In construction, the most expensive projects are the ones a firm never sees. Somewhere right now, a bond has been filed, a site has changed hands, and the winner of a nine-figure project is already being decided, months before an RFP exists.

Cascade, the AI pursuit platform for architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) firms, is changing that.

Today, the company announced it has raised $3.5 million from Andreessen Horowitz Speedrun, Ada Ventures, Blitzscaling Ventures, Indico Capital, shuckerVC, G2C Ventures and Snowball VC.

“Every firm we work with can point to a project they should have won but never even had a chance to see,” said Hannia Zia, co-founder and CEO of Cascade. “Cascade is built around the bottom line: find the right work early, understand where you have a real advantage, and turn that into revenue delivered.”

The traction has come fast. In a few months, Cascade has signed AEC customers whose work spans some of the world’s most notorious projects – including JFK, LaGuardia, data centers and nuclear reactors.

The signs arrive years before the bid

Long before an RFP, a multi million dollar project leaves traces. A bond filing is a project taking shape. A property changing hands is a developer moving.

A line in a county capital plan is a building that does not exist yet, and a firm somewhere is going to win it.

Cascade detects these events continuously across bond filings, permits, capital plans, property transactions, earnings transcripts, budget announcements and meeting minutes, and connects them to what they signal: where work is forming, what kind, and who is positioned to win it.

The tools the industry relies on read none of this.

“A project broke ground a few blocks away from me. I’ve been in the industry for 30 years, I didn’t even know it was out for bid.” said Tim Johannesson, Principal at Smallwood, the luxury architecture firm behind projects for the Four Seasons, the Ritz, Hyatt and many others.  “Cascade has now helped us respond to and win more projects, including a recent $6M project, that I was only able to find through Cascade.”

Cascade closes the gap. It anticipates projects as they form, scores each one for fit so firms pursue the work they are most likely to win, and surfaces warm paths in through relationships already sitting in Outlook and other software. Every customer makes the system sharper: each pursuit teaches it which signals matter, which firms are credible for which work, and where teaming opportunities exist.

“Cascade has become a valuable partner in how we review plans, organize project information, and identify opportunities more efficiently. The platform continues to improve, and a single successful project can deliver a return that exceeds the cost for years. We are pleased to have adopted the technology early and to be helping shape how AI can be used in the construction industry,” said Alan Ruth, President and CEO of S.A. Casey Construction, a Florida-based general contractor whose portfolio includes work at the Kia Center, Orange County Government facilities, and major private developments.

Built by Amazon and Google operators, pulled in by the market

Cascade was founded by Hannia Zia and Joana Ferreira, two former Google operators who met at UnlikelyAI, the startup founded by the inventor of Amazon Alexa. There, Hannia served as VP of Product and Joana led the AI platform, building a knowledge graph of the world’s information and training LLM agents to navigate it.

“Hedge funds look at a crazy amount of data to predict stock movements,” said Joana Ferreira, co-founder and CTO of Cascade. “We use the same logic to predict construction projects.” Joana previously was an early engineer at one of the largest trading apps in the world.

“Business development in AEC has always run on relationships, timing and institutional memory,” said Sarah Sapone Hayes, director of Strategy & Innovation at FORGE Architecture, the San Francisco design firm behind The Battery SF, the VF Outdoor campus and the city’s first net zero energy office. “Cascade gives us a systematic way to see the opportunities that matter, a credible path into them, and far less manual work behind every pursuit.”

Their route into construction was personal as much as commercial. Joana grew up in a Portuguese town built on construction and carpentry. Hannia’s father tried to start a construction business, but it failed. Hannia’s conversations with CFOs in New York produced Cascade’s first customer, Munoz Engineering, and a conference in Denver quickly brought the next.

“Cascade helps us plan strategically ahead in the highly competitive AEC industry in NYC,” said Syed Irfan Raza, CFO at Munoz Engineering, which worked on LGA, Moynihan Train Hall and Cuomo Bridge. “The team delivers quickly, and they understand how this industry is built on relationships and trust.”

The funding will accelerate adoption and deepen Cascade’s network across the industry. Even building a house takes twenty companies coming together, and multimillion-dollar projects take an order of magnitude more. As more firms join, Cascade matches them to each other: partners to bid with, connections in new regions, teaming opportunities across the US. The platform gets stronger with every firm that joins, and so does every firm on it.

