The French Tech Ticket is a program designed for entrepreneurs from all over the world who want to create their startups in France.

It is a one year program by the French government to attract gifted and ambitious individuals from all around the world and help them set up and develop their startup in France.
More than just a startup visa, this 12-month program offers end to end support on the journey from early stage start-up to successful business – from financial support and training to first customer acquisition.
Selected entrepreneurs and projects will work closely in one of the 41 top French partner incubators providing among others mentoring, fundraising strategy, expert advice and pitch practice.

In January 2017, 70 teams will be selected and welcomed to France to start the program.

Those who join the program will receive various benefits which include:

Across Africa, banking is being redesigned. Technology has emerged as a competitive weapon in driving operational excellence and superior service quality. While the banks compete among themselves, they face existential threats from amalgam of entities, not necessarily possessing bank licenses.

Continue reading at HBR.

Read page 9 of Kinnevik market report to understand the state of Konga.com

Konga, founded in 2012, is one of the largest general merchandise marketplaces in Nigeria and ranks as one of the top ten websites in the country.

KongaPay, Konga’s payment solution, introduced ”me-Commerce”, a feature providing a gateway for customers and entrepreneurs to sell products locally and internationally. It gives users a safe and seamless payment experience via mobile without the need for bank transfers

Konga’s push towards mobile continued to increase with over 80% of visitors from the app and mobile web

Effcient marketing, focused on the most attractive channels, resulted in all-time high conversion rates and acquisition of high quality customers

From the data on the investor’s report, it seems Konga is worth only $34 million.

This is indeed troubling for all the noise, Konga is just valued at $34 million only. Its major competitor, Jumia, has the parent valued close to $1 billion.

Konga has raised nearly $78 million and it has a valuation of $34 million which means that the company is seriously under-performing. E-commerce is not a great business in Africa  and will take time to be profitable. The same trajectory shown by Konga is similar to what Jumia has recorded – lots of losses.

Hope you saw that Konga has only 184,000 active customers. That is in a country of 173 million people. It does not look really good.

Facebook extended its impressive winning streak. The social media behemoth demolished quarterly revenue and profit expectations, as daily users hit 1.1 billion and its dominance of mobile advertising grew. Earnings nearly tripled, even as spending on R&D increased sharply.

Facebook now has 1.71 billion monthly users, up from 1.65 billion in the prior quarter. Analysts had estimated 1.69 billion. Daily users rose to 1.13 billion.The company now makes 84 percent of its advertising revenue from mobile. Facebook shares rose 5 percent in extended trading. The company had gained 1.8 percent to $123.34 at the close in New York, and has climbed 18 percent so far this year.

The constant stream of revenue also allows Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to ramp up his investment in more futuristic initiatives, such as virtual reality and connecting the world to the Internet — steps that are unlikely to bring in profit for many years.

Quantopian  is having a great week with Point72 Ventures.

The Boston-based firm has 85,000 “members,” who create and test algorithms on its website. Algorithm creators can earn money based on the returns their investment strategies receives. The five-year-old startup touts users that are students, finance professionals, and scientists coming from 180 countries.

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