Edlyft, an EdTech startup, has so far raised over $1.4 million in venture funding from a number of investors.

The investors include Kleiner Perkins, Y Combinator, Kapor Capital, Village Global VC, January Ventures, and Backstage Capital. Also, funding came from some respectable entrepreneurs such as Jeff Weiner (former CEO, now Executive Chairman of LinkedIn).

It is practically impossible to run a business without capital, and sometimes, it is difficult to raise funds if the business is not well managed or successful.

Therefore, a balance must be struck; just as businesses strive to raise more funds for different purposes such as expansion, they must also strive to remain profitable.

Commenting on the latest development, one of the co-founders of the group, Erika Hairston told Forbes:

“We started our post-demo-day fundraise in the final weeks of Y Combinator’s winter 2020 batch. Given that Black women receive only 0.06% of venture funding, I had a determined mindset; yet no one could’ve predicted the challenges of rising at the peak of uncertainty across the globe.

“I remained optimistic however because due to pandemic and children and young people not being able to go to schools and universities, our work only became that much more needed in the world.”

She added, “Initially, it felt impossible to build new relationships with institutional funds who didn’t already know us or who weren’t focusing only on their portfolio. As the world adjusted to fully remote, so did we and the investor community. One of the fun facts about our fundraising journey is that 10% of our investors came solely from introductions over Twitter.”

What you should know

Edlyft is a paid support platform that helps college students and adult learners through CS courses, by pairing them with inclusive mentors, online group tutoring, and tools for navigating complex subjects.

Venture capital is a form of private equity and a type of financing that investors provide to startup companies and small businesses that are believed to have long-term growth potential.

The world’s payment juggernaut, Ant Group, is hoping to raise $34.5 billion in its dual initial public offering (IPO) after setting the price for its shares today, making it the biggest listing of all in modern history, in a report credited to CNBC news.

The Chinese financial powerhouse had earlier disclosed previously that it would divide its stock issuance equally across Chinese major stock exchanges, which include Shanghai and Hong Kong, issuing 1.67 billion new shares at each of those exchanges.

READ: Square buys $50 million worth of Bitcoins

READ: Airtel announces share price today as pre-IPO interest hits $200 million

READ: This report explains why Nigerians are bent on leaving the country

Ant Group’s Shanghai-listed shares will be quoted at 68.8 yuan each. The issuing of 1.67 billion shares would raise 114.94 billion yuan or $17.23 billion.

• The Hong Kong-listed shares have been priced at 80 Hong Kong dollars each, raising 133.65 billion Hong Kong dollars or $17.24 billion.
• The listing would produce a return of at least $34.5 billion, as the figure could go higher if the so-called over-allotment option is exercised, depending on demand.
• It would make it the largest initial public offer of recent memory, putting it ahead of previous record-holder Saudi Aramco, which raised about $29 billion.

READ: MTN may rake in $600 million from Jumia’s planned listing

READ: Jack Ma’s fintech firm is set for IPO, signalling prospects for Nigerian fintechs

READ: Gold futures drops to $1727.80 as America, China tension deepens

What you should know

Ant Group, formerly known as Ant Financial and Alipay, is an affiliate company of the popularly known e-commerce company Alibaba.

• Ant Group remains the world’s most valuable FinTech company, and most valuable unicorn company, with a target valuation of over US$280 billion.
• The group owns China’s largest digital payment platform, Alipay, which serves over one billion users and 80 million merchants, with total payment volume (TPV) transaction reaching RMB118 trillion in June 2020.

Explore Data on the Nairametrics Research Website

Five Nigerian firms have been shortlisted among the 12 African startups to pitch live at this month’s digital Africa Tech Summit Connects in Kigali, Rwanda.

This is to showcase their solutions to the global audience of 500 investors, corporates, and other stakeholders.

Disrupt Africa and Africa Tech Summit (ATS) disclosed it had reviewed its partnership to integrate startup-focused sessions plenary and pitching chances in its virtual Africa Tech Summit Connects event scheduled to hold virtually on the 20th – 22nd of October 2020.

What you need to know

ATS is a fully-virtual event and not a webinar. The event would maximize their time with AI-powered smart matchmaking and give startups opportunities in the online business community.

Why this matters

The three days course will enable them to engage with parties through a variety of online mediums. It would encourage the exhibition of recent developments in the continent across the start-up world, and it would focus on fintech, logistics, ed-tech, agri-tech, e-commerce, investment, regulation and policy, blockchain, connectivity.

With over 50 African tech start-up applicants seeking to raise either pre-seed, seed, or Series A funding; 5 out of the 12 selected to participate and present their solutions to the audience, and also connect virtually with those interested are Nigerian start-ups. The selected start-up companies are;

• Medsaf (Nigeria),
• Seso Global (Nigeria),
• Wella Health (Nigeria),
• Vybe (Nigeria),
• Scrapays (Nigeria),
• Agro Innova (Ghana),
• PayDunya (Senegal),
• Snode (South Africa),
• Moja Ride (Ivory Coast),
• Eneza Telecom (Kenya),
• Kolute Systems (Senegal),
• Abiria (Kenya).