“Construction is one of the largest markets in the world, and the way firms find and win work has barely changed in decades,” said Marcus Segal, Investor at Andreessen Horowitz Speedrun. “Cascade starts with a painful revenue problem. That is a powerful wedge into how construction work gets pursued, partnered on and delivered.”

“Hannia and Joana combine deep AI capability with genuine respect for how this industry actually works, and customers can feel that.” said Matt Penneycard at Ada Ventures. While Scott Johnson at Blitzscaling Ventures added: “Cascade quickly grows their customer’s revenue, and the network effects and product led growth make it a high-potential Blitzscaler.” 

Stephan de Moraes, Managing General Partner at Índico Capital Partners added:

“In a $900 billion global industry, finding and winning the right projects has remained a manual, relationship-driven challenge for decades. Cascade is completely rewriting that playbook. Hannia and Joana have taken world-class AI capability and built a predictive engine that solves a massive revenue problem for the construction sector before a bid even exists. At Índico, we are thrilled to back Cascade as they transform how the built world is planned, pursued, and delivered.”

The team’s overall ambition runs the full arc of a project. Cascade intends to be there at the first trace of work forming, through the pursuit, the win and the build, until the day of handoff.

“The Cascade team are the kings of process efficiency. They’re true innovators, ambitious, focussed, and challenging our industry’s conventional ways of working. I was excited to combine their expertise with ours to accelerate delivery and elevate quality for our clients,” said Joel Torielli, Partner at WJCA, the architecture and planning firm behind International Brands such as Barnes & Noble and Ghirardelli. 

“The most valuable signal is something that could end up being a bid, and having the time to reach out. This is amazing stuff,” said David from RPM Team, an architecture and engineering program management firm that works on designs for data centers and nuclear manufacturing facilities.

“In nearly 30 years of working in this industry, I’ve never seen anything like Cascade. They connected signals most firms aren’t tracking and turned them into useful project predictions.” said Sean Williams from Carbon Architecture & Engineering. “Cascade represents a fundamentally different approach to business development with the potential to create millions of dollars in new opportunities.”

“The power of Cascade’s AI to organize our data and make it actionable could revolutionize our business,” said Fab Munoz, Executive VP of Munoz Engineering, which worked on LGA Central Terminal, Moynihan Train Hall and Cuomo Bridge.

“Nearly all of our work is relationship driven, and more than 85% is repeat business. At that level, staying on top of every client relationship is critical for our business.” said Andrew Wilson, CFO at FORGE Architecture.

The post Cascade: a16z-backed Female Founders Get $3.5M to Dig into Construction Industry appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The capital injection will directly support the growth and scaling of Mathesis’ core mission: providing the intelligence and infrastructure needed to bridge the credit gap for millions of unscored or underscored individuals across Nigeria.

With this investment, Mathesis will further expand its proprietary credit decisioning infrastructure. The technology enables financial institutions to confidently assess and extend credit to borrowers who lack a formal credit history by leveraging an expanded pool of alternative behavioural and transactional data.

In Africa’s largest economy, a significant barrier to credit access is data fragmentation. Borrowers frequently build positive financial behaviours across multiple digital platforms by repaying microfinance loans, saving through fintech wallets, or servicing Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) facilities.

However, under traditional credit infrastructure, these achievements remain invisible to new lenders. Mathesis addresses this challenge through the concept of Personal Equity, the quantified expression of an individual’s financial behaviour aggregated across every institution with which they have transacted.

By translating these disparate signals into a precise, portable measure of creditworthiness, Mathesis creates a comprehensive credit identity that reflects the full breadth of a person’s financial life.

“True financial inclusion cannot be achieved in a vacuum; it requires structural collaboration in which lenders and fintech companies work as partners within the ecosystem,” said Winston Osuchukwu, founder and CEO of Mathesis Analytics. “This investment from First Ally Capital validates our approach to reshaping credit infrastructure. By quantifying ‘Personal Equity,’ we empower lenders to safely look beyond the constraints of formal credit histories and recognise a borrower’s true creditworthiness. This capital enables us to accelerate our pan-African expansion while maintaining the robust, institutional-grade infrastructure our partners rely on.”

First Ally Capital, a leading financial services group with more than a decade of operations, is dedicated to delivering innovative, tailored financial solutions to individual, SME and institutional clients. The company combines cutting-edge technology, forward-thinking strategies, and deep market expertise to help clients navigate complex financial landscapes.

