Hello Africa!
As always, we come bearing the latest news on the goings on in Tech Africa.
Econet, through its subsidiary Cassava Smartech for the first time launched a ride-hailing service called Vaya in Zimbabwe. The company is currently putting the final touches to a massive, Econet-style launch of the service before the end of this month.
In Nigeria, mobile money start-up, Paga has hit another milestone of 10m unique users just after it announced 9m users 2 months ago. Paga also announced another cloud payroll business that will be launching soon.
SA investor Naspers has announced that it plans to next year launch a R1.4-billion (about $96-million) startup fund to boost SA tech firms. The initiative called ‘Naspers Foundry’ was revealed at the inaugural South Africa Investment Conference 2018 in Johannesburg.
In the foreign scene, IBM is acquiring U.S. software company, Red Hat Inc. in a deal worth around $34 billion on Sunday. According to a statement by IBM, the $34 billion deal include debt, and seeks to diversify its technology hardware and consulting business into higher-margin products and services.
Also, Google has fired 48 staff including 13 senior managers, over alleged sexual harassment claims reported by New York Times in 2016. Google chief executive, Sundar Pichai in a letter to employees said the company was taking a “hard line” on inappropriate conduct.
…and that is all for the Big 5 Daily. See you tomorrow.