rakes

Transportation, Venture

Bluewhite Secures $39 Million for Versatile Tractor-Ready Robots-as-a-Service

Agriculture has a long heritage of being constantly disrupted by technology, an evolution that has continued to play out until today. Bluewhite will also be using the funding to continue expanding in its current markets, and to break ground in new ones. “Labor, labor, labor: it is the biggest need,” he said in an interview. Tractors fitted with Bluewhite’s robots can still be operated by humans in situations where they might still need to be. Bluewhite cites forecasts from researchers that project a market worth $11.5 billion for autonomous tractors by 2030.

Kira Kim
January 23, 2024

Enterprise, Venture

“Former Metaswitch Chief Executive John Lazar Joins Copia Board as Kenyan E-Commerce Enterprise Rakes in $20 Million to Drive Profitability”

Kenyan e-commerce and fintech platform for mass market consumers Copia Global has appointed John Lazar, the ex-CEO of Metaswitch, a Microsoft subsidiary, to its board off the back of $20 million in new funding. Without the capital to get it all the way to profitability, it made sense to hold off there. Both companies have encountered headwinds that question the sustainability of B2C e-commerce in Africa even though they operate different e-commerce models. However, both platforms are confronted with distinct objectives: Copia strives to achieve profitability in a single market, Kenya, while Jumia has to battle it out across 11 markets. The founder and chairman noted that once the e-commerce company achieves profitability in the East African market, it plans to extend operations to 14 other countries it has strategically mapped out.