Speaking on the investment in Mathesis Analytics, Ebenezer Olufowose, managing director and CEO of First Ally Capital, said:

“At First Ally Capital, we pride ourselves on being a one-stop destination for financial solutions, offering a diverse portfolio of services ranging from investment banking and asset management to trusteeship, inclusive banking, and real estate. Our investment in Mathesis Analytics reflects our strong belief in the company’s vision and our commitment to supporting forward-thinking enterprises that deliver excellence.”

Financial institutions can seamlessly adopt Mathesis’ infrastructure in two ways: as an Intelligence Layer, which integrates directly via APIs as an analytical plugin to enhance existing software, or as a turnkey platform that provides a complete end-to-end lending infrastructure.

To date, Mathesis’ systems have supported more than 8 million loans for over 2 million unique borrowers in Nigeria, and the company is actively deploying its infrastructure to establish a growing pan-African footprint.

With the investment from First Ally Capital, Mathesis is well positioned to transform how the credit ecosystem operates, driving financial inclusion in partnership with lenders across the continent.

The post Mathesis Analytics Secures Investment to Scale AI Credit Infrastructure across Nigeria appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The 2026 funding round, announced by Safe Online in Geneva, supports 30 organisations developing AI-powered and technology-driven solutions to address emerging online threats facing children, particularly those arising from generative AI, digital grooming, and AI-generated child sexual abuse material.

The latest investments come as digital technologies continue to reshape child protection efforts globally, with AI creating both unprecedented opportunities and new forms of online abuse.

Over the past decade, Safe Online has invested more than $100 million in over 180 projects spanning more than 100 countries, making it one of the world’s largest funding initiatives dedicated to ending online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Marija Manojlovic, executive director of Safe Online, said the scale of technology-facilitated abuse has outpaced traditional intervention models.

“The crisis of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse passed a breaking point some time ago. The volume, speed, and new forms of harm have now outgrown human scale,” she said.

According to her, the organisation is increasingly focusing on addressing the root causes of online abuse while leveraging artificial intelligence to improve prevention, response mechanisms, and long-term child protection systems.

AI Takes Centre Stage in Child Protection

The funding round reflects growing concern over how generative AI is transforming online risks for children.

Safe Online noted that AI-generated child sexual abuse material is becoming more prevalent, while online grooming techniques are becoming faster, more personalised, and increasingly sophisticated.

Consequently, several funded organisations are developing AI-driven tools, conducting research into AI safety, and strengthening digital infrastructure to better detect, prevent, and respond to online child exploitation.

Among the selected projects, the Digital Futures for Children Centre at the London School of Economics will work with children across six countries to identify hidden risks within generative AI systems and inform the design of safer digital products.

In Kenya, Qhala Trust is developing one of Africa’s first child-focused AI safety benchmarks to ensure emerging technologies reflect children’s experiences, languages, and local contexts.

Other grantees include INHOPE, whose Project SOAR aims to strengthen collaboration among global hotlines, technology companies, and law enforcement agencies, while Kindred Tech will expand AI-powered investigative tools to help identify victims and accelerate child exploitation investigations.

Projects supporting prevention and survivor participation also featured prominently. These include initiatives by Together for Girls, Masayang Pamilya in the Philippines, and the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which are working to strengthen digital safety education, positive parenting, survivor engagement, and early intervention strategies.

Safe Online said the 30 organisations represent expertise across research, technology development, advocacy, survivor engagement, prevention, and systems strengthening, reflecting the broad, multi-sector collaboration needed to tackle rapidly evolving digital threats.

The organisation added that the new funding aims to ensure child protection efforts evolve at the same pace as emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, which continues to reshape the global digital landscape.

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Supported by ProvidusUnity Bank, the programme aims to bridge the startup funding gap by providing high-potential entrepreneurs with direct access to investors through curated one-on-one investment conversations.

Scheduled to hold on July 15, 2026, Nigeria Lightning Rounds will feature carefully selected startups engaging with targeted investors who have expressed interest in supporting Nigerian innovation.

Participating founders will have the opportunity to pitch their businesses through focused 15-minute virtual sessions facilitated by gener8tor and ProvidusUnity Bank’s networks.

Speaking on the partnership, Ernest Elue, ProvidusUnity Bank’s, head of Business Development, said:

“We recognise that access to capital remains one of the biggest challenges facing entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Through our partnership with gener8tor, we are creating a platform that connects promising Nigerian founders with investors who can provide the support required to scale their businesses.”

He added that

“The partnership reinforces ProvidusUnity Bank’s commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s entrepreneurial ecosystem by supporting innovation, enabling access to opportunities, and creating pathways for businesses with high-growth potential.”

