WIC Capital raises $1.6M to fund female African entrepreneurs. 1 other thing and a trivia

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

1. WIC Capital raises $1.6M to fund female African entrepreneurs

The “Women’s Investment Club” (WIC) has partnered Senegal and Ecobank to donate a one billion CFA franc (which is estimated to $1,600,000) in support of female entrepreneurs in Africa.

The announcement was made Wednesday in a joint statement signed by Ecobank’s Managing Director, Sahid Yallou, and Evelyne Dioh Simpa, Executive Director of WIC Capital Senegal.

Set to target women-led companies in the francophone West African, WIC Sénégal launched WIC Capital as the first investment fund in March 2019.

Yallou, who lamented the lack of access to working capital by most women, noted that the situation poses significant challenges to women entrepreneurs.

He said: “Despite the fact that Senegal has a well-developed and active entrepreneurial fabric, one of the most significant hurdles to expansion is a lack of capital.

“This is how the project helps female company owners and entrepreneurs.”

Evelyne added that the “collaboration comes at an excellent time for female enterprises.”

Tech Trivia: Which of the following statements about SSDs is not true?
A They have no moving parts.
B They store data magnetically.
C They can access data faster than HDDs.
D They use standard IDE and SATA connections.
Answer: see end of post

Read also: UAE’s QiDZ closes undisclosed investment from CASF

2. Indonesia’s NOICE closes $22M in Series A funding

An Indonesia based audio content startup, NOICE, has closed a $22M in Series A funding.

Co-founder and Managing Partner of Northstar Group, Patrick Walujo, confirmed the development in a press statement seen by Ripples Nigeria.

The funding round, led by Northstar, saw participation from returning investors Alpha JWC Go-Ventures and Kinesys.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that the Indonesia-based audio content startup was founded by Erick Thohir in 2018.

Focused on podcasts, radio, audiobooks, and live audio, NOICE claims to have over 2 million users.

Describing the startup’s potential growth as “aggressive,” Patrick expressed excitement as the VC look forward to further growth.

He said: “We have seen NOICE’s plans to aggressively scale and we are excited to partner them on this journey.”

Trivia answer: They store data magnetically.

Stands for “Solid State Drive.” An SSD is a type of mass storage device similar to a hard disk drive (HDD).

It supports reading and writing data and maintains stored data in a permanent state even without power. Internal SSDs connect to a computer like a hard drive, using standard IDE or SATA connections.

By Kayode Hamsat

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