Jack Ma-backed startup, Releaf, secures additional $3.3m funding. 2 other stories and a trivia

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

1. Jack Ma-backed startup, Releaf, secures additional $3.3M funding

A Nigerian Agritech startup, Releaf, has secured $3.3 million in an oversubscribed pre-Series A round.

The startup’s co-founder and CTO, Uzoma Ayogu, made this known in a media statement on Monday.

Ayogu said the startup supplies ingredients to consumer goods manufacturers and their food factories.

According to the statement, the funding would be used to support the launch of two new technologies: Kraken II and SITE.

Ayogu co-founded Releaf with CEO Ikenna Nzewi

“Our seed round was focused on essentially getting the first evolution of Kraken and proving that we can be the first company to take multiple species of very poor quality smallholder palm nut and turn them into high-quality palm kernel oil,” claimed Ayogu.

The pre-Series A funding was led by Samurai Incubate Africa with participation from Consonance Investment Managers. Stephen Pagliuca and Jeff Ubben.

Tech Trivia: Files with .txt, .rtf, and .docx file extensions are what type of files?
A. Audio files
B. Video files
C. Documents
D. Images
Answer: see end of post

2. ChatGPT Creator, OpenAI, opens to sell shares at $29 Billion Valuation

The owner of the viral ChatGPT chatbot, OpenAI, has announced plans to sell shares at a $29 billion valuation.

Read also:Proptech startup, AtarCloud, secures $1.3m Seed Round. 2 other stories and a trivia

The development was contained in a release seen by Ripples Nigeria on Monday.

ChatGPT, launched by OpenAI in November 2022, is an impressive new AI chatbot that many people have noted has some severe flaws.

Ripples Nigeria earlier reported that Microsoft announced plans to integrate the ChatGPT chatbot into Bing’s search engine to rival popular search engine Google.

If the deal goes through, OpenAI’s worth would nearly double from a previous tender offer completed in 2021, at about $14 billion valuation.

3. Protech startup, Pulppo, secures $5M Seed funding round

Mexico-based proptech, Pulppo, has secured a $5 million Seed funding round from Saudi Arabia-based VC DAAL, alongside Y Combinator, 1984VC, Boost Capital, and others.

The company’s co-founder, Matias Gath, disclosed this in a statement on Monday.

The company says it operates as an online broker, offering a complete solution for everything an agent needs to manage, from property appraisals to home visits.

“DAAL is always looking for outstanding companies that disrupt the market and add value to their space, not only we found that in Pulppo, but we also found an enabler that focuses on the human element and eases things for them,” said Abdulrahman AlQahtani, DAAL’s CEO

“We have a team of legal advisers who provide support in day-to-day activities and achieve excellent service”, added Gath.

The startup plans to use the funding to grow its operations in Mexico and expand to other Latin American countries.

Trivia Answer: Document

A computer document is a file created by a software application. While the term “document” originally referred specifically to word processor documents, it is now used to refer to all types of saved files.

By Kayode Hamsat

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