- According to Reuters, citing unnamed sources, Japan and the Netherlands will soon agree to join the US to restrict the exports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China.The sources say officials from both countries are set to finalize decisions on a new set of limits for what can be supplied
- India's smartphone shipments fell to 151.6 million units in 2022, representing a decline of 6% compared to the previous year, according to recent research by Canalys.The research attributes the decline to intermittent supply issues and low demand caused by global macroeconomic headwinds. In the…
- In 2022, Kenya recorded the strongest growth in Africa as the continent experienced a mouthwatering fundraising environment in the year. Venture volume hit a new record of $4.8 billion during the period.Increased VC activity in the country saw it take the largest share of the regional funding in
- The Web3 sector of the blockchain industry was the most active in terms of investment during 2022, with 616 individual deals, according to a recent report by Cointelegraph. This sector brought in a total of $9.2 billion in investment, with an average deal size of $15.4 million. In
- As global smartphone market penetration and demand for mobile services continues to grow, demand for mobile data traffic has grown by an average of 40% year on year in recent years and is also expected to continue to grow. However, the price that comes with the provision of these broadband
- Dell Technologies has confirmed the acquisition of Israeli startup, Cloudify an “environment-as-a-service” platform, known for cloud orchestration and infrastructure automation for a whooping $100 million, according to TechCrunch sources.Cloudify is an open-source, multi-cloud orchestration…
- Venture Capital (VC) investments in Indian startups experienced a significant drop in 2022, according to a report by GlobalData.The report cites economic uncertainty and market volatility as major factors affecting fundraising and investment activities in the country.Analysis of the company's…
- Agri-focused cleantech Ecozen has closed $25 million in equity and debt capital in its Series C round, as it looks beyond agriculture to expand into new deeptech fields worldwide.The Series C equity round was led by Nuveen and Coromandel International’s venture capital arm Dare Ventures, with…
- According to a recent report from Cointelegraph Research, the blockchain industry saw a significant decline in venture capital investment during the second half of 2022.The report, which analyzed data from Cointelegraph's Venture Capital Database, found that investment in the industry dropped from…
- Tech giant IBM has announced that it will layoff 3,900 of its employees, as part of some asset divestments, dampening cheer around beating revenue expectations in the fourth quarter.In its just-released fourth-quarter result for 2022, revenues of $16.69 billion fell slightly from $16.70 billion a…
- China's second-largest chip foundry, Hua Hong Semiconductor Group, has signed a $6.7 billion deal for a wafer fabrication plant in Wuxi, Eastern China.The state-backed semiconductor investment fund and a Wuxi-based entity also participated in the deal, marking the biggest such investment in China's…
- According to a 2022 market sizing report by Crypto.com, the number of global cryptocurrency owners saw a significant increase last year, with 119 million new owners added between January and December.This 39% surge brought the total number of crypto owners to 425 million, despite the market…
- Uber Freight, a division of rideshare company, Uber Technologies, has announced it will lay off 150 employees, or about 3% of the segment’s total head count, according to a report by CNBC.Uber Freight said the layoffs will be limited to its digital brokerage operations that match shippers
- According to a report from GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, venture capital funding in Chinese startups experienced a significant drop in 2022. The value of VC funding in the country saw a year-on-year decrease of 46.4%, while the volume of deals fell by 14.4%.This decline
- Pasqal, a Paris-based quantum computing startup, announced it raised $108 million in a Series B funding round led by Singapore’s Temasek. The funding will be used to further develop Pasqal's neutral atoms quantum computing approach. Pasqal's technology uses lasers to hold atoms in place
- Indian Software as a Service (SaaS) companies are expexted to command 8% of the global SaaS market, generating $35 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by 2027, growing at 20-25% per annum.This was revealed by a management consulting firm, Bain & Company in a report titled ‘India SaaS
- The semiconductor industry saw a decline in global sales for November, according to a report from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). The report shows that global sales for the month were $45.5 billion, a decrease of 2.9% compared to October's $46.9 billion and 9.2%
