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Kudu Ventures Launches $1m Investment Fund

Sep 28 , 2019

Kudu Ventures, a United States-based venture capital firm, announced a female-focused investment fund. Kudu Ventures will invest one million dollars for Kudu Women, which will be led by Betelhem Dessie, project manager for iCog Anyone Can Code. The project is dedicated to investing the one million dollars in over 100 homegrown female startups within the next two years in East Africa. There are only a few female tech entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, which has population of over 50 million women, according to Noel Daniel, co-founder and managing director of Kudu Ventures. Recently, Kudu Ventures allocated 100 million Br for startups, of which five million Birr will go to iCog Labs to support the acceleration programme.

Radar

Electricity Bills Get the VAT Jolt

The new Value Added Tax (VAT) has begun implementation on electricity consumption and various service fees affecting customers who use more than 200 kilowatt hours of electricity per month. Based on a directive from the Ministry of Finance, the tax will be applied to the excess amount of electricity consumption above 200 kilowatt hours. The Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU) began implementing the VAT on bills starting from November though both prepaid and postpaid customers will have to pay V...

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Gadaa Bank Expands Reach, Faces Lending Constraints

Gadaa Bank closed its first full fiscal year of operations with a net profit of 90.2 million Br. The 18-month-old Bank held its annual general assembly at Millenium Hall on Africa Avenue last week where the board announced that during the year, the Bank opened 15 branches and now has 85 operational branches. “Due to recently enacted policy measures on credit by NBE and unmet resource mobilization during the fiscal year, the Bank was unable to make loan disbursements,” stated Wolde...

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Oromia Bank's Branch Expansion Weighs on Profits

Oromia Bank reported a 47pc decline in net profit to take in 840.9 million Br for the past fiscal year. Interest income grew by 21pc to reach 7.19 billion Br while personnel expense grew by 36pc to hit 3.16 billion Br. The opening of 72 new branches, bringing the total to 575, led to a four percent growth of deposits to 56.4 billion Br. The profits are “unsatisfactory against our ambitious moves,” said Assefa Seme (PhD), board chairperson. “The deviation is primarily attributed to our aggr...

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