This line-up of stories will help you discover the latest happenings around the tech world, today
1. Kenya’s Purple Elephant Ventures secures $1M pre-seed funding
A Kenyan venture studio, Purple Elephant Ventures (PEV), has on Friday announced securing $1 million in pre-seed funding.
Investors participating in this round include Klister Credit Corp., The Untours Foundation, and several angel backers including Fede Pirzio-Biroli, Ian McCaig, Anthony Rock, Rich Hoops, Jim Villanueva, and Helena Riese Harstad.
CEO Ben Peterson confirmed the new funding in a media release.
Peterson who was the former senior partner at AHL Venture Partners co-founded the startup with Mikul Shah, and Jan Van der Does de Willebois, in early 2020.
Playing in the tourism sector, Elephant Bookings claims it is a B2B product that brings hospitality providers online, helping them to increase their occupancy rates by allowing direct bookings.
Commenting on the raiser and intent, Paterson said:
“There are thousands of startups in agriculture, FinTech, energy, and health — all the major sectors of the African economy, but very few in tourism, and only a handful have raised capital.
“This is despite the fact that tourism is one of the largest sectors on the continent.”
The venture studio plans to build about four startups at the intersection of tourism, climate, and technology, every year.
Tech Trivia: What security function does Secure Boot perform?
A. It prevents malicious software from running when a PC starts up.
B. It requires biometric authentication to boot a PC.
C. It checks if the OS license is valid and activated before booting.
D. It turns off-network and I/O connections during the boot process.
Answer: see end of post
2. BNPL company, Lipa Later Group, partners Lami Technologies
Lipa Later Group, a buy now, pay later (BNPL) company operating in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Nigeria, has announced a partnership with Lami Technologies.
Read also:Google to boost cloud capabilities in Africa. 1 other story and a trivia
Claudine Gakundi, Country Manager, Lipa Later confirmed the partnership in a media statement seen by Ripples Nigeria on Friday.
Lami Technologies is a Kenyan insurtech founded by Jihan Abbas.
The company bills itself as an end-to-end digital insurance platform and API that enables companies across sectors to offer insurance products.
Ripples Nigeria gathered that Lami will offer its consumers access to reliable and affordable insurance against all products purchased using the Lipa Later platform.
“Lipa Later has struck a partnership with Lami to facilitate easy and seamless access to insurance for our consumers as we work on expanding our digital offering and growing our footprint in the BNPL space.
“Through this partnership, Lipa Later customers will access insurance services affordably for the items they purchase through us,” said Gakundi.
3. German Acathia Capital Completes Acquisition of Swedish Life Insurer Futur Pension
Acathia Capital, a German private equity manager has completed the increase of its stake in Futur Pension Försäkrings AB.
Dr. Thomas Schmitt, the managing partner of Acathia Capital, confirmed the acquisition in a press release on Friday.
Ripples Nigeria gathered that Futur Pension is the largest life insurer in Sweden with over 11% premium market share.
Acathia claims it specializes in investments in insurers and other financial services providers in Europe.
“Futur Pension has increased its market share from 7% to over 11% of premium volume since we have become owners in 2019, making it market leader in Sweden,” said Schmitt.
“We are looking forward to leverage the great potential of FuturPension to further increase premium volume, assets under administration, and profit in close partnership with our owners,” Torgny Johanson, CEO of Futur Pension added.
Trivia Answer: Secure Boot
Secure Boot is a security feature that prevents malicious software (malware) from running when a PC starts up.
It performs a series of checks during the boot sequence that ensures only trusted software is loaded.
By Kayode Hamsat
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