Technology

VC firm TLcom Capital closed its Tide Africa Fund at $71 million in February, and announced plans to invest in 12 startups over the next 18 months.

The group — with offices in London, Lagos and Nairobi — is looking for tech-enabled, revenue-driven ventures in Africa from seed-stage to Series B, according to TLcom Managing PartnerMaurizio Caio.

He told TechCrunch the fund was somewhat agnostic on startup sectors, but was leaning toward infrastructure logistics ventures versus consumer finance companies.

On geographic scope, TLcom Capital will focus primarily on startups in Africabig-three tech hubs — Nigeria,Kenya and South Africa — but is also eyeing rising markets, such as Ethiopia.

TLcomcurrent Africa portfolio includes Nigerian trucking logistics venture Kobo360, Kenya&sTwiga Foods (a B2B food supply-chain company) and tech-talent accelerator Andela.

Both of these companies have gone on to expand in Africa and receive subsequent investment by U.S. investment bank,Goldman Sachs.

For those startups that wish to pitch to TLcom Capital, Caio encouraged founders to contact one of the fundpartners and share a value proposition. &If itsomething we find vaguely interesting, we&ll make a decision,& he said.

One $50 million round wasn&t enough for South AfricaJumo, so the fintech firm raised another — $55 million — in February, backed by Goldman Sachs, which led the Cape Town based company$52 million round back in 2018.

&This fresh investment comes from new and existing…investors includingGoldman Sachs,Odey Asset Management and LeapFrog Investments,& Jumo said in a statement — though Goldman told TechCrunch its participation in this weekround isn&t confirmed.

After the latest haul, Jumo has raised $146 million in capital, according toCrunchbase.

Founded in 2015, the venture offers a full tech stack for partners to build savings, lending and insurance products for customers in emerging markets.

Jumo is active in six markets and plans to expand to two new countries in Africa (Nigeria and Ivory Coast) and two in Asia (Bangladesh and India).

The companyproducts have disbursed more than $1 billion in loans and served over 15 million people and small businesses, according to Jumo data.

Jumo joins a growing list of African digital-finance startups raising big money from outside investors and expanding abroad. A $200 million investment by Visa in 2019 catapulted Nigerian payments firmInterswitchto unicorn status, the same year the company launched its Verge card product on Discoverglobal network.

Amazon Web Serviceshas entered a partnership withSafaricom— Kenyalargest telco, ISP and mobile payment provider — in a collaboration that could spell competition between American cloud providers in Africa.

In a statement toTechCrunch,the East African company framed the arrangement as a &strategic agreement& wherebySafaricomwill sell AWS services (primarily cloud) to its East Africa customer network.

Safaricom — whose products include thefamedM-Pesamobile money product — will also become the first Advanced Consulting Partner for the AWS partner network in East Africa.

Partnering with Safaricom plugs AWS into the network of one of East Africamost prominent digital companies.

Safaricom, led primarily by its M-Pesa mobile money product, holds remarkable dominance in Kenya, Africasixth largest economy. M-Pesa has 20.5 million customers across a network of 176,000 agents and generates around one-fourth of Safaricom≈ $2.2 billion annual revenues (2018).

M-Pesa has 80% of Kenyamobile money agent network, 82% of the countryactive mobile-money subscribers and transfers 80% of Kenya mobile-money transactions, per the latest sector statistics.

A number of Safaricomclients (including those it provides payments and internet services to) are companies, SMEs and startups.

The Safaricom-AWS partnership points to an emerging competition between American cloud service providers to scale in Africa by leveraging networks of local partners.

The most obvious rival to the AWS-Safaricom strategic agreement is theMicrosoft-Liquid Telecom collaboration. Since 2017, Microsoft has partnered with the Southern African digital infrastructure company to grow MicrosoftAWS competitor product — Azure — and offer cloud services to the continentstartups and established businesses.

More Africa-related stories @TechCrunch

• These specialized Africa VC funds are welcoming co-investors
• After VCs spend millions Nigeria restricts ride-hail motorbike taxis
• Africa e-tailer Jumia reports first full-year results post NYSE IPO
• Sokowatch raises $14M to digitize Africainformal B2B supply-chain
• African crowdsolving startup Zindi scales 10,000 data scientists

African tech around the ‘net

• Ethiopian ed-tech company Gebeya raises $2m funding round
• Nigerian crypto platform Bitfxt lands $15m from UK investors, Payitup parent company

Honeywell has announced that it will release the world's most powerful quantum computer with a quantum volume of at least 64 within the next three months.

The company also revealed that it has made strategic investments in two quantum computing software providers and that it will be partnering with JPMorgan Chase to develop quantum computing

Managed by Q co-founder Dan Teran had a plan. After selling his office management company to WeWork last year for a tidy $220 million — $100 million in cash and the rest in stock — he wanted to buy it back when WeWork decided to sell it off along with several other properties following its management shake-up last fall.

