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LATEST TECH NEWS: S’Africa’s Carry1st raises $2.5m seed round. 4 other things and a trivia you need to know today, May 28, 2020

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These 5 latest stories from the tech space will keep you updated with trends today.

1. South Africa’s Carry1st raises $2.5m seed round

In an investment seed round led by local investor, Cape Town based startup, Carry1st, has raised seed round of $2.5 million. The local investor, a Johannesburg based venture capital (VC) fund CRE Venture Capital, confirmed this investment via its public portal.

According to reports, Perivoli Innovations, Chandaria Capital, Lateral Capital and Transsion’s Future Hub, Kam Kronenberg III, among others, also participated in the round. The 2 year old startup was founded by American Lucy Hoffman (formerly Parry) and Sierra Leonean Cordel Robbin-Coker. Although, latest development from the company indicates that Tinotenda Mundangepfupfu, who serves as lead engineer and who joined in January last year, is now also listed as a co-founder.

2. Wyzetalk lands ‘multi-million’ euro investment from Dutch investors

Wyzetalk has announced landing a “multi-million” euro investment from Dutch investment company, CNBB Venture Partners. The company, which helps connect large organisations with their frontline employees through its software solution, made the announcement in a statement naming its corporate investors.

The 9 year old company was founded by Dutch entrepreneur Gys Kappers and South African Gerhard Pretorius, who are serving as CEO and CTO respectively. Although, the company did not disclose the exact figure of the investment, analysts have speculated that massive traction and portfolio must have influenced this new raiser.


Tech Trivia:

What was the first Android mobile phone?

A. Samsung
B. Nokia
C. BlackBerry
D. HTC

Answer: See end of post.


3. Ugandan solar startup wins NEST over as investor

After taking part in last week’s edition of online pitching show The Nest, Ugandan solar startup, OneLamp, has secured various funding commitments. The Zoom-based digital event saw three startups pitch to a panel of angel investors, in a bid to secure funding.

Read also: LATEST TECH NEWS: Ghana’s mPharma raises $17-million. 4 other things and a trivia you need to know today, May 27, 2020

OneLamp joins a host of startups, most recently Egyptian, to obtain funding commitments. According to reports, the investor panel comprised of Enygma Ventures co-founder Sarah Dusek, FBNQuest Funds chief executive officer (CEO) Ijeoma Agboti, and Aequalitas Capital Partners CEO Geetha Tharmaratnam.

4. Greyparrot bags $2.2M seed to scale its waste management initiative

Greyparrot, a London-based company which uses computer vision AI to scale efficient processing of recycling, has bagged £1.825 million (~$2.2M) in seed funding. This new raiser tops up on the company’s $1.2M pre-seed funding portfolio.

The latest round is reportedly led by early stage European industrial tech investor Speedinvest, with participation from UK-based early stage b2b investor, Force Over Mass. The 2019 founded startup has trained a series of machine learning models to recognize different types of waste, such as glass, paper, cardboard, newspapers, cans and different types of plastics, in order to make sorting recycling more efficient.

5. Digital banking Meniga raises €8.5M led by French bank

The London-headquartered fintech Meniga has closed a €8.5 million in additional funding. The fintech firm provides digital banking technology to some of the world’s largest banks, leveraging digital tools to ease clients’ payments and transactions.

Meniga described the round as a “strategic investment,” noting that it was led by Groupe BPCE, the second-largest banking group in France. Other participants in the round include Portugal’s Grupo Crédito Agrícola and long-standing strategic partner UniCredit, all customers of Meniga. According to the firm, the funding will be used for continued investment in Meniga’s R&D activities.

Tech Trivia Answer: HTC Dream

Also known as the T-Mobile G1, the HTC Dream was announced as an android device in September 2008 and made available to North American consumers in October of the same year, many months before the next Android devices arrived. The MyTouch 3G shipped in July 2009 while the other two launched in October. The HTC Dream ran Android 1.6 Donut and featured a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen and a 528MHz Qualcomm ARM11 processor.

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