Google will now off er African Startups more than No-Strings Cash and Offi ce Space

Google will now offer African Startups more than No-Strings Cash and Of ice Space

By Alexander Onukwue

AT A VIRTUAL EVENT ON WEDNESDAY

(OCT. 6),Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said his company will invest $1 billion in Africa over five years to build a subsea internet cable, support nonprofits, and fund businesses.

The cable, named Equiano after the Nigeriaborn 18th-century abolitionist, has been in the works since 2019 when it was first announced. It will connect Africa to Europe, and increases Google’s global internet infrastructure that includes Dunant—which stretches from Virginia Beach in the US to the French Atlantic coast—and Curie, which connects Chile to Los Angeles.

Google is “making tremendous progress” on constructing the branches of Equiano that will land in Nigeria, Namibia, St. Helena, and South Africa, according to Nitin Gajria, the company’s managing director for Africa. When completed, the cable will “provide approximately 20 times more network capacity than the last cable built to serve Africa” and reduce internet prices by 21%, Gajria said.

Equiano is one of two subsea internet cable projects by Big Tech companies in Africa, in addition to Facebook’s 2Africa which was expanded this month to cover 26 countries. But Google is getting into a space that Facebook hasn’t entered yet: directly funding African startups with venture capital.

Google is Africa’s latest big name VC

One highlight of the event was when Onajite Emerhor, who leads Google’s startup accelerator in Africa, announced that 50 entrepreneurs will get a share of a $3 million fund for Black founders in Africa. The initiative resonates because even though Africa is a predominantly Black continent, white privilege has sometimes crowded out Black founders.

Some of the 50 have already raised six-figure funding from investors, but Google’s equity-free money comes with perks like credits for cloud storage which, for early-stage startups, frees up cash for other needs. The package is similar to what the company’s startup accelerator program has offered to over 80 early-stage startups since 2017 in Africa.

For growth-stage African companies however, Google now has a $50 million venture capital fund. On a call with journalists, Gajria said check sizes and equity stakes will differ with each startup Google invests in, and that there was no restriction as to sector. The fund will seek out startups “solving real challenges in Africa,” he said.

It’s a subjective definition that will become clear when Google starts getting mentioned in African startup funding announcements. But as much as it is a Silicon valley giant, Google will probably not be a tech financing innovator in Africa since it is joining a market square that already features the world’s big name investors, from institutional players like SoftBank, and Tiger Global to strategic tech investors like Mastercard, Visa, Alibaba, and Stripe.

Firms backed by Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg have long been active on the continent, helping drive a consistent growth in startup funding over the last decade, and minting unicorns.

Can Google look beyond Africa’s big four?

That said, Africa is not yet so flush with funding that Google becomes a surplus investor.

Indeed, because most funding has stayed in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt, there’s a demand for new money sources that can finance minorities like women-led startups in these countries, as well as entrepreneurs in less-funded regions like Francophone Africa.

Google’s five physical offices in Africa are in Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos, Cairo, and Accra, but Gajria said it won’t constrain their ability to seek opportunities across the continent. That remains to

Sundar Pichai is ready to increase Google's Africa presence

be seen because for now at least, these countries have first dibs on Google’s other business plan for Africa – a $10 million fund that will issue low-

interest loans to small businesses in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. It will be

managed by Kiva, a California-based non-profit microfinance company.

From a technology perspective, the day’s other notable announcement was that Google now runs

a financing partnership with Safaricom for

Kenyans to buy Android smartphones, and plans to do the same with other telcos like Airtel, MTN, Orange, and Vodacom in other countries. https://qz.com/africa/2070161/google-is-africaslatest-big-name-investor-with-50-million-fund

Image credit: SCREENSHOT/YOUTUBE, blog. google, benjamindada.com, google cloud

The Most Popular Digital Bank in Almost Every Country in the World

By Brian Cohen

THE 20TH-CENTURY DREAM was to put every shop and service under one roof, be it a mall or a Ballardian high-rise apartment complex.

But the 21st century took that ideal and put it in a little black box. Banks, shops, and even your gym now fit neatly into your phone. Malls have become ghost towns, and everyone’s moving to the country.

Digital banks — including neobanks — are the pinnacle of this ideal: • A digital bank is an online-only offshoot from an established IRL banking service, e.g. Openbank (Santander). • A neobank is an app-based banking service not associated with a traditional bank, e.g. Chime. It might not technically be a ‘bank’ if, rather than have a charter, it partners with a chartered institution.

A digital bank allows you to plan and micro-manage your own finances, but with the support of artificial intelligence, a carefully designed app interface, and powerful data analysis under the hood. And as cryptocurrency goes mainstream, neobanks are in prime position to make handling your crypto feel like second nature.

However, there are so many new digital banks popping up that it’s hard to know where to start. So, BusinessFinancing. co.uk crunched some numbers of our own, analysing Google search data to reveal the most popular (most-searched) digital bank in every country. https://thegate.boardingarea.com/ the-most-popular-digital-bankin-almost-every-country-in-theworld/?utm_medium=Flipboard&utm_ source=BoardingArea

Jay-Z’S Marcy Venture Partners Invests in 24-Year-Old Technologist, Spatial Labs Founder Iddris Sandu

By Alexa Imani Spencer

JAY-Z’S MARCY VENTURE PARTNERS added another blockchain investment to its profile with a recent collaboration with spatial LABS (sLABS), a tech incubator that focuses on the metaverse and blockchain-based products.

The incubator’s founder, 24-year-old technologist Iddris Sandu, has built an impressive resume since he began working with big brands at 13-years-old.

He and his company’s past partnerships include Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, Instagram, Beyoncé’s Ivy Park, Kayne West’s Yeezy, and Rihanna’s Fenty line, Billboard reports.

The Ghana-born and southern California-raised tech founder also partnered with Nipsey Hussle’s The Marathon Clothing Store.

“Iddris has a conscious world view and a youthcentric vision that is innovative and refreshing to witness,” JAY-Z said in a statement. “We share similar parallels in how we imagine impacting people in our lifetime. Partnering with him on this journey and others is very exciting.” sLABS is preparing to launch its debut product, LNQ, next year. According to Billboard, with LNQ, a blockchainenabled hardware platform, Sandu intends to “provide young creators

with better tools to utilize the metaverse as it becomes a reality.”

“JAY-Z has always been at the forefront of cultural evolution and identifying the next leaders…Aligning with Marcy Venture Partners assists with our vision for elevating the youth as it relates to access and a means to true technological empowerment,” Sandu said,

“The lasting impact of this relationship is not simply defi ned by the work we’re doing now, but by the immeasurable impact for generations of creators to come,” he continued.

This venture is but one of Marcy Venture Partners’ recent tech investments. The fi rm began supporting Bitski, a San Francisco-based startup NFT marketplace, earlier this year.

The collaboration was part of a $19 million investment backed by a team of investors including Roc Nation’s co-founder Jay Brown, Troy Carter, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and 3LAU. https://gumroad.com/l/njrzl Image credit: Lenny “kodaklens” Santiago