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Co-founders Ife Johnson and Justin Ziegler have raised millions to improve cross-border payments in Africa. The pair is behind Juicyway, a platform that makes it easier for entrepreneurs to compensate vendors, contractors, and other parties locally or internationally and exchange currencies such as NGN, CAD, USD, USDT, and USDC, its website mentions. Photo Credit: Juicyway Johnson, who was born and raised in Africa, saw firsthand the barriers faced when platforms such as Juicyway did not exist. “Without access to American banking or platforms like Juicyway, as someone born and raised in Africa, I wouldn’t be able to participate in the global economy, you know, as free as I currently do,” Johnson told TechCrunch. According to data released by Remitscope, remittance flows into Africa were $90.2 billion in 2023. Additionally, the average fee charged to remittance senders was 8.4% in the first quarter of 2024, which is considered high. Juicyway addresses these concerns by offering...
Rilwan Lawal is enhancing the lives of gig workers. Growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, since the age of 1, the entrepreneur and founder was accustomed to self-starters. Both his mother and father were entrepreneurs who owned several businesses. “I don’t think I grew up seeing anyone around me waking up and getting ready to go to work,” Lawal, 33, told AFROTECH in an interview. “I feel like everybody around me had their own thing going on. And it was ingrained in me that at some point, I would be doing something on my own.” He added, “My mom is the ultimate entrepreneur. I witnessed her start multiple businesses and saw it come to fruition. That has been very helpful. My dad was also an entrepreneur in the real estate space. So just seeing both sides, and being able to execute on just an idea and bring it to life, really gave me that positive thinking that I could essentially just do anything.” When Lawal was 17, he left his family to pursue higher learning in the United States. He was...
Rick Fox has been known as an NBA star, an actor, and now, he can add startup founder.
InterApp has successfully raised over a million dollars in its pre-seed funding round. It has just raised $1.2 million to fulfill its mission to make augmented reality (AR) a necessary tool for consumers. “This funding round will empower InterApp to scale up and 10x its marketing reach, exposure and distribute high fidelity content that communicates InterApp’s proposition value,” InterApp CEO and co-founder Will Brown exclusively told AfroTech. Over the past three years, the company has been on the rise thanks to strategic partnerships with brands like Rap Snacks and SXSW. View this post on Instagram A post shared by InterApp (@interappusa) What’s more, currently, it’s been aiming to lead the charge when it comes to AR brand adoption for consumer engagement.
As an entrepreneur with a new idea, before the investors and capital come, you become your own biggest hype man. When Amira Rasool first launched The Folklore Group — an e-commerce retailer for African fashion brands — in 2018, she full-heartedly believed in her platform with the mission of helping African designers gain more support from retailers and consumers around the world. Coming from the world of fashion and deeply familiarizing herself with African clothing after traveling to South Africa, Rasool recognized that she possessed the network, knowledge, and passion to solve the issue of the lack of direct-to-consumer platforms across the continent. Her realization turned to action once she envisioned just how wide the door of economic opportunities could be for African designers with her creating a platform to make it happen. “They don’t need another magazine article if they can’t link back to a website where customers can purchase [their brand.] I didn’t want to just be there...
It looks like there might just be a plant-based version of everything these days, including hair! Rebundle — a hair-focused startup based in St. Louis founded by Danielle Washington and Ciara Imani May — just announced that it raised $1.4 million in a pre-seed round, according to TechCrunch. The company creates and sells hair extensions made exclusively from plant-based materials. Now, it’s on its way to shaking up the hair game one plant-based hair extension at a time.
This startup is on a fast track to success. Despite only launching two months ago, edtech startup Teesas has secured $1.6 million in a pre-seed round to enhance Nigeria’s education sector through tutoring. TechCrunch reports that the round was led by Haresh Aswani, Tolaram Group’s Africa managing director, and included others like Olivegreen Advisory Partners plus more. The funds will propel the edtech startup into additional markets throughout Francophone, East, and Southern Africa. The investment will also create a marketplace to connect learners to more private lessons with tutors and integrate other products on the platform.
Online shopping can be a breeze when you’re a pro. However, even the savviest online shoppers can find online checkout experiences to be extraneous. In fact, 7 out of every 10 customers will abandon their cart due to difficulties, according to Sleek Note. Since checkout concerns hit home for founder Samuel Eze — who observed the frustration of his mother’s shopping experiences — he decided to found Nigerian startup OnePass to rectify e-commerce checkout problems. “I watched my mother struggle to shop online where I saw her set up multiple accounts on different platforms while going through a rigorous checkout process,” Eze shared with TechCrunch. “In many cases, she ended up dropping the card and moving on to a different online store. Seeing the same pattern happen with other friends and family, I had to dive into it and found that it was actually a major headache for consumers and online retailers.” To ease the headache, Eze designed a platform that allows shoppers to navigate...
Startups in Nigeria like Prospa are taking action to help get more businesses running. As the fintech startup aims to provide small businesses with banking and software services, it has closed a $3.8 million pre-seed round which will help them achieve their mission. TechCrunch reports that Prospa — who especially caters to freelancers and entrepreneurs that typically have less access to resources for their businesses — just raised “the largest round of its kind in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa at the moment.” The founding team behind Prospa are Frederik Obasi, Chioma Ugo and Rodney Jackson-Cole. The trio started building Prospa between June and September 2019. According to TechCrunch, the team launched their startup in the act to “cheaply solve the needs of these small business owners in banking and software.” “There’s a massive startup ecosystem in the U.S. where you can basically grow a billion-dollar company just serving YC companies,” Obasi told TechCrunch. “We don’t have that...