African IT firm, Cassava Technologies, closes $50m investment. 2 other stories and a trivia

This line-up of stories will help you discover the latest happenings around the tech world, today

1. African IT firm, Cassava Technologies, closes $50m investment

An African Information technology company, Cassava Technologies, has announced closing a $50 million investment from a specialist venture capital firm, C5 Capital.

The new funding was confirmed on Tuesday in a media release by Strive Masiyiwa, founder and executive chairperson of Cassava Technologies.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that C5 and Cassava had earlier announced a joint venture to combat threats of cybercrime by scaling Microsoft’s suite of cybersecurity products across Africa.

“This investment from C5 is part of our plan to raise additional growth capital whilst diversifying our investor base.

“We are delighted that C5 has joined us to help realize our vision of a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind,” said Masiyiwa.

Commenting on the investment, André Pienaar, chief executive and founder of C5 Capital expressed his delight to partner with Cassava Technologies.

Pienaar added, “Following the launch of Cassava Technologies’ cutting-edge Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) planned for Johannesburg later this year, we see tremendous growth potential for Cassava Technologies’ cyber security business to help protect African enterprises and communities.”

Tech Trivia: Software testing performed by users unfamiliar with an app’s source code is called what?
A. Outer Ring Testing
B. Black Box Testing
C. Low-Level Testing
D. Open Scale Testing
Answer: see end of post

2. Sudanese adjacent digital banking service provider, Bloom, secures $6.5m seed round

A Sudanese adjacent digital banking service, Bloom, has on Tuesday announced securing a $6.5 million seed round to expand the market footprint and technological infrastructure.

Read also:Nigerian edtech startup, Kibo, secures $2m seed. 2 other stories and a trivia

CEO Ahmed Ismail confirmed the latest fund in a statement seen by Ripples Nigeria on Tuesday.

The funding round saw participation from Visa, Y Combinator, Global Founders Capital (GFC), Goodwater Capital, and UAE-based early-stage firm VentureSouq.

Other investors include angels Arash Ferdowsi, Dropbox co-founder; Nicolas Kopp, former U.S. CEO of N26; footballers Blaise Matuidi and Kieran Gibbs; and early employees at Revolut and Tide.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that Bloom is a mobile banking app developed by Bloom Financial Technologies (UK) Limited, through its branch registered in the Republic of Sudan.

Ahmed expressed his delight that Visa invested in Bloom.

“The Visa investment is critical for companies like us for a couple of reasons. One, aligning with Visa as a partner gives you a bunch of benefits, launching products faster, marketing support, and product support; and two, in addition to the investment, Visa Fintech Fast Track enables you to access these incentives in a streamlined way,” said Ismail.

Ismail further noted that the fund will be used to expand to other markets in Sudan and boost technological infrastructure.

3. Gbike set to acquire Hyundai Motor’s shared micromobility platform, ZET

A South Korean micromobility Gcooter operator, Gbike has announced plans to acquire Hyundai Motor’s shared micromobility platform, ZET.

Gbike CEO, Walter Yoon, in a media release on Tuesday confirmed that it wants to increase its market share and create technological synergies through ZET’s fleet management system.

Gbike bills itself as a mobility sharing startup in Korea, innovating green urban mobility in Korea which is currently a car-centric environment.

The Seoul-based startup was founded in 2017 by KJ Lee, and Walter Yoon.

Yoon, however, did not disclose the financial terms of the deal but noted that the acquisition, which is it’s first, will be completed in early August.

“This year might be the time for consolidation [in the e-scooter industry]. We are very open to any other opportunity,” Yoon said.

Yoon further noted that this acquisition will bring the startup’s total vehicle size up to about 45,000.

Trivia Answer: Black Box Testing

Black box testing is a type of software testing in which the application design and source code is not known to the tester.

It allows developers to receive external feedback, such as feature requests and bugs that may have been overlooked by the development team.

By Kayode Hamsat

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