Lee Fixel’s Addition leads $6M seed round in Egyptian fintech Flash
Driving financial inclusion through digital payment methods is among the top priorities for the governments of Africa’s biggest tech ecosystems where cash is still king. Several initiatives launched by these governments have increased the number of banked citizens in their respective countries. In Egypt, for instance, platforms like Fawry and
Read moreWilliam Mzimba retires from Vodacom Business
Vodacom South Africa’s Chief Officer of Vodacom Business, William Mzimba, has decided to retire from Vodacom after serving for five years and will officially depart from the company at the end of September 2023. William Mzimba holds an MBA, BA (Honours), Management Advancement Programme, and Diploma in Datametrics (Computer Science).
Read moreTesla announces first Cybertruck build ahead of Q2 earnings
Tesla over the weekend said its first much anticipated Cybertruck came off the electric vehicle maker’s production line in Texas. The debut of the long-delayed, futuristic-looking pickup truck comes in the lead up to Tesla’s second quarter 2023 earnings call. Tesla CEO Elon Musk first introduced the Cybertruck in 2019,
Read moreInstagram Threads now has one-fifth the weekly active user base of Twitter
Instagram Threads’ launch has been an overnight success, topping 100 million users within days of its arrival. Now, new data indicates the app has already achieved one-fifth of the weekly active user base of Twitter worldwide and 86 times the weekly active user base of the largest Twitter rival in
Read moreVanMoof skids off track, another mobility startup goes SPAC and e-bike batteries catch fire
Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B. Your usual host Kirsten Korosec is off having a glorious vacation, so I will be doing the roundup this week. As the EV revolution takes hold,
Read moreWhy this founder decided to replace himself as CEO
Founding a company is a big deal, and taking on the CEO role to drive that company forward is an important choice. Some founders are able to lead their startups all the way through the process of company building. If you look at the list of most valuable companies in
Read moreAI didn’t invent creative remixing
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a group of artists and writers stayed at a run-down hotel in Paris that came to be known as the The Beat Hotel. Their proximity to one another produced some incredibly creative artistic cross-pollination. The Beat-generation creatives living there were experimenting with drugs,
Read moreThe fintech funding slump, by the numbers
Welcome back to The Interchange! If you want this in your inbox, sign up here. When it came to fintech news, we saw a pretty sluggish first half of 2023, and that is evidenced by the sobering funding statistics we cover below. But things feel like they are starting to pick up,
Read moreThreads hits 100M users, pedestrians fight back against AVs, and VanMoof skids off course
Hey, friends — welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular roundup of the week in tech. If life’s gotten in the way of following the major stories on TC, don’t sweat it. You’ve come to the right place. In this edition, we cover the 19-year-old MIT dropout “replacing gunpowder”
Read moreRemembering Joanne Pransky
A version of this post original appeared in TechCrunch’s weekly robotics newsletter, Actuator. It has been updated to include details about a new scholarship fund being raised in her honor. I didn’t know Joanne Pransky personally, so when news of her death broke late last month, I reached out to
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