Author: Elan
Lisk, the Swiss-based blockchain infrastructure company, is shutting down its blockchain, ending a product expansion strategy that saw it back early-stage startups and build an ecosystem presence in Africa, as it pivots into financial software for businesses. The Lisk blockchain will be discontinued on October 31, 2026, while the company plans to wind down the Lisk decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO), according to a statement published on Tuesday. Lisk will keep its native LSK token, which will continue to trade on other blockchain networks, specifically Ethereum and Base. The blockchain shutdown could end an important funding pipeline for African early-stage Web3…
BMW’s latest electric SUV shows just how far the automotive industry has pushed its touchscreen obsession. Its enormous infotainment display doesn’t just handle navigation and entertainment. It replaces many of the physical controls drivers once used without taking their eyes off the road. BMW says the shift reflects changing preferences among younger buyers, but the result feels less intuitive rather than more advanced. The problem isn’t touchscreens themselves, but the industry’s growing tendency to use them for everything. Physical buttons and switches remain quicker and easier to operate for common functions, while deleting them can make even an expensive luxury…
Image credit: Ntate Mohlala Sir / Pexels Young women in South Africa continue to face a significant employment disadvantage, with their employment rate approximately 10 percentage points below that of young men, according to the latest Breaking Barriers report from Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. Released during Women’s Month, the quarterly labour market insights report examines South Africa’s youth employment challenge through a gender lens and argues that women can serve as “employment bellwethers” for wider labour market conditions. The report draws on data from the national Quarterly Labour Force Survey, Harambee’s income survey, real-time information from the SA Youth platform…
Emile Dos Santos Ferreira, Verascient CTO (left) and CEO Keagan Stokoe** For the best experience, download the free Africa Private Equity News app Android | iOS **South African-founded AI startup Verascient has raised $1.2 million in its first funding round.Verascient turns knowledge scattered across documents, systems and individuals into shared organisational context, then builds the workflows and agents that allow teams to use it in their day-to-day work. The round was backed by Founder Collective, Andrena Ventures, Cambridge Enterprise, and Summit Ventures, with participation from Alan Knott-Craig, Shayne Mann and other select angel investors.“At the centre of Verascient’s technology is…
Our new book, How we made it in Africa II: Real stories of entrepreneurs turning opportunity into profit, is available here. The book was recently shortlisted for the Business Council for Africa (BCA) African Business Book of the Year Awards 2026.Monthly free-to-read interview. For access to all our interviews and to support our work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.At just 23, American Finn Walker is already running his own investment firm, Heron Partners, which invests in companies listed on African stock exchanges. Jaco Maritz, editor-in-chief of How we made it in Africa, spoke to Walker to find out more.Topics discussed…
The proposed deal would make Gemini the exclusive venue for crypto event contracts offered through Apex’s FCM, expanding its prediction-market reach to brokerage clients.
The appointment of Abisoye Coker-Odusote, Director-General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), as Director of Data Management for the All Progressives Congress (APC) 2027 Presidential Campaign Council has triggered backlash on X, with commentators questioning why the custodian of Nigeria’s national identity database is listed in a partisan campaign structure. The council, unveiled on 22 August by Bayo Onanuga, special adviser to President Bola Tinubu on information and strategy, lists Coker-Odusote alongside National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Director-General Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi as deputy in the same directorate. Director General/CEO of NIMC, Engr Abisoye Coker-Odusote, Nigerians on X react…
wearing HTML/CSS can. has a strict no .html policy.The tag is not as static as its name suggests. Any embedded JavaScript unfortunately won’t run if you load an SVG file with an tag, but CSS animations work perfectly fine. Many of the SVG attributes do have CSS property counterparts, and the geometry properties have been supported across the major browsers since 2024. Some attributes that you might want to animate, like viewBox, don’t have equivalents yet.Besides JavaScript and CSS, there’s another way to animate SVGs: Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL). Despite its quirks, it’s still worth learning. Like CSS animations,…
Noluvo Nela, head of the Edge Impact Fund** For the best experience, download the free Africa Private Equity News app Android | iOS **South African SME investment and business development firm, Edge Growth, has officially launched a catalytic debt fund to support established, technology-enabled scale-ups. Set up more than three years ago, the fund has now reached a R350 million (US$21.9 million) first close. It will invest in growth-stage businesses, typically at Series A to C funding rounds, that have proven their business models but require flexible growth capital to scale.The Edge Impact Fund (EIF) is managed by Edge Growth…
The deputy mayor’s response to Daily Maverick’s Municipal Planning Tribunal exposé suggests that anyone who tries to hold the tribunal accountable for its far-reaching decisions will be denounced and discredited. A recent series of investigative articles by Daily Maverick’s Kevin Bloom examined Cape Town’s planning and development approval system. These were summarised in a Daily Maverick video released on 25 July, containing nothing the original articles didn’t already cover, but which has drawn more than 100,000 views online and provoked a furious response from senior City officials. Since many of the residents featured in the series, and the video, represent…