- Terra Drone, a Japan-based company that builds drone software, hardware and uncrewed aircraft traffic management software, has raised $14 million in Series C funding from Wa’ed Ventures, the venture capital arm of Saudi Aramco.This marks the VC firm’s first investment in Asia, and brings Terra
- Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and other Microsoft 365 services were down on Wednesday for thousands of users worldwide due to a networking issue.The software maker acknowledged the issue in a tweet saying it has “identified a potential networking issue" impacting its Microsoft 365 services, and is…
- On-demand fuel delivery service FuelBuddy has raised $20 million in an investment round led by the Naveen Jindal Group and Ravi Jaipuria Group with participation from Nilesh Ved.Founded in 2016, FuelBuddy offers doorstep fuel delivery with the help of IoT (Internet of Things) and cloud-enabled…
- Touch and Pay Technologies (TAP), a Nigerian fintech company, has announced that its contactless Cowry card can now be used to access the newly launched Blue Rail Line in Lagos.TAP was the first payment company in Nigeria to provide payment infrastructure for contactless payment cards to be used on
- Disney's "Avatar: The Way of Water" has made history by crossing the $2 billion mark at the global box office, to become the sixth highest-grossing movie of all time, according to Box Office data.This makes it the third James Cameron film to reach this milestone
- The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has granted a $150 million loan to Nubank to strengthen its presence in Colombia.The loan is the IFC's first investment in a digital bank in Latin America and the Caribbean and will be used to boost the growth of Nubank's
- In 2022, venture funding in Latin America took a significant hit, as venture volume sank almost 60% from the previous year in the wake of a sharp shift in the startup funding climate.Per Crunchbase data, investor funding sat at $8.28 billion in the region in 2022, down 58%
- Telecommunications giant, Globe has announced that its $150-million Philippine Domestic Submarine Cable Network (PDSCN), the longest of its kind in the Philippines, is on track to be completed by April this year.The 2,500-kilometer cable network, which was developed in partnership with Eastern…
- Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini has announced it is slashing 10% of its headcount.The company's President, Cameron Winklevoss announced the layoffs to staff on Slack on Monday, citing "persistent negative macroeconomic conditions and unprecedented fraud perpetuated by bad actors in the industry"This…
- Indian battery startup Log9 has raised $40 million through a mix of equity and debt in a Series B funding round led by Amara Raja Batteries and Petronas Ventures.Founded in 2015 by Dr Akshay Singhal, Kartik Hajela and Pankaj Sharma, Log9 has been a local frontrunner in meeting India&
- Udaan, a B2B e-commerce firm, recorded a six-fold increase in product shipments to 1.7 billion in 2022, according to data from the company. This is a significant increase from the 260 million products shipped, catering to over 22 million orders, in 2021.The company, which is backed by Lightspeed
- Amazon India has launched Amazon Air, making it the first e-commerce company in the country to have a dedicated air cargo network.This would also be the first launch of the Amazon Air cargo service outside of the US and Europe.Amazon Air's cargo network will utilise the
- Bengaluru-based proptech startup Landeed has raised $8.3 million in a funding round led by Draper Associates, Y Combinator, and Bayhouse Capital. The funding will be used to build a comprehensive property title search engine, hire personnel, and strengthen technological infrastructure. Founded in…
- Music streaming service Spotify has announced that it will be conducting a round of layoffs that will impact around 6% of its global workforce, this is around 600 employees.In its most recent earnings release, the company said that there were 9,808 full-time employees working for Spotify.Spotify’
- ByteDance’s gross merchandise volume in China grew 76% to $208 billion in 2022, according to a report by The Information, citing unknown sources, with knowledge of the internal data. Consumers in China reportedly spent $208 billion (1.41 trillion yuan) buying things on ByteDance’s Douyin video
- Beaconstac, a leading QR code customer engagement platform, has announced a raise of $25 million in a Series A round led by Telescope Partners, with participation from existing investor, Accel. Beaconstac is a startup that helps businesses to create and track QR codes enabling consumers to have a…