Lightning Rounds are a signature initiative of gener8tor’s investment platform, which has facilitated thousands of investor-startup meetings globally.

The format is optimized to eliminate friction, reduce bias in early-stage fundraising, and help founders secure capital from investors aligned with their mission and stage. gener8tor’s previous Lightning Rounds for Nigerian Founders in 2025 featured 18 participating Investors and led to 50 investment meetings facilitated.

“gener8tor is thrilled to partner with ProvidusUnity Bank to extend the Lightning Rounds model into Nigeria,” said Elizabeth Larios, Director of Lightning Rounds at gener8tor.

“This collaboration reflects our commitment to building equitable ecosystems and driving capital to the most promising and underrepresented entrepreneurs.”

The program will focus on high-growth sectors including fintech, healthtech, manufacturing, sustainability, and AI, but welcomes SMEs from ALL industries. Founders from across Nigeria are encouraged to apply.

How to apply:

Those interested in applying as a startup or participating as an investor can learn more here.

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Google Play has launched a $1 million Indie Games Equity Fund to support emerging game developers across 32 African countries with funding, mentorship and technical support.

The Managing Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Google Play, Ben Wilson, said the initiative reflects Google’s commitment to strengthening Africa’s growing gaming ecosystem.

“This initiative aims to help independent studios scale their games, attract global audiences and unlock Africa’s growing creative and digital economy. The equity-free fund will provide selected studios with between $50,000 and $200,000 to expand their businesses and strengthen game development,” he said.

Wilson acknowledged that while Africa’s creative talent has produced a vibrant game development community, access to capital remains a major challenge for many promising studios.

According to him, bringing the fund to the continent underscores Google’s commitment to unlocking the immense talent of local studios and helping them share uniquely African stories with a global audience.

The Google Play executive said beneficiaries would also receive hands-on mentorship from industry experts and technical support to improve game performance, visibility and market reach.

Wilson said applications are now open to independent game studios registered in any of the 32 eligible African countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa.

“Africa’s unique creativity has fuelled a vibrant game development scene.

“Bringing this fund to the continent underscores our commitment to unlocking the immense talent of local studios, providing the resources needed to scale businesses, refine creative visions and share uniquely African stories with a global audience,” he added.

He said eligible applicants must be privately owned studios with no more than 50 employees and have released at least one mobile, PC or console game.

Wilson added that successful applicants would be required to publish their games on Google Play and, on a non-exclusive basis, participate in the Google Play Pass subscription programme for two years.

Under the programme, selected studios will receive between $50,000 and $200,000 from the $1 million fund.

They will also gain access to hands-on mentorship from industry experts and technical guidance to improve game performance, strengthen development frameworks and enhance market visibility.

Wilson said applications will close on July 31, while the 10 successful studios will be announced in September.

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LeapXpert, the leader in Governed Communication Intelligence, today announced a $180 million growth investment led by Riverwood Capital.

Enterprise communications have moved to messaging. The informal conversations that close deals, resolve problems, and build relationships now happen on channels like WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal, and WeChat.

For years, these conversations sat outside enterprise systems, creating operational, regulatory, and security challenges, and leaving conversation data largely untapped.

Today, AI combined with enterprise governance can turn that data into one of the most valuable assets a company owns.

“The first generation of enterprise communication software archived conversations. The next governed them. The latest uses AI to unlock value from every interaction,” said Jeff Parks, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Riverwood Capital. “LeapXpert leads that progression today, and no one is better positioned for what comes next. Riverwood Capital is excited to join the board, support the company’s next phase of growth, and work with Co-Founders Dima, Avi, and the rest of the team to drive their vision forward.”

Hundreds of organizations rely on LeapXpert today, from leading financial institutions and government agencies to global enterprises.

The company was named a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Communications Governance and Archiving two years running, made the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 in 2024 and 2025, and recently joined the Financial Times’ 2026 list of the Fastest-Growing Companies in America.

“Messaging is where business happens now,” said Dima Gutzeit, Founder and CEO of LeapXpert. “The next wave of enterprise value will come from making those conversations trusted, connected, and actionable. But AI can only work with what enterprises can see and govern. Our mission is to give every organization the infrastructure to govern their conversations and the intelligence to act on them.”

“Financial services were our proving ground. Government became our fastest-growing segment. The Forbes Global 2000 is the third wave, and it has arrived,” added Avi Pardo, Co-Founder and CBO of LeapXpert. “The driver shifts vertical by vertical, but the underlying problem doesn’t: every enterprise needs its customer conversations governed and maximized. The partnership with Riverwood Capital lets us meet that demand everywhere.”

