Series A – Newswire Report

Agritech startup TaniGroup raises $10M to help Indonesias farmers grow

June 24, 2019June 24, 2019 NewsEditorAgriTech, business, dfs lab, economy, golden gate ventures, Indonesia, Intudo Ventures, Malaysia, openspace ventures, president, Series A, Singapore, Startup company, TaniGroup

In 2016, former World Bank analyst Eka Pamitra teamed up with five friends to start a business that would help farmers in their native Indonesia. Today their company — TaniGroup — closed a $10 million Series A round that’s aimed at expanding its service nationwide with the support of the government. TaniGroup works for more than 25,000 farmers in Indonesia to help them get fairer rates for their crops, and grow their businesses. It does that in two ways. It operates a B2B platform that helps farmers sell their produce…

Odds and Ends

Africa Roundup: Kenyas BRCK acquires EveryLayer, Nigerias TeamApt eyes global expansion

April 1, 2019April 1, 2019 NewsEditorafrica, Banking, BRCK, Canada, China, consumer finance, economy, Europe, flutterwave, Indonesia, Kenya, Lagos, Mexico, Nairobi, Nigeria, payment solutions, paystack, Rwanda, San Francisco, Series A, smartphone, South Africa, steve case, SupaBRCK, United States, Xiaomi

Kenyan communications hardware company BRCK acquired the assets of Nairobi-based internet provider Surf and its U.S. parent EveryLayer in a purchase deal of an undisclosed amount in February. Based in Nairobi, Surf is a hotspot service provider aimed at offering affordable internet to lower-income segments. BRCK is a five-year-old venture that pairs its rugged Wi-Fi routers to internet service packages designed to bring people online in frontier and emerging markets. With the acquisition, BRCK gains the assets of San Francisco-based EveryLayer and its Surf subsidiary, including 1,200 hotspots and 200,000 active customers…

Odds and Ends

Robot tutor Musio makes its retail debut in Japan

April 15, 2017April 15, 2017 NewsEditorAI, AKA Study, edtech, Formation 8, funding, language learning, musio, Raymond Jung, robots, Series A, social robot, Startups

A cute, robotic language tutor called Musio, has made it from crowdfunding campaign to full-fledged product with a debut in stores this week in Japan. Priced at JPY 98,000 (about US $900), Musio is now sold online through SoftBanks marketplace and Amazon Japan, and through a handful of brick-and-mortars stores. Musios parent company, AI ventureAKA Study, is the latest startup from Raymond Jung, a co-founder of the massively successful test-prep venture, Hackers Education Group, in South Korea. AKA employs about 50 full-time today, with most in Seoul, and a small…