Nigerian HR-tech company, Pade, secures $500k pre-seed. 2 other stories and a trivia

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

1. Nigerian HR-tech company, Pade, secures $500k pre-seed

Pade HCM, a Nigerian HRTech company, has secured $500,000 in a pre-seed round to automate HR processes for businesses in Africa.

The startup’s CEO, Seye Bandele, who is also a former marketing lead at Yudala and Konga, confirmed the funding in a statement on Monday.

According to the statement, the pre-seed round was led by Zrosk IML, Zedcrest Capital, Microtraction, Expert Dojo, and Resilience 17.

Pade HCM bills itself as a SaaS company with a mission to build the simplest and most efficient people operations platform.

“Our goal is to help businesses become more efficient, freeing up their time to focus on strategic work,” said the CEO.

Tech Trivia: A program built to run in a browser is called what?
A. Applet
B. Mobile app
C. Web application
D. Desktop software
Answer: see end of post

2. Kenyan B2B2C full-stack marketplace, BuuPass, secures $1.3M

Kenyan B2B2C full-stack marketplace, BuuPass, on Monday secured $1.3 million pre-seed funding.

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

Co-CEO, Sonia Kabra, disclosed the funding in a media release.

According to the release, the pre-seed funding was raised from the Founders Factory Africa, FrontEnd Ventures, Adaverse, Gullit, Five35, Renew Capital, Changecom, XA Network, Ajim Capital, Artha Ventures, Daba Finance, Google Black Founders Fund, and several angel investors.

The B2B2C startup claims its actively looking to promote order in the highly-fragmented sector by helping operators to digitize their operations.

“The funding will enable us to invest in growth activities, increasing our market share in East Africa, with a focus on Kenya and Uganda.

“We will hire a team especially on the growth side, and technology experts so that we can build systems for scale because our plan is to become a pan-African infrastructure for long distance transportation,” said Kabra.

In 2013, Sonia and Wycliffe Omondi meet, and in 2016, they were awarded the $1 million Hult Prize, a grant supported by Bill Clinton that enabled them to launch BuuPass (then known as Magic Bus Ticketing) as a B2C platform in Kenya.

3. Luxury carmaker, Zeekr, secures $750M Series A funding

A luxury carmaker, Zeekr, has secured $750M in its Series A funding round.

The premium car manufacturer disclosed this on its official Twitter handle on Monday.

The raiser comes two months after Zeekr claimed to have applied in secret for a U.S. initial public offering.

Amnon Shashua, the founder and CEO of Mobileye, Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd., a Chinese battery giant and supplier to Tesla, the Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Tongshang Fund, and Xin’an Intelligent Manufacturing Fund, three state-owned investment vehicles in China, are among the notable investors who have agreed to support Zeekr in its Series A round.

“ZEEKR has entered into an investment agreement with industry-leading partners including Prof. Amnon Shashua, CATL, Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Tongshang Fund, and Xin’an Intelligent Manufacturing Fund to raise $750 million for continued technology research and global expansion,” the tweet reads.

ZEEKR has entered into an investment agreement with industry-leading partners including Prof. Amnon Shashua, CATL, Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Tongshang Fund and Xin’an Intelligent Manufacturing Fund to raise $750 million for continued technology research and global expansion pic.twitter.com/5rflYGjbRA

— ZEEKR (@OfficialZeekr) February 12, 2023

Ripples Nigeria gathered that the fund raised will help Zeekr with its global expansion and technological research.

Trivia Answer: Web Application

A web application or “web app” is a software program that runs on a web server. Unlike traditional desktop applications, which are launched by your operating system, web apps must be accessed through a web browser.

By Kayode Hamzat

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