“LeapXpert saw years before most of the market that enterprise messaging would evolve from a compliance challenge into a strategic data asset. Today, the company sits at the center of one of the largest untapped sources of enterprise intelligence: trusted, governed customer conversations. As AI reshapes how organizations operate, that foundation becomes increasingly valuable, and LeapXpert is the infrastructure layer making it actionable. Our continued investment reflects our conviction in the team, the category they have created, and the scale of the opportunity ahead,” said Ricky Lai, General Partner at existing investor Portage Ventures.

LeapXpert will use the proceeds to deepen the platform’s ability to understand and act on governed conversations, accelerate growth across financial services, the public sector, and the broader enterprise market, and expand its senior leadership team.

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Between 2021 and 2022, Prince Nnamdi Ekeh, then Co-CEO of Konga Group, and fellow Oxford MBA student Zachary Schwartzman repeatedly exchanged ideas on how stablecoin technology could address the persistent inefficiencies surrounding foreign exchange across African markets.

Their shared conviction later attracted software engineer Michael Anyi, whose decade-long experience building financial infrastructure helped transform those conversations into a viable technology platform.

Today, that vision has materialized into Stabyl, a fintech company emerging from stealth with a $2.7 million pre-seed investment led by Konga.

The company is building institutional-grade foreign exchange infrastructure that enables banks, payment service providers, and financial institutions to access liquidity more efficiently while significantly reducing settlement times.

Net foreign exchange inflow into Nigeria’s economy was $6.92 billion in February 2026, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s monthly economic report. Yet, the infrastructure through which that liquidity moves is fragmented, with payment service providers, banks and large institutions relying on multiple relationships to source foreign exchange.

“Our goal is to connect these participants on one platform, creating the deepest and most accessible liquidity pool on the continent,” Schwartzman said.

How Stabyl Works

Stabyl is neither a consumer-facing app nor a cross-border payments platform. The problem it aims to solve lies at the point where financial institutions source foreign exchange before a payment can be made.

Ekeh illustrated this with the example of a large institution like Konga. He explained that when the e-commerce company needs foreign exchange, its treasury team typically reaches out to multiple banks, payment service providers, and liquidity providers to compare rates and source liquidity.

By the time approvals are received and counterparties respond, market prices may already have shifted, forcing the process to begin again or settle at a less favourable rate.

Stabyyl’s solution is to replace those fragmented bilateral negotiations with a central limit order book (CLOB), in which buyers and sellers of foreign exchange can automatically post and match orders.

“Everybody on Stabyl can create a transaction, and that transaction gets matched and queued immediately, Anyi said in a recent interview. “That entire process of having to make calls, hold transactions, figure out rates and do all this manual labour is completely removed.”

The startup said its liquidity is aggregated from participating payment service providers (PSPs) and financial institutions, and maintains its own liquidity reserves with unnamed selected partners to ensure liquidity remains available when demand exceeds natural market activity.

On Stabyl, settlement occurs across both traditional banking infrastructure and blockchain networks. For fiat transactions, Stabyl noted that it partnered with KongaPay as its official naira settlement partner. On the stablecoin settlement side, wallet infrastructure is provided by DFNS, a multi-party computation (MPC) wallet provider.

The company noted that it currently supports USDT (Tether) and USDC (USD Coin) stablecoins. Still, it maintained that its infrastructure is blockchain-agnostic, selecting networks based on cost, speed, settlement finality, and the needs of its institutional clients.

“Stabyl is connecting stablecoin rails with fiat banking rails because you can’t separate the two,” Ekeh noted. “Stablecoins are great, but they’re not great on their own. You still need to convert back to local currency.”

In practice, when a PSP deposits naira on Stabyl through KongaPay, it can then place an order at its preferred exchange rate or match one already available on the platform. Once the transaction is executed, participants can settle and withdraw in either fiat currency or stablecoins.

For institutions that want to integrate the infrastructure directly into their treasury systems, Stabyl also noted that it provides Application Programming Interface (APIs) that offer programmatic access to its liquidity pool.

The business of building the infrastructure

Many FX businesses in Nigeria make money by capitalising on the exchange rate spread, meaning they buy currencies at a low rate and sell them at a higher rate.  Rather than holding inventory and earning a spread, Stabyl said it charges a take rate on each transaction processed through the platform.