- Online furniture retailer, Wayfair Inc. has announced it is laying off about 1,750 workers, or 10% of its workforce, as the online furniture seller confronts shrinking sales after a pandemic-driven boom, per a Wall Street Journal report.This follows an earlier round of layoffs by the company in…
- Sales of passenger electric vehicles in China are expected to rise 35% annually to 8.8 million units in 2023, according to Paul Gong, head of China automotive research at UBS.The share of electric vehicles in all new car sales is also expected to exceed 37%. This growth is
- Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) has announced plans to invest $500 million annually in India over the next several years, as the telecom group sees India as its most important foreign market in Asia.The investments will be focused on digital infrastructure, including the construction…
- According to a new report from Crunchbase, global fintech funding reached $75.2 billion in 2022, indicating a 46% decrease from 2021, and a 52% decline when compared to 2020.The data shows that the funding slowdown was particularly severe in the second half of the year, with Q4’
- Genesis Global Capital, a crypto lending and trading conglomerate of more than 200 businesses, filed for bankruptcy, late Thursday as the fallout from the meltdown of the FTX exchange continues, per a report by the Financial Times.The company, one of FTX’s biggest lenders, had previously suspended…
- According to research from Canalys, Samsung overtook Xiaomi as the top smartphone vendor in India in the fourth quarter of 2022. Samsung took the top spot in Q4 2022 for the first time since Q3 2017, shipping 6.7 million units for a market share of 21%. Vivo came in
- China reported a gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 3% for 2022 to beat market expectations according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed last week.The annual GDP growth rates surpassed the 2.7% estimate in a Bloomberg survey by economists and the 2.8% forecast
- India's Department of Consumer Affairs has introduced new guidelines for social media influencers to disclose promotional content in accordance with the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.The guidelines are aimed at limiting unfair trade practices and misleading promotions on the web. Failing to follow…
- Cashlinq, a Zimbabwean fintech startup has developed a software-as-a-service platform that can be used to power digital banks, MNO wallets, microfinance systems, or the low KYC accounts and wallets of traditional banks.Formed in 2022 by four co-founders to rival the expensive foreign-based…
- Welcome to The Draft – Techloy's weekly newsletter that brings you data-driven news and insights into technology across the world's largest emerging markets from trusted sources.My eyes were peeled at the many quarterly and annual reports on startup funding, smartphones, company revenues, and more…
- Following a year that was largely dominated by everything Web3-related, funding to VC-backed startups in Web3 in 2022 fell by about a fourth — from a record high of $29.2 billion in 2021 to about $21.5 billion in 2022, according to data from Crunchbase.The still-young space experienced
- Israeli startup aiOla, which has developed state-of-the-art voice and image recognition combined with advanced AI models to digitize, automate and streamline inspection processes, has announced that it has secured $25 million in funding.The funding round was led by New Era, with Hamilton Lane's and…
- The number of pay-TV subscribers in Africa is set to increase by 16 million between 2022 and 2028, reaching a total of 57 million, according to a report by Digital TV Research.Despite the growth in subscriber numbers, the report predicts that pay-TV revenues will only rise by 29%, indicating
- Bratislava-based robotic vision and intelligence maker Photoneo, the parent company of Brightpick has extended its series B round with an additional $19 million to complete $40 million in funding.Since its founding in 2013, the startup has raised a total capital of approximately $53 million.…
- Movie streaming service, Netflix added millions of subscribers in Q4 2022, according to the company's fourth-quarter earnings released this week, beating Wall Street's expectations in terms of net subscriber additions.The service added 7.7 million subscribers between October and January, bringing…
- Colombian SME financing fintech KLYM, formerly known as Omni Latam, announced a $27 million investment round led by JPMorgan and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).The IFC is a World Bank entity that focuses on the private sector in developing countries. The startup already had an alliance…
- Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has announced that it will be eliminating around 12,000 jobs, which is 6% of its workforce. This move is the latest in a series of job cuts that have shaken the technology sector recently.The cuts come days after rival Microsoft said it
