Dar Ventures, Acasia collaborate to launch construction-tech incubator. 2 other stories and a trivia

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

1. Dar Ventures, Acasia collaborate to launch construction-tech incubator

Venture capital firms Dar Ventures and Acasia Group have united to establish the DarE Incubator in Egypt, with the goal of promoting entrepreneurship within the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry.

Zeina Mandour, the venture investments manager at Dar Ventures, disclosed this in a press release seen by Ripples Nigeria on Wednesday, October 11, 2023.

Dar Ventures is a venture capital division of Dar Al-Handasah (Shair and Partners), a prominent design and engineering consultancy.

The newly launched DarE Incubator will operate as a six-month program under the management of Acasia Group.

According to the Dar Ventures, the new initiative is designed to empower founders in the AEC tech sector by providing them with equity-free funding of up to US$50,000 and a comprehensive toolkit to kickstart their startups.

Zeina Mandour, the venture investments manager at Dar Ventures, highlighted the significant potential for growth in the AEC industry, which is projected to reach a global value of US$12.26 trillion by the end of 2023.

Trivia: What type of storage device requires occasional defragmentation?
A. USB thumb drive
B. Solid-state drive
C. Hard disk drive
D. Optical media drive
Find answer below

2. Rainbow Capital to invest $3.5m in South Africa

Life-long partner of Linebooker, African Rainbow Capital Investments (ARC) has announced injecting R67 million ($3.5 million) into Linebooker, as it seeks to expand its ownership stake to slightly over 70% within the company.

CEO Naudé Rademan stated this in a press release on Wednesday, explaining how the new investment will scale the business within South Africa.

According to the CEO, the primary objective behind this capital infusion is to bolster Linebooker’s growth strategy, with a strong emphasis on improving the firm’s technology and operational capabilities, particularly in the domains of communication with transport firms and handling larger transport volumes.

Most of the funding will be allocated to technological enhancements, while a smaller portion will go toward operational and personnel improvements.

Linebooker is an online freight platform that connects customers requiring the transportation of large goods with trucks and other transportation services.

Established in 2017, the company has experienced rapid growth, with its annual revenues doubling over the past three years.

ARC’s decision to reinforce its investment in Linebooker is underpinned by several key factors. Firstly, Linebooker has demonstrated significant growth potential over the years, with its annual revenues doubling in the past three years.

This expansion is partially attributed to the consistent challenges faced by Transnet, the state-owned transport enterprise, in delivering dependable transport solutions.

3. TymeBank celebrates 8m customer acquisition milestone

TymeBank, a South African digital bank, has reached a significant milestone, boasting eight million customers as of October 6, 2023.

The new milestone underscores TymeBank’s position as a rapidly growing digital banking alternative to traditional banks in South Africa, with one in every five South Africans now being a TymeBank customer.

Coen Jonker, CEO of TymeBank, expressed his satisfaction, saying, “We are pleased to have acquired eight million customers since our launch in February 2019.

“This reinforces our position as a rapidly growing digital bank and a credible alternative to traditional banks in South Africa. This growth aligns with our goal of becoming one of the top three retail banks in the country.”

TymeBank has consistently expanded its customer base, with more than 200,000 customers joining each month and a 70% account activity rate over a rolling 30-day period.

In August, TymeBank introduced PayShap, an innovative service that allows free payments to mobile numbers linked to any bank account.

Cheslyn Jacobs, TymeBank’s Chief Commercial Officer, emphasized their broad appeal, stating, “We continue to see strong demand for our proposition, appealing to a wider range of consumers. We are nearing a balance of R1 billion in our fixed deposit product.”

Trivia Answer: Hard disk drive

Defragmenting is a disk maintenance process that reorganizes the data on a hard disk to improve its performance. It identifies which files include fragmented data spread around the disk, then moves data around to improve read and write speed.

Defragmenting hard disk drives is a common maintenance task, but it is unnecessary on SSDs and other flash drives.

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