The company did not disclose the figure but said it intentionally keeps it low to incentivise institutions to push more volume through the platform.

“What we want to do is grow the liquidity pot,” Schwartzman said. “That is where we see the opportunity: by growing liquidity for clients. We believe that will allow clients to provide more liquidity, do more trades, and be more successful.”

Stabyl’s emergence from stealth comes as Nigeria’s regulatory environment for digital assets has shifted considerably in its favour. The CBN lifted its ban on cryptocurrency transactions in 2023, and the Securities and Exchange Commission followed with its Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme, bringing virtual asset service providers into a formal compliance framework.

“The regulatory direction is clear,” Schwartzman said. “We would rather build this infrastructure correctly from the start, working hand-in-hand with regulators, than arrive late to a settled market.”

In the same space, companies like Onafriq, Yellow Card and Fincra are building payment infrastructure across Africa. Stabyl, however, maintained that these companies are its potential customers, not competitors.

“We’re trying to provide liquidity to other liquidity providers, foreign exchange companies, payment service providers and financial institutions,” Schwartzman said. “So, if we look at everything as a pie, we’re not trying to gain market share from this pie. We’re creating more dough to make this a bigger pie for everyone.”

While many fintech companies are focused on facilitating payments, Stabyl is addressing the infrastructure layer that powers those payments. By simplifying access to foreign exchange liquidity and combining traditional banking rails with stablecoin technology, the company aims to remove long-standing inefficiencies that have constrained cross-border commerce across Africa.

The newly secured pre-seed funding will accelerate regulatory licensing, platform development, compliance, and market expansion. Beyond serving as the lead investor, Konga also acts as Stabyl’s official naira settlement partner through KongaPay and provides the company’s first large-scale commercial deployment.

According to Ekeh, the partnership aligns naturally with Konga’s long-term ambitions.

“Konga’s vision is to be the engine of trade and commerce in Africa, and foreign exchange liquidity is the fuel that powers that engine. Stabyl’s infrastructure is critical to bring Konga’s vision to reality,” he said.

Although Stabyl is initially focused on the NGN/USD corridor, the company has outlined plans to expand into additional African currency pairs as regulatory approvals are secured, positioning itself to become a foundational layer for the continent’s next generation of institutional financial infrastructure.

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The Anambra Startup Investment and Technology Skills Graduation Ceremony, convened on June 16, 2026 by the Solution Innovation District (SID) at The Light House in Awka, brought together 400 newly certified technology professionals, 80 funded startup founders, state officials, university representatives, and private sector partners for an event that was equal parts milestone and manifesto.

Governor Prof. Chukwuma Charles Soludo, who addressed the gathering, described the occasion not as a government programme completion but as evidence of a system working, one built on the premise that Anambra’s path to economic transformation runs through digital talent and homegrown enterprise.

Three programmes. One afternoon. A coherent strategy

The ceremony marked the graduation of three distinct but strategically connected programmes, each delivered under SID’s coordination and each representing a different layer of the state’s digital economy architecture.

The first was the Robotics Training Programme, delivered across eight cohorts in partnership with Circum Technologies under CEO Mr. Sylvester Uzoma.

Three hundred participants completed training in embedded systems, sensor programming, and industrial automation, a curriculum designed, in the words of SID CEO Chinwe Okoli, to ensure that the Fourth Industrial Revolution arrives in Anambra “not as a disruption but with our people among its creators.“

A deliberate subset of graduates was additionally trained as instructors, creating a train-the-trainer pipeline that extends the programme’s reach beyond its current cohort.

The second was the ISP Network Engineering Programme, a three-month technical curriculum developed with Connekt Broadband under CEO Mr. Ifeanyi Adirika.

One hundred participants completed a structured progression from virtual theory in Month One through laboratory practicals in Month Two to live field deployments in Month Three, covering MikroTik, Ubiquiti, and Cambium configuration, fibre splicing, OTDR testing, and real-world hybrid network design.

The third was the Anambra Startup Incubation Programme, through which 80 startups across three cohorts completed a 12-week process covering business model validation, customer discovery, financial planning, market testing, and investor readiness, each exiting with a Minimum Viable Product and, in several cases, early revenue or angel investment already secured.

‘Silicon Anambra’ – Prof. Soludo’s Vision

Speaking at the ceremony, the Governor reiterated his administration’s commitment to transforming Anambra into Africa’s Silicon Valley.

This vision, he said, is driven not by politics, but by a clear and strategic imperative to secure the future of our state and its people.

