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Payment gateway CinetPay has received $2.4 million in seed funding to further its mission to provide an online payment solution in Francophone Africa. The round was led by Pan-African venture capital fund 4DX Ventures and unicorn Flutterwave, TechCrunch reports. Founded by Idriss Monthe and Daniel Dindji, the birth of CinetPay was due to an uncanny experience Monthe experienced after a slew of issues arose to collect payments at his former startup CinetCore. “When we launched our website to sell domain names online, we faced difficulty in collecting online payment after creating many PayPal accounts which were blocked by PayPal because we were in Africa,” Monthe said, according to TechCrunch. Determined to create a solution that would benefit many others who face similar obstacles in Francophone Africa, CinetPay was born in 2016. Enlightened by the realization that the majority of the African population have a mobile bank account, and up to 20 percent have access to a bank and...
Dec 8, 2021
When Black Women Talk Tech announced that Peggy Alford — the EVP of sales at PayPal — would be hosting a fireside chat at the Roadmap to Billions conference, attendees couldn’t have been more excited. But, perhaps, no one was more excited than Alford herself. “You know, I have to say this was a long time coming,” she told AfroTech. “It’s nice to see that, more and more, Black women are taking charge of their own careers, especially in the tech sector, and to see them come together in such a way to let everyone know that they’re here? I couldn’t be happier.” Photo Credit: Road Map To Billions The Roadmap to Billions is a conference built from the perspective of Black women that Black Women Talk Tech organizes. The organization empowers Black women who are driving innovation worldwide within untapped markets that can unlock billion-dollar opportunities. Roadmap to Billions is the only tech conference created by Black female founders for Black female founders and supporters of the...
Aug 20, 2021
“I think that Maggie’s entire mission was to uplift African American women,” says Liza Mickens, the great-great-granddaughter of Maggie Lena Walker, the first Black woman to found and charter a bank in America. Walker didn’t just make history as the first Black woman to own and charter her own bank, but she led a civil rights movement in Richmond, Virginia in the 1920s and was the largest employer of Black women in the area. “I think her economic achievements are incredible,” said Mickens. “I’m not necessarily the most business savvy person, so I really just admire all of the political activism that she did. She was the first African-American woman to run for a statewide office in Virginia and till this day we have not seen another Black woman make it on a statewide ballot here in Virginia.” Today, Mickens continues to do in her work with Vote Equality. “I think that making sure that we are really in the political arena and making sure that we realize the true power of our vote,”...
Mar 26, 2021
After closing a $170 million Series C funding round, Nigerian FinTech startup Flutterwave has announced a new collaboration with payments giant PayPal to allow customers worldwide the option of sending and receiving payments from African merchants, TechCrunch reports. According to the outlet, it has been nearly impossible for businesses in some African countries to receive money from PayPal — which is rumored to be due to insufficient regulation and poor banking security — but that’s changing now thanks to a new feature on the platform called “Pay with PayPal.” Through this partnership, Flutterwave is allowing African businesses to connect with the 377 million existing accounts on PayPal’s global platform to help resolve the complex and broken banking infrastructure on the continent and eliminate the barrier of cross-border commerce. “In a nutshell, we’re bringing more than 300 million PayPal users to African businesses so they can accept payments across the continent,” CEO...
Mar 16, 2021
Back in June, PayPal made a $530 million commitment to Black and minority-owned businesses to fight racial injustice. Now, as a part of that promise, the financial giant is paying up. In a press release , Paypal announced an investment of $50 million in eight early-stage Black and Latinx-led venture capital funds: Chingona Ventures; Fearless Fund; Harlem Capital; Precursor Ventures; Slauson & Co.; VamosVentures; Zeal Capital Partners; and one additional fund. The money will be funneled to each company through PayPal venture capital arm, PayPal Ventures, which invests in startups from series A to late-stage funding. “Black and Latinx founders have been underrepresented in venture capital funding for far too long,” said president and CEO of PayPal, Dan Schulman. In addition to providing capital to minority-led VCs, PayPal Ventures is offering a three-month fellowship to a Black or Latinx graduate student each semester. In the program, the student will be mentored about business....
Oct 28, 2020
The presence of right-wing militia groups has made attempting to navigate the border even more precarious for migrants and their families. Last week, The New York Time s reported that a group operating out of New Mexico detained hundreds of migrants at gunpoint. The group — known as the United Constitutional Patriots (UCP) — uploaded videos of their actions to social media. Outside donations play a big role in Crowdfunding UCP’s funding strategy and crowdfunding platforms have been a big asset for them, until now. Recently, both PayPal and GoFundMe banned the group from using their services, as reported by BuzzFeed News . Both PayPal and GoFundMe have policies regarding the promotion of hate or violence. It seems the group was removed in violation of those policies, as a PayPal spokesperson told BuzzFeed: “The account associated with United Constitutional Patriots has been closed due to a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy. We do not allow PayPal services to be used to promote...
Apr 22, 2019
Venmo, the mobile payment service owned by PayPal that lets users send money to friends, is increasing its Instant Transfer fee to 1 percent. The Instant Transfer features allowed Venmo users to send their account balances directly to their Mastercard or Visa debit cards within 30 minutes for a 25 cent flat fee. The standard transfer which takes one to three business days will remain free. Joshua Perrin, a Washington, D.C. resident, said he started using Venmo in September when his apartment burned down, specifically for the 25-cent fee. “I was getting huge donations. Some were several hundred to $1,000, so it made sense to only have to spend a quarter to have instant access to the money,” Perrin said. Perrin said that now that the fee has increased, there is no advantage to using Venmo over its competitor Cash App which also has a 1 percent fee for instant deposits. In June, Venmo announced that it is releasing a debit card for its users. Venmo competitor Square began releasing...
Oct 14, 2018