TECH ROUNDUP: Flutterwave obtains Rwandan license, Chipper Cash mulls sale to new investors

• Flutterwave has received licences from Rwanda’s apex bank.

• Chipper Cash is considering a sale.

• Paystack’s parent, Stripe has raised over $6.5 billion in Series I funding to value the company at $50 billion

• LinkedIn is working on an AI to help users write their profiles

Flutterwave has received its Electronic Money Issuer and Remittance Licenses from the National Bank of Rwanda, as part of its expansion into East Africa, the company said in a blog post yesterday. “We are delighted for the vote of confidence in being granted these licenses. With them, we will leverage our extensive global reach and continuous growth in emerging markets,” Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola said.

Also Read: TECH ROUNDUP! FairMoney acquires PayForce, Y-Combinator sacks nearly 20% of employees

Chipper Cash, backed by Silicon Valley Bank and FTX, is weighing its options, including exploring a sale or seeking new investors. The company began considering the options before SVB’s collapse last week. No final decisions have been made and the company may decide against either one, people familiar with the matter said.

POLITICS

The federal government of Nigeria has approved N2.8 billion Naira for the execution of the digital census previously scheduled for March 29. The government also postponed the exercise to May 2023 due to the rescheduled gubernatorial and state House of Assembly elections.

SOCIAL MEDIA

MTN Nigeria saw growth in December with total subscribers rising 6% to 289 million, data subscribers growing by more than 12% to 137 million and Mobile Money users up by 21% to 69 million. The company also reported a 15.3% increase in service revenue to R194 billion while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 14.3% to R90 billion. Mobile Money transaction volume was up 34% year-on-year to 13.4 billion while the value of the transactions was up 16% (using constant currency) to $221 billion. The number of agents increased by 30% to 1.3 million and merchants by 86% to 1.5 million.

LinkedIn’s adding a new Chat GPT-powered tool that will provide personalized writing suggestions for creating your LinkedIn profile, AI-generated job descriptions and more.

WORLD

Mint Mobile, the wireless firm that counts Ryan Reynolds as a minority owner, has been acquired by T-Mobile in a deal that could value the startup firm at $1.35 billion (the actual payout will depend on the performance of the brands before and after the deal closes). T-Mobile will pay the deal in 39 per cent cash and 61 per cent stock.

Stripe announced Wednesday that it raised over $6.5 billion in Series I funding to value the company at $50 billion. The payments giant was expected to raise a lower amount of funding, around $2 billion, though at $60 billion valuation. More recently, Stripe was publicly valued at $95 billion.

 

 

ENIGERIA NEWSPAPER