In his words:

“As the world evolves at an unprecedented pace, we must ensure that our young people are equipped with the skills and opportunities needed to thrive in the digital age.

“Through transformative initiatives such as the Solution Innovation District (SID) and the 1 Million Anambra Digital Tribe, we are building a strong foundation for a technology-driven and globally competitive economy.

“I congratulate all the graduates, including those trained in robotics and ISP network engineering, for their dedication and achievement. I also commend our partners and sponsors for their invaluable contributions to strengthening Anambra’s innovation ecosystem.

“Anambra is steadily emerging as a leading destination for technology, innovation, and digital enterprise. We remain committed to sustaining this momentum and creating opportunities for future generations. May Anambra continue to win.”

What made it structurally unusual

The event’s significance is not simply in the numbers of graduates but in the design philosophy running through all three programmes: the deliberate avoidance of training for its own sake.

ISP graduates are not entering a skills directory awaiting placement. They are being positioned as the last-mile deployment workforce for Anambra’s ongoing 2,000-kilometre statewide fibre rollout, the engineers who will take connectivity from backbone infrastructure into homes, schools, and communities that have never had reliable internet access.

“The engineers who will complete that last-mile connection are no longer being imported from other states,” Okoli said. “They are members of the Anambra Digital-Tribe, trained here at SID.”

Robotics graduates leave with practical assembly and programming experience applicable to agriculture, manufacturing, and local industry, not certificates for disciplines that have no immediate deployment context in Anambra’s current economy.

Startup founders exited incubation with validated business models and, for 80 of them, government-backed seed capital in hand.

The private sector co-investment

One of the ceremony’s most significant subplots was the degree to which private sector partners absorbed programme costs.

Circum Technologies provided all robotics training kits, covered full implementation costs, and supplied laptops to top-performing participants, at zero cost to the state or to participants.

Connekt Broadband covered every training fee and all equipment deployed across the ISP programme’s three months of instruction.

The partnership model, where government provides mandate, environment, and equity investment while private partners contribute expertise, equipment, and employment pathways, is what SID’s CEO Chinwe Okoli described as the Triple Helix: the deliberate alignment of government, private sector, and academia as one integrated ecosystem.

Connekt Broadband’s Adirika went further at the ceremony, announcing plans to establish a BPO facility at SID’s forthcoming permanent campus, creating additional employment opportunities specifically for SID graduates, a commitment that transforms the private sector’s role from training partner to downstream employer within the same ecosystem.

The moment in context

Anambra’s innovation agenda has accumulated external validation alongside its internal milestones.

The state received the Inspiring Solutions Award at the 2025 IASP World Conference in Beijing, a global acknowledgement of its innovation ecosystem development that the SID team described not as a trophy but as a mandate.

The former Government House premises, now housing SID’s operations, is being developed into a permanent innovation campus, with a new building expected to be commissioned in the near term.

For Okoli, whose office coordinated all three programmes, the ceremony was neither a conclusion nor a celebration in the conventional sense.

“Anambra is not waiting to be discovered,” she said in her address. “We are building the future ourselves.”

The post Anambra Graduates 400 Tech Professionals, Funds 80 Startups as Connekt Broadband Commits ₦1 Billion to Digital Infrastructure appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

A Flexible Financial Structure to Support Growth

The financing package comprises a USD 40 million revolving credit facility with a three-year tenor and extension option, complemented by USD 20 million in unfunded instruments.

This structure provides AXIAN Energy with enhanced financial flexibility, enabling the company to rapidly mobilize resources and seize development opportunities across its target markets.

The transaction marks a significant milestone in the acceleration of AXIAN Energy’s portfolio, equipping the Group with the financial tools required to deliver large-scale energy infrastructure projects across the continent.

A Long-Standing Pan-African Partnership

This financing agreement further strengthens the long-standing relationship between AXIAN and MCB, two pan-African institutions driven by a shared commitment to supporting infrastructure development and economic growth across Africa. Through this transaction, MCB and AXIAN Energy combine their respective expertise to advance this common ambition.

A Rapidly Expanding Renewable Energy Portfolio

Over the past two years, AXIAN Energy has significantly accelerated its growth by expanding its renewable energy project pipeline, with solar projects currently under development in Senegal, Benin, Zambia, Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar, and Burkina Faso.

Building on this momentum, AXIAN Energy now operates a portfolio comprising 350 MW of installed renewable energy capacity, supported by 77 MWh of energy storage capacity, positioning the AXIAN Group as a major contributor to Africa’s energy transition.

