WEEK IN REVIEW: keyboard wars in the coldđ„¶
Web3 Afrika Dev Roundup July 18-23rd Accelerators doing the most +Y Combinator incubation +web3 corner +Technical corner +Kaleido colaborates with Polygon
âšRELEVANT NEWS funding announcementsÂ
â„Zazuu, a fintech company with a focus on Africa, has raised $2 million in funding
 The goal of Zazuu is to give Africans in the diaspora efficient ways to transfer money. Users can use Zazuu to find several money transfer companies in their area, compare their rates and fees, and decide who to send money to without paying any additional fees.
â„Sudanese fintech Bloom nabs $6.5M backed by Y Combinator, GFC and Visa
Bloom,a Sudan-based fintech that offers a high-yield savings account and adjacent digital banking services, has raised a $6.5 million seed round. This financing welcomed participation from fintech giant Visa, Y Combinator, U.S.-based VCs Global Founders Capital and Goodwater Capital and UAE-based early-stage firm VentureSouq.
IN ACCELERATORSÂ
â„Catalyst Fund raises $3.5m from FSD Africa to accelerate and scale pre-seed impact ventures in Africa
Catalyst Fund is an inclusive FinTech accelerator that supports early-stage startups building innovative FinTech solutions for the 3 billion underserved in emerging markets. The company works with innovators in emerging markets who are building affordable, accessible, and appropriate solutions for underserved communities, and accelerate the local innovation ecosystems around them.
Catalyst Fund is supported by The UK Department for International Development (DFID) and JPMorgan Chase & Co., managed by BFA Global and fiscally sponsored by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.
â„5 African startups have been accepted into Y Combinatorâs Summer 2022 (YC S22) batch.
Y Combinator launched its incubation machinery in African startups with PetaSales. Since then, it has accepted 95 African startups across diverse sectors and regions, most of which were founded in 2020. Now, the accelerator company has listed five African startups for its next batch, most of which were founded in 2021.
Nearly half of the 90 or so African companies that YC has invested in are classified as operating in fintech, with B2B software and services a distant second.
â„Klasha new CCOÂ plans to remove barriers Africans face in global commerce
Just after their $4.5 million seed round funding which happened on 7th July 2022, The startup is solving payment issues African merchants and consumers face when they pay for products online via different payment methods.
Klashaâs new chief commercial officer, Nile Younis, spoke about his plans to bridge the e-commerce gap between Africa and the global economy.He said one of the problems they are facing is the many traditional barriers African consumers and businesses face in conducting global commerce.
He further stated that Klasha will help bridge the e-commerce gap between Africa and the rest of the world by  being more inclusive and serving customersâ needs directly via seamless access to global brands, handling difficult last-mile logistics challenges, and building trust.Â
đđWEB3 CORNERÂ
â„Ethereumâs Kaleido Collaborates With Polygon for Web3 Adoption
Kaleido and Polygon announced partnership to accelerate next-gen enterprise Web3 projectsđ
Unveiled on Thursday at Ethereumâs annual community gathering in Paris, EthCC,Enterprises can leverage Polygonâs technology on Kaleido to build dedicated blockchain networks tailored specifically to their needs. Polygon Edge offers businesses a user-friendly, cloud-based system connected to the Ethereum mainnet. Offers companies a choice of high to zero gas fee models, depending on the transaction requirements.
These firms are now being drawn to the transparency of public chains, driven by the growing interest in Web3, decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
â„Metaâs AI can now translate more African languages, helping create a more inclusive internet
Metaâs AI can now translate more African languages, helping create a more inclusive internet.
The plan, expected to look into 55 of Africaâs marginalized languages, could boost technological inclusion in Africa.
đBE ON THE KNOWÂ
â„Togo launches novel e-Visa platform, Togo VOYAGE
Imagine you could start and finish an application for a countryâs visa on your phone without visiting any immigration office. That imagination is a reality, and Togo is the country. Togo launched Togo Voyageâa website that digitizes its entire visa application process.Â
The modern system will allow visa applicants to complete the entire process electronically, taking away the need to show up at the embassy or an immigrant office. Additionally, the website will allow departing and arriving travelers to complete all the necessary health formalities to ensure safe travelâincluding paying for the mandatory PCR tests.
đšâđ»TECHNICAL CORNERÂ
âWhat happens internally when you send a token from your wallet to another wallet
â„The link takes you through the whole journey from your metamask wallet to the time the transaction is confirmed. Have a look at it, I guarantee you will learn a new thing đ
â„It explains how to transfer DAI which is an ERC20 token. The same process applies when you are sending any erc20
â„An example is set on the Ethereum network and uses eip1559 gas mode.
        From Jay ,Senior Developer.
âVS Code Extension to help with smart contracts
â„Visualizing a Smart contract logic can sometimes be challenging when starting out. There is a cool VS Code extension to help you with that- Solidity Visual Developer
â„It helps produce such an output
 From Renny, Junior Developer
STORY OF THE WEEKđđ„
It's common to meet a morning person ,but meeting a Monday person is rare. Why ?because honestly mondaysâ is the most disliked day of the week .To make matters worse, we are in July which is the coldest month of the year in Nairobi đ„¶ ,all it preaches is coldâ coldâ coldâ
Coffee and warm water has become one of our best friends this week. You can guess how much coffee the team has consumed this weekđđđFor the first time in history, we finished our drinking water supply by wednesday! Normally the supply is enough to cover the whole week, Sundays includedđđÂ
All in all, development has to continue as usual. The week has been tough for the developers in particular with challenges to conquer a three-day sprint and in-hackathon amongst the junior developers. Imagine being tasked to build a bot in a period of three days! Talk about pressure! The keyboards definitely felt the heatđ„
The challenge was to create a sniper bot on both uniswap and pancakeswap exchanges.
           CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
 It was not easy for some as this was their first bot to develop in 3 days .How crazy is that only 3 days ,ikr With the help of senior developers who guided them in dAPP Development, the developers were able to deliver on time. They reviewed and presented the code one by one which was a success.đ„ Now thatâs the true NGENI FIRE!đ„
Looking forward to next weekâs challenge. Stay tunedâŠ
Thanks for readingđ
Contact us:Â NGENI Linktree
Shiko Karanjaâ
ABOUT NGENIđ„
NGENIÂ is Kenya and East Africa's first pure-play and largest Blockchain & Web3 development engineering Studio with a 50-plus-person team. The studio recruits and trains recent graduates from STEM Universities across Kenya and today has twenty-five (25) talented developers, at our Kilimani Headquarters.
All engineers have successfully taken on complex coding challenges, and hackathons and have ultimately delivered on complex multi-Blockchain applications, bots, and dApps for international projects.