Rick Fox has been known as an NBA star, an actor, and now, he can add startup founder.

The African startup economy is growing faster than the global economy. Last year, various African startups celebrated wins displayed in dollar signs. There was a slew of high-performing investment rounds which included uLesson ($15M), Metro Africa Xpress Inc. ($31M), and MFS Africa ($100M). We could certainly go on but those numbers are proof that African startups are growing at a rate we have not seen before. According to a LinkedIn posting by Founders Factory Africa’s Accelerator Lead Nicole Dunn, it was said that African startups raised $1 million every two hours in 2021 with a total of $4.9 billion invested in African startups. Now more than ever, investments are soaring in Africa. Here is why.

Pursuing higher education comes at a cost, but scholarships can be the breakthrough in advancing students to the finish line, and Jasmine Chigbu knows this as she’s experienced it firsthand. As a first-generation Nigerian American growing up in a middle-class upbringing, Chigbu admits finances may not have been flowing but their overall financial health was in good standing. When she attended Duke University for her undergraduate degree in 2015, her family was able to cover half of the cost of attendance. The remaining funds were covered by scholarships, which Chigbu found through research. Although Jasmine Chigbu pursued a bachelor’s of international comparative studies, her overarching goal was to become a doctor and first apply to medical school. After her gap year following the completion of her undergraduate degree, she applied to 25 medical schools. Chigbu became stricken after realizing she had been denied from every school. Chigbu then adopted a new strategy to attend...

Lendtable — a Black-led fintech startup — has raised an $18 million Series A funding round led by O1 Advisors with other participants including SoftBank’s SB Opportunity Fund , Valor Equity Partners, and the CEOs of Complex Networks and Social Finance, Inc (SoFi), Socii Capital and Streamlined Ventures. Founded in 2020 by former Dropbox product managers Mitchell Jones and Sheridan Clayborne, Lendtable offers cash advances to allow employees to take full advantage of their 401(k) match all at once without needing to use any of their own money. Once their money has been vested, the San Francisco-based startup takes a portion of the profit earned. Jones and Clayborne were inspired to solve the problem of underutilized 401(k) matching by their own families’ financial struggles. “I’m obsessed with trying to help people save and invest their money. I come from a lower-middle-income Black community in Dayton, Ohio,” Jones told AfroTech. While an undergraduate at Yale Unversity, Jones...

E-40 is officially in the food business. The West Coast Hip-Hop legend has dropped GOON WITH THE SPOON gourmet meat products, which features a collection of flavored sausages and burritos in a variety of flavors, including teriyaki pineapple chicken sausage, Philly cheesesteak chicken sausages, hot beef sausages, mild beef sausages and the Choices (Yum) Sausage Bundle. The announcement of GOON WITH THE SPOON comes almost one year to the day after E-40 announced he was entering the food industry. He took to Instagram to celebrate the launch of the company. “Fulfilled a lifelong dream today with the formal launch of my GOON WITH THE SPOON brand & inaugural sausage line!” he captioned a video of him working in the kitchen. “We’re in production and about to take over the food industry now.” Fulfilled a lifelong dream today with the formal launch of my GOON WITH THE SPOON brand & inaugural sausage line! We’re in production and about to take over the food industry now 💪🏾Click the link...

It’s no secret that collegiate athletes have been cashing in on deals after recent changes to the name, image and likeness (NIL) laws. Now, one startup wants to help them take advantage of the changes by cashing in through another method — the monetization of video content. Curastory — a creator tool — helps student-athletes by “connecting brands in need of video content with athletes, influencers and actors who create video content and are willing to create directly for brands,” Sport Techie reports. “So if you have a video talking about your pregame meditation routine, multiple brands can sponsor that, like Calm,” Founder Tiffany Kelly told Sport Techie. “As opposed to making an influencer post for Calm, it’s natural. You don’t mention Calm, other than audio and logo attribution between breaks, and Calm’s logo just so happens to be on the video.” The unique technology not only allows athletes to have more creative power over their digital content, but Curastory also opens doors...

Zambian startup Union54, which specializes in fintech, has announced that it’s developing Africa’s first card-issuing API. According to TechCrunch, the company founded by Perseus Mlambo and Alessandra Martini claims to be Africa’s first card-issuing API — and while, technically, they’re correct, they initially thought of the idea when they were part of Zazu, their previous startup. Back then, Zazu — which was launched in 2015 — was considered a “challenger bank,” and had to rely on outside vendors to issue debit cards to customers. According to Mlambo, some customers waited as long as 18 months to get a debit card issued in their name. “We just realized that either the processor or the bank was not necessarily well equipped to be able to answer our questions or to be able to give us the product that we’re looking for,” the founder of the Zambian startup said in an interview with the outlet. Because of that, Martini and Mlambo met directly with Mastercard so that Zazu could become...

In its ongoing effort to aid in the growing food insecurity crisis, tech giant Google has announced that it has launched a new tool to circumvent just that. According to The Verge, the “Find Food Support” site — powered by Maps — will allow users to find food banks and donation centers within a given parameter designated by the user. The outlet also reports that the tech giant is working with non-profit organizations, like No Kid Hungry & Food Finder, to further aid in their efforts. Google, too, is working in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture to provide an aggregate of more than 90,000 locations of food aid across the United States, and they promise that there will be “more to come.” A recent report by the National Institute of Health reveals the racial and socioeconomic nature of food insecurity. Prior to the pandemic, the national level of food insecurity was 11.1 percent. However, in households led by Black or Latinx people, the level of food...