Continued commitment to supporting Africa’s transformation

Building on its regional footprint and strong track record in delivering complex energy and infrastructure projects across Africa, MCB played a central role in structuring a flexible and robust financing solution to support AXIAN Energy’s growth ambitions in the renewable energy sector.

This agreement further underscores MCB’s commitment to enabling impactful investments that drive sustainable economic growth and advance the energy transition agenda across the continent.

“This transaction marks a key milestone in AXIAN Energy’s growth trajectory. It provides us with the financial capacity to sustain the momentum we have built over the past two years, further strengthening our renewable energy portfolio and expanding our presence across new African markets.” Benjamin Memmi, CEO, AXIAN Energy.

“We are proud to support AXIAN Energy in structuring this facility, reaffirming our commitment to enabling transformative projects across Africa. By leveraging our sector expertise and deep understanding of regional markets, we have delivered a tailored financing solution that aligns with AXIAN’s long-term renewable energy ambitions. This partnership highlights our role as a strategic financial partner, mobilising capital towards investments that drive sustainable growth and accelerate the energy transition across the continent.” Mathieu Delteil, Global Head of Structured Finance, MCB

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This partnership marks the definitive next phase of Flutterwave’s long-term stablecoin strategy, seamlessly connecting its existing cross-border settlement capabilities with enterprise-grade digital liquidity.

By anchoring this infrastructure in the heart of the continent, Flutterwave is empowering African businesses to bypass legacy frictions, ultimately bolstering Nigeria’s role as the primary hub for global digital asset trade and driving sustained economic resilience across the African continent.

The investment is a part of Flutterwave’s Series E fundraising, which values the company at $3.2 billion, reflecting deep institutional alignment with the company’s strong financial fundamentals and long-term value proposition.

This integration is the realization of a clear, multi-year roadmap that has already seen Flutterwave systematically integrate stablecoin-powered settlement, liquidity, and remittance rails. By

embedding RLUSD into its core ecosystem, the company is finalizing a ‘stablecoin-first’ payment architecture that eliminates traditional bottlenecks.

This unified approach delivers a consistent, scalable, and compliant liquidity stack that transforms how African enterprises interact with global markets, effectively cementing a new way for digital money acceptance that is both borderless and locally grounded.

The strategic investment and partnership centers on a robust product integration designed to accelerate the adoption of digital asset infrastructure, bringing unprecedented speed, liquidity, and cost-efficiency to cross-border commerce throughout Africa.

The partnership is built on three core pillars: embedding RLUSD into Flutterwave’s payment rails and Send App remittance corridors as a primary settlement asset for high-volume channels; leveraging the XRP Ledger (XRPL) for faster transaction clearing; and deploying a unified API to seamlessly bridge Flutterwave’s domestic network with Ripple Payments, Ripple’s global payments network.

By merging traditional fiat payment methods, including local cards, mobile wallets, and bank transfers, with Ripple’s enterprise blockchain technology, the partnership eliminates the historical friction points of African cross-border payments, such as multi-day delays and inflated FX margins. Instead, businesses will experience guaranteed liquidity, predictable pricing, and real-time settlement.

“Flutterwave has built one of the most advanced payments networks in Africa, and as its infrastructure evolves, stablecoins are becoming central to that story,” said Reece Merrick, Managing Director, MEA at Ripple.

“Our investment will establish RLUSD within that infrastructure, with Flutterwave driving stablecoin flows over the XRPL and deepening its role as a settlement layer for real-world payments across the continent.

Together we also plan to bring Ripple Payments’ speed and efficiency to cross-border transactions in the region, opening up faster, lower-cost financial services to businesses and consumers at scale.”

Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, added:

“This investment marks a pivotal moment in our journey, enabling us to significantly scale our infrastructure and expand our stablecoin-enabled payments roadmap. By unlocking faster settlement and lower-cost cross-border payments, we are building a payment superhighway that connects African commerce directly to the global economy.

This partnership is a catalyst for Nigerian and African sovereignty in the digital financial age, ensuring our markets are primary participants in the global digital asset revolution.”

With this capital and a deepened product alliance, Flutterwave will accelerate its goal to bridge traditional financial systems with next-generation digital asset infrastructure.

Building on its established scale, having raised over US$500m and processed over a billion transactions worth over US$50bn, Flutterwave is positioned to unlock massive economic potential for small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and global enterprises operating across Africa.

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