Mdundo eyes more telco partnerships after music streaming revenue growth from Tanzania, Nigeria deals – TechCrunch

Mdundo, an Africa-focused music streaming service, is banking on more partnerships with telcos across the continent to grow its earnings and user base. Last year, the company signed deals with MTN and Airtel in Nigeria, and Vodacom in Tanzania, which appear to be paying off after its user-base almost doubled as it added paying subscribers…

Remote work and events startup twine acquires YC-backed Glimpse to launch on Zoom – TechCrunch

Twine, a company that provides networking tools for virtual events and remote teams, will soon bring its services to Zoom thanks to its just-closed acquisition of the Y Combinator-backed startup, Glimpse, which had developed a “speed matching” platform designed for virtual events. Glimpse’s idea was to offer a way to facilitate the connections that typically…

YC-backed Duplo raises $1.3M pre-seed to build financial OS for B2B companies in Nigeria – TechCrunch

Startups have sought to use technology to digitize processes in Africa’s B2B e-commerce and retail space over the past couple of years. While many focus on moving products and providing credit, issues around cash overdependency haven’t been tackled at scale.  Here’s why this is a critical problem. When traditional distributors move goods from manufacturers and…

Rino gets $3M pre-seed for 10-minute grocery deliveries in Vietnamese cities – TechCrunch

Meal deliveries in Vietnamese cities typically take less than half an hour, but grocery deliveries are lagging behind, sometimes taking up to two to three hours, says Rino founder Trung Thanh Nguyen. By creating a vertically-integrated logistics infrastructure centered around “dark stores,” or stores set up for order fulfillment only, Nguyen says Rino can cut…