In 2024, private equity firm Verod Capital invested in i-Fitness, a Nigerian gym chain founded in 2015 by the entrepreneur Foluso Ogunwale. Verod co-founder Danladi Verheijen describes the business as one of his favourite investments. Despite operating only around 30 outlets, i-Fitness is already seven times the size of its nearest competitor in West Africa…
African tech startups raised US$4.1 billion in 2025, up 25% from a year earlier, marking the strongest funding year since 2022, according to Partech’s annual Africa Tech Venture Capital Report released January 22, 2026. Equity funding reached US$2.4 billion, an 8% increase year on year, across 462 deals. Debt financing climbed to a record US$1.6…
The Technology Innovation Institute (TII), the applied research pillar of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), has announced the release of Falcon H1R 7B, a next-generation AI model that takes a significant step toward making advanced AI more accessible than ever, by delivering world-class reasoning performance in a compact, efficient, and openly available format….
A 6.7 magnitude earthquake shook northeastern Japan and caused small tsunami waves but no apparent damage Friday, days after a stronger quake in the same region. Friday’s quake occurred off the east coast of Aomori prefecture, in the north of Honshu, the main Japanese island, at a depth of about 12 miles, according to the…
