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Startups and Venture Capital vs. COVID-19: How an INR 1 Billion Grant Program Is Boosting India’s Pandemic Response
India is home to many innovative startups that are leveraging technology to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. To support them, a group of prominent venture capital funds and founders recently launched ACT Grants, an INR 1 billion effort to fund scale-ready solutions to COVID-related challenges. NextBillion spoke with Mekin Maheshwari, founder of Udhyam Learning Foundation – a key partner in the initiative – about how it is helping India’s startups ramp up their battle against the virus.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Investing, Technology
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Fintech Startup TeamApt Now Operates Nigeria’s Largest Non-Bank Mobile Money Platform
Moniepoint, the mobile money platform launched last year by Nigerian fintech startup TeamApt, has become the largest non-bank mobile money service in the country, processing 13 million transactions monthly.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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ShopUp Raises $22.5 Million To Digitize Millions of Mom-and-Pop Shops in Bangladesh
A startup that is aiming to digitize millions of neighborhood stores in Bangladesh just raised the country’s largest Series A financing round.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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MIT D-Lab and Upaya Social Ventures Announce Collaboration To Support Women-Led Startups in India
The 2021 Scale-Ups Accelerator, developed in collaboration between MIT D-Lab and Upaya, will prepare women entrepreneurs for investment and pilot new methods to address gender financing gap.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Brazil’s Black Silicon Valley Could Be an Epicenter of Innovation in Latin America
Salvador (Bahia’s capital) is the natural birthplace of Brazil’s Black Silicon Valley, which largely centers around a local ecosystem hub, Vale do Dendê.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Stripe Acquires Nigeria’s Paystack for $200 Million+ To Expand Into the African Continent
Stripe is acquiring Paystack, a startup out of Lagos, Nigeria that, like Stripe, provides a quick way to integrate payments services into an online or offline transaction by way of an API. (We and others have referred to it in the past as “the Stripe of Africa.”)
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech, startups
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Retailo Raises $2.3 Million in Seed Round To Boost Financial Inclusion
Retailo, the Riyadh-based B2B eCommerce startup, has announced $2.3 million of funding in a pre-seed round to go toward boosting small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the Middle East, according to a press release.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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Kimberly-Clark, Kotex To Mentor Startups Focused on Women’s Health, Access To Sanitation
The Toilet Board Coalition (TBC), with the strategic support of Kimberly-Clark and its Kotex brand, has launched the Women in the Sanitation Economy Innovation Lab — which seeks to cultivate and catalyze early-stage ideas and businesses within the Sanitation Economy that are led by women and/or focused on women’s health.
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