Nigeria’s Eyowo launches Better Card after Mastercard certification. 2 other stories and a trivia

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

1. Nigeria’s Eyowo launches Better Card after Mastercard certification

A Nigerian payment solution startup, Eyowo, has launched its payment offering, Better Card, after fulfilling certification requirements by Mastercard.

The VP of Products for Eyowo, Ope Adeyemi, confirmed the new launch in a media statement on Wednesday.

According to the statement, 500 users subscribed to Better Card in the first phase of the release, and is now open to the public.

The Lagos-based startup was founded by Oluwatomi (Tomi) Amao in 2018.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that Eyowo is an online platform that helps to send, spend, receive, save and borrow money through mobile and web apps.

“We want to give our customers the freedom to spend without worrying about losing their hard-earned money by providing a card that keeps their money safe,” explained Opeyemi.

Eyowo’s Better Card is powered by Providus Bank and certified by Mastercard.

Tech Trivia: Which acronym describes a group of networked computers?
A. FIFO
B. BIOS
C. NIC
D. LAN
Answer: see end of post

2. Nigerian B2B payment platform, Duplo, secures $4.3M seed funding

Nigerian B2B payment platform, Duplo, has secured $4.3 million in seed funding to launch new products and expand into new business verticals in Nigeria.

Read also:Nigerian payments startup, Grey Finance, secures $2m seed funding. 2 other stories and a trivia

Yele Oyekola, CEO and co-founder of Duplo, confirmed the latest funding in a media release on Wednesday.

According to the release, the latest funding saw participation from Liquid2 Ventures, Soma Capital, Tribe Capital, Commerce Ventures, Basecamp Fund, and Y Combinator while Oui Capital also re-invested after participating in the previous round.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that with the new funding, Duplo has raised a total of $5.6 million since its launch after raising $1.3 million pre-seed earlier in February.

The payment startup was co-founded in 2021 by Tunde Akinnuwa, and Yele Oyekola.

While commenting on the raiser, Oyekola stated:

“We strongly believe that there is a great opportunity to catalyse growth and maximise business opportunities across the continent by removing the bottlenecks that hinder the seamless flow of money between businesses and we are excited to have raised funding from this exciting group of investors to deliver this much-needed transformation.”

3. Former US Vice-President, Al Gore, buys stake in fintech firm M-Kopa

A former US Vice-President, Albert Arnold Gore Jr., and others with the British government investing arm, CDC, have reportedly bought an estimated 40 percent stake in asset finance fintech M-Kopa.

The M-Kopa deal was approved by the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) according to a media release seen by Ripples Nigeria on Wednesday.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that the stake in finance was bought for an undisclosed value through a debt swap deal.

Generation Investment Management, which was co-founded by Mr. Gore, CDC, and LGT Lightrock will secure a combined 36.04 percent stake for converting their loans in M-Kopa into shares.

Ripples Nigeria had earlier reported that A Swedish technology company, Roam has announced a partnership deal with the Kenya-based for credit sales of electric motorcycles.

While approving the deal CAK said:

“The proposed transaction involves the conversion into equity of certain convertible loan notes (debt) issued by the target to the acquirers and the amendment and recapitalisation of the target share capital.

This will result in a change of control in the target.”

M-Kopa was founded by Chad Larson, Jesse Moore, and Nick Hughes in 2011.

Trivia Answer: LAN

LAN stands for “Local Area Network” and is pronounced, “lan.” A LAN is a network of connected devices that exist within a specific location.

LANs may be found in homes, offices, educational institutions, and other areas.

By Kayode Hamsat

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