![[Africa Tech Review] Duncan Mochama: Teraco completes first phase of its Cape Town hyperscale data centre campus](Images/Key Persons/DuncanMochama-IncentroAfrica.JPG)
[Africa Tech Review] Duncan Mochama: Teraco completes first phase of its Cape Town hyperscale data centre campus
There is a growing demand by enterprises and cloud providers for data centre capacity in Africa. Teraco Data Environments Proprietary Limited, Africa’s vendor-neutral data centre and interconnection services provider has been trying to address this by unveiling a number of data centers in the region. This week, the firm announced the completion of Phase 1 of CT2, its new hyperscale data centre in Brackenfell, Cape Town – the largest data centre in the Western Cape. This comes a month after it also completed the JB3 data centre facility, located within the Isando Campus in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Still in South Africa, Avantive Solutions this week announced it will now offer contact center support in South Africa through a new partnership with Outworx Contact Center.US-based cyber security firm ThreatConnect also expanded to South Africa through a strategic partnership with BUI, Microsoft’s largest Security and Consulting Partner in the country. Biometric digital authentication and automated onboarding technology solution, iiDENTIFii was named as the New or Emerging Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Partner of the Year in the Microsoft South Africa Partner of the Year 2021 Awards. Amdocs, a leading software and services provider, and Telkom Foundation, the autonomous social investment arm of South Africa’s 39% state-owned telecommunications provider, Telkom donated internet data, and tablets, to three local schools in South Africa, while Standard Bank and Pick n Pay launched Standard Bank’s EasyScan – a new service that enables customers to pay for their shopping using the Standard Bank Mobile Banking app.
Facebook also this week announced the winners of the 2021 Facebook Community Accelerator Program, highlighting the 13 Facebook community leaders Africa who will receive up to $50,000 USD in funds.
On matters telcos, MTN Uganda announced its intention to proceed with an initial public offer (IPO) and subsequently list on the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE). Eutelsat Communications and Globacom signed a multi-year, multi-Gbps wholesale capacity contract, enabling Globacom to extend its coverage to remote areas of Nigeria. The Ooredoo Group also selected Ericsson as its next-generation digital transformation partner for Business Support Systems (BSS) solutions.
African startups were also in the news this week. Sendy partnered with Mobility 54 Investment SAS, Toyota Tsusho Corporation and CFAO’s corporate venture capital arm, to acquire a significant stake in West African logistics startup Kamtar. We also published an interview with Femi Apesin the Head of Growth and Marketing at OnePipe, a Nigerian startup that has raised almost US$1 million in a pre-seed round with a plan to make API integration seamless for banks and fintech companies.
Still in Nigeria, Untapped Global, an investment company focused on emerging markets, announced a scale-up of its partnership with Paga, the mobile payment and financial services company, to finance point-of-sale devices (POS) for merchants in the country. B2B payments platform Verto also announced that it has closed $10 million in Series A funding for expansion.
In Zambia, Mastercard partnered with Zambian-based fintech company, Digital PayGo, to launch a new merchant mobile payments solution for SMEs. Development Partners International (DPI), a premier investment firm focused on Africa this week also announced that it has raised $900m in its third round of funding. DPI's African Development Partners III Fund (ADP III) exceeded its US$800 million target with an additional US$250m of dedicated co-investment capital to invest in different companies in Africa.
Other top highlights include Olusegun “Segun” Ogunsanya, officially taken over as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer for Airtel Africa, and MwareTV, a leading cloud-based multi-tenant platform, revealed the availability to telco operators and internet service providers (ISPs) in Africa of a new, end-to-end TV solution.
Duncan Mochama is the solutions consultant at Incentro Africa.
