers looks set to shut down a number of ecommerce sites run by its online investment arm MIH.Ventureburn sources say that the collapse of the division will come with job losses and a major restructuring. According a well placed source, many of the South African ecommerce investments made by MIH in the last few years will be dissolved with some parts being absorbed into bigger Naspers players such as Kalahari.Update: A Ventureburn ...
You can buy many things using Bitcoin. The digital cryptocurrency has made headlines for its links to the deep dark web, notably the online black market Silk Road where unsavoury items such as drugs and child pornography could be traded until it was shut down. Look no further than your local ecommerce domain, and you’ll see that the popularity and dedication truly stretches across borders like it’s born to. Why should local companies from emerging markets think about implementing this ...
Emerging market startups, especially those at the pre-revenue mark, continue to find access to early-stage capital (US$150 000 to US$1.5-million) challenging. At the same time, global-minded angel investors in Europe and the US are looking to invest in quality emerging market ventures.While news about venture deals continue to trickle out from risk-averse developing economies, Globevestor, a new Silicon Valley-based venture capital platform, is looking to heat up investment opportunities by becoming a conduit through which US and Europe-based angel funding ...
"The internet revolution is similar to the industrial revolution," said Nigeria's ICT Minister Omobola Johnson at Social Media Week in Lagos. "President Goodluck Jonathan said that we missed out on the industrial revolution, we shouldn't miss out on the internet revolution. Our lives revolve around technology today."The tech minister who has been travelling the globe, collecting thoughts on how to improve Nigeria's tech industry, says that based on government assessment, Nigeria's tech sector showed growth in all sub-sectors even ...
If you're going to start an internet business in Nigeria, get ready to be screwed. That's IROKO Partners' founder Jason Nkojo's biggest takeaway from the company's journey since its inception.In the last three years, the company has become synonymous with Nigerian content using the infectiously popular Nollywood as a segue, but getting there hasn't been particularly easy.The early days of the company mostly involved Njoku negotiating rights for movies in Nigeria. It's a not hard to see why ...
It started with an ambitious idea to fix the bleeding music industry in an age of rampant piracy, and it ended with an email. Just after 5pm one Wednesday evening, South African tech entrepreneur and Airborne founder Justin Melville finished composing his letter of thanks and farewell and hit ‘send’ on the message informing his users that his startup was dead.“We had a dream that one day we might help remake the music business,” he wrote in the email explaining ...
There is a lot of talk about mobile penetration in Africa. Even if you dissect the stats down to the number of unique subscribers, there is no doubt that mobile has had, and continues to have, a huge role on the continent.But what about data?Or more specifically, what about the cost of data? It's no good if everyone on the continent has access to a mobile phone but cannot afford the cost of bandwidth. Is mobile really enabling as ...
The day of the year that’s adored by some and dreaded by others is around the corner. If you don't have the time or creative capacity to get your significant other something special for Valentine's Day, or maybe want to try a new and exciting way to surprise a loved one -- listen up.Based in New Dheli, India, and operating across the country, Wishpicker wants to simplify things by calculating what your partner wants (because we never really know, do ...
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