E-Business
African Start-ups Selected for BFF to Share of US$4m

Google has announced that sixty eligible black-founded start-ups across Africa have been selected for the second cohort of Google for Startups Black Founders Fund (BFF) for Africa.
The company said the start-ups joining the program will receive a total of US$4-million in funding and support to enable them to scale up their ongoing work. They will also receive support in the form of a six-month training programme, including a network of mentors.
“They will also be part of tailored workshops, support networks and community building sessions. The 60 grantees will also get non-dilutive awards of between $50,000 and $100,000 and up to $200,000 in Google Cloud credit,” reads part of a statement released by Google.
The grantees, made up of 50% women-led businesses, hail from Botswana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. They specialise in sectors such as Fintech, healthcare, e-commerce, logistics, agtech, education, hospitality and smart cities.
The top five countries with the most start-ups selected for the program are Nigeria with twenty-three grantees, Kenya with twelve grantees, Rwanda with six grantees, South Africa with five grantees and Uganda with four grantees. Botswana and Senegal have one selected start-up each, Cameroon and Ghana both have three grantees each, while Ethiopia has two selected grantees.
Folarin Aiyegbusi, Head of Startup Ecosystem, SSA, said, “Africa is a diverse continent with massive opportunity but the continent is faced with the challenge of limited diversity in venture capital funding flow. We hope that the Black Founders Fund program will be able to bridge the gap of disproportionate funding between expat start-ups over local and black-led companies.”
Google stated that this program, launched in April 2012, has created over 4,600 jobs and raised more than US$290-million in funding.
The Google for Startups Black Founders Fund program will introduce the grantees in Africa to Google’s products, connections, and best practices which will help the founders to level the playing field as they build better products and services that add value to the Africa economy.
Funding for the Google for Startup Black Founders Fund will be distributed through Google’s implementation partner, CcHUB.
“The equity-free cash assistance to start-ups will enable them to take care of immediate needs such as paying staff, funding inventory, and maintaining software licences. This is to help the grantees buffer the cost of taking on debt in the early stages of their business as many of them do not have steady revenue streams yet”, Aiyegbusi added.
The sixty start-ups selected include: Ajua (Kenya); Bookings Africa (Nigeria), Built (Ghana), Cauri Money (Senegal), Easy Matatu (Uganda), Garri Logistics (Ethiopia), PesaChoice (Rwanda) and Stears (Nigeria).
Start-ups from South Africa include Agrikool, CreditAIs, Mapha , Rekisa and Technovera.
In June this year, blockchain-based MNO World Mobile released the findings of research which suggests that African business leaders predict a boom in start-up businesses across the continent.
The study, based on engagement with African business leaders from companies with combined annual revenues of more than US$6.75-billion, also found that nearly seven out of 10 (69%) of senior African business executives believe that will more than double in the next five years.
Introducing its research, World Mobile referenced fDiIntelligence.com which states that before the pandemic, around 22% of working age adults in Africa started new businesses.
But World Mobile’s research among senior executives based in Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania, found they expect that number to grow.
E-Business
UK Orders Apple to Create Backdoor for Encrypted iCloud Data

United Kingdom has issued a “technical capability notice” to Apple, mandating that the company create a backdoor to access users’ encrypted iCloud data.
This directive, issued under the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, requires Apple to provide British security officials with the means to retrieve all content uploaded to iCloud by any user worldwide.
Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature, introduced in 2022, offers end-to-end encryption for iCloud data, ensuring that only users can access their information.
The UK’s demand challenges this security measure, potentially compelling Apple to either comply by creating the backdoor or withdraw the ADP feature from the UK market.
Compliance could set a precedent, leading other governments to request similar access, thereby raising global privacy concerns.
The UK Home Office has declined to confirm or deny the existence of such notices, stating, “We do not comment on operational matters, including, for example, confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.”
This development underscores the ongoing tension between governmental surveillance efforts and technology companies’ commitments to user privacy.
E-Business
Oracle Adds AI Pricing Features to Financial Software

Oracle on Thursday added another set of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to NetSuite, one of its corporate finance software offerings, including some that might make it faster for consumers to get a price quote on purchases like custom bicycles.
Oracle has taken a different tack with AI than rivals such as Microsoft. Rather than racing toward general purpose virtual assistants, Oracle has decided to add targeted features that speed common-but-tedious tasks like entering a brief write-up of how a sales meeting went into a corporate records system.
Another such task that is common in the business world is giving a customer a price quote on a complicated purchase that might have a lot of options, when a sales professional would need to sift through materials to come up with a price.
NetSuite on Thursday announced a feature to compile such a quote via conversation with a chatbot asking what the customer wants, which can either be used by sales professionals behind the scenes to speed up their work, or directly by consumers in the case of e-commerce businesses.
“When you buy something like a bicycle, you have to configure it – figure out what parts you want and which parts work together. We all do it when we buy our cars on the web these days,” Evan Goldberg, executive vice president of Oracle NetSuite, said.
“If you can configure (products) for customers more easily, you can do more deals in a day, or each deal costs less.”
To power those features, Oracle has decided to skip the costly race to develop huge AI models and instead works with partners such as Canadian startup Cohere.
Goldberg said that Oracle’s recent agreement to build massive data centers with ChatGPT creator OpenAI could lead to working with it as well, though the two firms have made no formal announcements.
“I think you could safely say that there’s a possibility that OpenAI will be part of this,” Goldberg told Reuters. “We are eager to work with OpenAI.”
E-Business
IBM Exits Nigeria and Ghana, Transfers Operations to MIBB

IBM, the American multinational technology giant, has reportedly announced plans to exit Nigeria, Ghana, and other key African markets, transferring its regional operations to MIBB, a subsidiary of the Midis Group.
The move, which according to TechCabal was revealed in a statement by the company, effective April 1 2025, is part of a new operating model IBM is adopting across select African countries.
Under this arrangement, MIBB will take over IBM’s local operations, customer support, and relationships while marketing and selling IBM products and services across 36 African nations.
“MIBB will market and sell IBM products and services in 36 African countries, thereby giving MIBB’s sales network direct access to IBM products, services, and support, further boosting innovation and growth in the region,” IBM stated.
IBM has been a key player in Africa’s tech industry for decades, providing critical infrastructure for banking, telecom, oil and gas, and government services.
However, its planned exit follows a trend of multinational corporations leaving Nigeria.
In December 2024, Swiss cement giant Holcim announced its departure from Nigeria, selling its 83% stake in Lafarge to a Chinese firm.
Similarly, South African grocery retailer Pick n Pay disclosed plans in October 2024 to exit Nigeria by selling its 51% stake in a joint venture.
IBM has yet to respond to media inquiries regarding the specifics of its transition strategy and reasons for the exit.
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