Kenya’s CBEA secures $25m. 2 other stories and a trivia

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

1. Kenya’s Crossboundary Energy Access secures $25m

A Kenya-based startup, Crossboundary Energy Access (CBEA), has announced securing a $25 million fund to boost renewable energy projects across Africa.

The new fund was disclosed by CrossBoundary Energy Access managing director, Humphrey Wireko, in a statement on Thursday.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that the funding was sourced from ARCH Emerging Markets Partners limited, Bank of America, and Microsoft Climate Innovation.

CrossBoundary Energy aggregates finance for medium-scale (0.2MW-10MW) renewable projects that serve commercial customers in Africa such as off-grid light manufacturing, cell towers, farms, remote hospitals, eco-lodges, and beverage bottlers.

Launched in 2011 by Jake Cusack, and Matt Tilleard, CBEA has worked with many solar companies in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and Rwanda.

Wireko, while commenting on the raiser and intent, said:

“This is a crucial step for CrossBoundary Energy Access towards unlocking the private and public capital needed to scale the mini-grid sector.

“We look forward to mobilizing this investment to bring the projects in our pipeline to life, and providing power to African homes and businesses through these distributed renewable assets.”

Tech Trivia: Individual RAM chips are also called what?
A Memory Modules
B SSDs
C Caches
D Hard Disks
Answer: see end of post

2. Israeli drones, AI startup, Indoor Robotics, raises $15m Series A

An Israel-based indoor drone technology company, Indoor Robotics, has raised a $15 million series A funding led by Pitango to accelerate product development and expand its market footprint.

Read also:Egypt’s petcare, e-commerce startup, Vetwork, seals Bridge round. 2 other stories and a trivia

Doron Ben David, co-founder, and CEO of Indoor Robotics confirmed the development in a statement forwarded to Ripples Nigeria on Thursday.

According to Doron, the funding round saw participation from Target Global, European Innovation Council Fund, and Spider Capital.

Indoor Robotics has a combined solution of robotics paired with AI-powered capabilities that enable the most cost-effective and efficient solution for intelligent indoor monitoring and inspection.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that the Tel Aviv company recently launched Tando™ drone that uses multiple sensors and proprietary algorithms to map and navigate in any indoor space.

The drone company was launched in 2018 by Amit Moran and Doron Ben-David

Ben-David, while describing Tando, said: “We reimagined what a drone was capable of and combined human-like capabilities with AI tools to enable next-generation security and monitoring.

“Tando has already been deployed by the world’s leading enterprises and security monitoring companies and is making a tangible impact on safety and security.”

3. African digital payments network, MFS Africa, raises $100m funding

An African digital payments network, MFS Africa has announced raising a $100 million in Equity, Debt Funding led by Admaius Capital Partners.

Dare Okoudjou, founder and CEO of MFS Africa, on Thursday, confirmed that the total amount raised in the series sums to $200 million.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that the latest funding saw participation from existing investors including AfricInvest FIVE and CommerzVentures.

Previous investors also include LUN Partners Group, Goodwell Investments, Allan Gray Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst and Endeavor Harvest, Equator Capital Partners, Ulme B.V., and Vlemeij B.V.

MFS Africa, which is a digital payments gateway supported by a multi-cultural, multi-talented, agile team from over 30 different nations, is driven to create access to a borderless world.

The debt will be financed by Stanbic IBTC Bank and Symbiotic.

Okoudjou, while expressing her excitement, explained how the latest funding will be put to use.

She said: “With this US$100 million extension of our Series C fundraise we are thrilled to have the support of world-class investors Admaius, Vitruvian and AXA IM Alts, and for the continued support of existing investors, on our journey to making borders matter less when it comes to payments.

“Our multiple initiatives and solutions are providing access to Africans, at home and in the diaspora. We are building MFS Africa into a safe, sound, scalable and high impact pan-African payment infrastructure that will facilitate Africa’s rapidly growing commerce, both now and in the future.”

Trivia Answer: Memory Module

A memory module is another name for a RAM chip. It is often used as a general term used to describe SIMM, DIMM, and SO-DIMM memory.

While there are several different types of memory modules available, they all serve the same purpose, which is to store temporary data while the computer is running.

Memory modules come in different sizes and have several different pin configurations. For example, the original SIMMs had 30 pins (which are metal contacts that connect to the motherboard). However, newer SIMM chips have 72 pins.

By Kayode Hamsat

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now