According to Bloomberg originally — and confirmed by our sources — Teran, who was employed by WeWork for five months after the sale as its head of corporate development and ventures — looked to put together a package to acquire the company beginning in December. To do so would require a substantial sum, however — enough to both buy the company, plus working capital to maintain its current staff and support its customers.

In the end, SoftBank-controlled WeWork apparently better liked the proposal of an outside bidder, and thatEden, a five-year-old company that competes directly with Managed by Q.

At least, Eden is confirming today that it has successfully bid $25 million in cash for Managed by Q, whose technology and accounts and an untold number of employees will also be incorporated into its offerings.

The money comes from a new, $29 million round that JLL, the commercial real estate services giant, just led for Eden in a round that also includes participation from the Y Combinator Continuity Fund and individual investors.

The new round is separate from a $25 million round that Eden closed in November and that was led by Reshape, with participation from Fifth Wall Ventures, Mitsui Fudosan, RXR Realty, Thor Equities and Bessemer Venture Partners, along with numerous other firms.

Said Eden CEO Joe Du Bey in an emailed statement to us: &Eden is proud to partner with Managed By Q to further our mission of creating a better place to work, for everyone. Managed By Qamazing customers, service vendors, team, and product makes it a huge win-win for all stakeholders. JLL leading the round and becoming a strategic partner to Eden is also exciting and will further accelerate our growth as we work to better serve the SMB category together.&

Teran did not respond to a separate press request yesterday, but if hefrustrated by the outcome, he still has that sale last year to WeWork to celebrate.

In the meantime, Eden — which launched in 2015 as on-demand tech repair and support service but eventually found itself in the same office management business as Managed by Q (both connect offices with third-party providers) — has now consolidated its market share, and obviously for a dramatically better price than WeWork paid less than a year ago.

The company, which until today employed roughly 70 people, was already active in 25 markets as of late November, including Berlin and London, and it featured more than 2,000 service providers on its platform. Its acquisition of Managed by Q takes it that much further.

We learned just yesterday that Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition could be coming soon to the PC version of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. But we didn't expect 'soon' would mean 'a day later.' Yet, in a surprise launch, the remaster of the original Halo is now available on Steam, the Microsoft Store, and Xbox Game Pass.

Xbox Game Pass

HuluLive TV service, which allows users to watch both live and on-demand programming, including Hulu Originals, has finally arrived on the PlayStation 4 — close to three years after the service first debuted. The launch closes a significant hole in Huluofferings, as its Live TV service was already available across nearly all other major platforms, including Apple TV (4th gen.), Amazon Fire TV devices, Echo Show, Roku devices, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, Windows 10, web, Chromecasts and select TVs from LG, Vizio and Samsung.

Hulu didn&t offer an explanation for what took so long, but itnot the only live TV streaming service to not be available on PS4. Dish-owned Sling TV doesn&t include support for PS4, nor does AT-T TV NOW. However, Hulutop rival YouTube TV will stream on Sonygame console.

Consoles don&t tend to be a top priority for streaming TV services, as there are many other platforms that are used more often for streaming. In the U.S., for example, Roku is ahead of rivals like Apple and Amazon, according to eMarketer, in terms of media player usage. And letnot forget that even Sonyown PlayStation Vue wasn&t able to successfully tap into the sizable PlayStation user base in order to make its live TV service work. PlayStation Vue shut down for good in January.

Hulu says PS4 owners who already stream through the existing Hulu app for the standard service will now be able to switch to the Hulu + Live TV service through their account settings on Hulu.com in order to access it from their console. Customers who already subscribe to Hulu + Live TV will now be able to watch the live channels the next time they launch their Hulu app on the PlayStation 4.

The Live TV service offers a range of live TV channels, including ESPN, FOX, NBC and ABC, among others.

Hulu is now majority-owned by Disney, following Disney&sacquisition of 21st Century Foxand itssubsequent deal with NBCU that gave it operational control. Since Disney took over, it has made several major changes, including a reorg that saw the departure of Hulu CEO Randy Freer followed by the promotion of Huluchief marketing officer Kelly Campbell to president. Yesterday, Hulu rolled out a new FX hub on the service, featuring more than 40 shows and originals. FX was another property that came in through the acquisition, in addition to Foxstake in Hulu.

Disney announced in December that Hulu with Live TV had grown to 3.2 million subscribers, while its total Hulu subscriber base was 30.4 million. Disney+ — which is available on PS4 — was close behind, with 26.5 million subscribers.

In an effort to help out businesses affected by the recent coronavirus outbreak, Cisco has added additional features to its free Webex accounts and the company is also offering free 90-day business licenses.

While some companies are requiring their employees to work remotely after traveling internationally, others such as Twitter have asked all