Craft Silicon, the parent company of Kenya’s ride-hailing startup, Little has doled out $3 million to expand the transport service. Little is planning to expand the ride-hailing service to West Africa and will use the fund to foster the app’s pilot program in Accra, the capital city of Ghana.

The Craft Silicon and Little CEO, Kamal Budhabatti said the move is necessary if the company has to be a key player in Africa.

“We have already started testing the product in Accra. Since travel may be an issue, we are taking an approach of opening a new city without visiting there. We would recruit drivers online, provide training online. West Africa is a large market, and if Little has to be a key player in Africa, we need to be present there in addition to East Africa. Hence the march towards West Africa,” he said.

COVID-19 pandemic has forced Little to go virtual as intra-African movement is still restricted. But Budhabatti said the company will be recruiting staff to augment the virtual operations.

“Accra being a big city like Nairobi, having fully virtual operations is not recommended. So we would be recruiting some staff there, and interviews are underway. But we are going to try and make as much as possible to operate virtually keeping in mind the new normal,” he said.

Little is operational in four African countries; Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. Ghana will be its first West African country of operation and will bring its number of countries to five.

Little said last year it is seeking to raise $50 million from investors to expand its services in Africa. The company wishes to conquer the African continent, leveraging on countries where Uber and Bolt aren’t dominant.

In the other news, VARL, a leading South Africa’s cryptocurrency firm, said it has raised $3.4 million to advance the adoption of digital currency.

The Series A equity round of funding was led by 100x Ventures, (the investment arm of 100x Group who are behind cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform BitMex), with participation from 4DiCapital and FNB CEO Michael Jordan and US-based company Bittrex.

Founded in 2018, VALR was established to bridge the gap between the traditional financial system and the new world of cryptocurrencies. In June 2019, VALR launched bitcoin-rand trading and has since grown to become one of South Africa’s bitcoin trading platforms.

The company said it offers over 40,000 of customers the ability to buy and sell more than 50 digital currencies including bitcoin and ethereum at the cheapest cost in the market.

VALR cofounder and CEO Farzam Ehsani said the company has recorded phenomenal growth despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I am very grateful that despite the challenging global COVID-19 pandemic that has adversely affected many businesses around the world, VALR has been able to raise funds and partner with a set of world-class investors, adding to our already distinguished group of shareholders,” he said.

VALR will use the proceeds from the capital raised to build new products and services, expand into new territories, and continue to build its team of professionals, particularly in the technology, regulatory and compliance, and client service domains.

The cofounder and CEO, 100x Group, Arthur Hayes said they are backing VALR because they believe it is well placed for future growth.

“South Africa has an incredibly exciting and fast-growing cryptocurrency ecosystem, and we believe VALR is well-placed to capitalize on future growth of bitcoin trading. In VALR we’re backing not only a successful early stage business, but a management team with the ability to scale operations significantly,” he said.

In July 2018, VALR raised a R20 million equity and has further raised R59 million till date.

Justin Stanford, confounding General partner at 4Di Capital said VALR presents them with lucrative opportunities for investment in the crypto ecosystem.

“At 4Di we have been looking for appropriate investment in the crypto sector for some years, and we are delighted to be backing such a high quality business and management team.

“VARL has shown great integrity and leadership coupled with impressive growth, and delivers a mature, institutional-grade offering to the local market. This is becoming a necessary component in all markets the world over, as the crypto-asset ecosystem becomes increasingly more accepted and integrated into the global financial system,” he said.

African startups keep attracting investors despite the pandemic, and South Africa and Kenya are taking the lead.

On Wednesday, the US State Department made known its decision to close the Chinese consulate in Houston, a move that has added embers to the already burning tension between the two countries.

The US said the latest move has been to protect American intellectual property and the private information of American citizens.

Morgan Ortagus, the State Department spokesperson said the US will not condone the People’s Republic of China’s violations of her sovereignty and intimidation of her people, citing the Vienna Convention which says diplomats must “respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State” and “have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.”

She said Washington has stood up to China on unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior, and will continue to do so.

In response, China promised to retaliate if the decision is not reversed. The Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said of the US at a daily news briefing that “the unilateral closure of China’s consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China.”

Recent events have compounded the relationship between Beijing and Washington, which include the trade conflict, the coronavirus pandemic, intellectual theft, spying accusations, Hong Kong and the rights abuse of Uighur Muslims.

The US said the embassy in Houston was shut down because some Chinese nationals were carrying out spying operations on American technology from there.

In retaliation, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday that the US diplomats in China have been notified that Beijing was revoking the license for the Chengdu consulate located in southwest China. The Ministry accused the United States of stoking a fresh conflict that cannot go unanswered because they “seriously violated international law and the basic norms of international relations,” and therefore it ordered the shutdown of the Chengdu consulate.

“The current situation between China and the United States is something China does not want to see, and the responsibility rests entirely with the United States. We once again urge the US to immediately revoke the erroneous decision to create necessary conditions for the return of bilateral relations to normal,” the Ministry said.

Just like the US, Wenbin accused the staff in the Chengdu consulate “of interfering in China’s internal affairs and harming China’s national security interests.”

The US has five consulates in mainland China, according to its website; they are in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenyang and Wuhan.

But the Wuhan consulate had been closed earlier due to coronavirus, and has remained closed because Chinese authorities insist that US diplomats must undergo coronavirus tests to be allowed to work in the city once again, a move seen by Washington as an attempt by China to collect the DNA of the diplomats.

The closure of Chengdu consulate will hurt the US because it is the capital of China’s southwest Sichuan province, which is an important diplomatic outpost for the US, as it covers a vast region of China, including the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

It means two out of the five US consulate offices in China have been closed. But president Trump said he may be closing more Chinese consulates in the United States over spying activities.

As the tension escalates, it touches more areas. On Friday, the US State Department issued a warning to Americans in China about “heightened risk of arbitrary detention.”

According to the notice, “US citizens may be subjected to prolonged interrogations and extended detention for reasons related to ‘state security.’”

Recently, accusations against China by US officials have heightened. The US Secretary of States Mike Pompeo has been on a mission to persuade European allies to limit their ties with China on accusation that they steal intellectual property and take it back to their country.

Pompeo said that past US policies have empowered China to take advantage of the United States economically.

“As president Trump has made very clear, we need a strategy that protects the American economy and indeed our way of life. The free world must triumph over this new tyranny. The truth is that our policies – and those of other free nations – resurrected China’s failing economy, only to Beijing bite the international hands that were feeding it. We opened our arms to Chinese citizens, only to see the Chinese Communist Party exploit our free and open society,” he said.

As the tension between the world’s largest economies deteriorates and draws close to a cold war, tech companies of Chinese origin are likely going to feel the impact more.

Pompeo and a host of US lawmakers have been campaigning to ban TikTok and other Chinese apps, a treatment that Huawei received last year. The United States believes that Western democracy enabled China to exert global dominance, especially in tech and it needs to be put back in its place.