Tech News Playlist: Nigerian Founder is Back, Retail Startup Wins Ignite 2022

Welcome to Tech News Playlist, a recap of the latest news, trends, products, and solutions from the most sought-after tech startups in the industry. For all things business and tech, we’ve got you covered.

Today’s series of news includes the foundation of Venture Studio by a Nigerian entrepreneur, the startup that won the 2022 Startup World Cup, as well as the latest updates on aerospace, cybersecurity, and crypto.

Tech News Playlist brings you into the know with the fast-paced digital space from all corners of the industry – all in one platform. We’re giving you the latest updates, including news, funding announcements, product launches, events, campaigns, and more.

Leading Stories

Nigerian Serial Entrepreneur Launches Venture Studio

Opeyemi Awoyemi, one of Nigeria’s serial entrepreneurs, has founded Fast Forward Venture Studio, which builds and backs companies to unlock prosperity in Africa via cutting-edge technology. He and his co-founder Omolara Awoyemi launched this operational expertise to scale a venture studio, a rare move, as most Africans either launch syndicates or venture capital funds post.

Retail Tech Startup Wins Ignite 2022

Packworks, a retail tech startup that provides a B2B platform for neighborhood store owners, has won the top prize at the Ignite 2022’s Startup World Cup (SWX) x Wildfire Pitch competition. The company will represent the Philippines at the 2023 SWC Grand Finale of Pegasus Tech Ventures and compete for the $1 million prize.

Daily News

AeroSpace

Space Force to be the first customer of new space gas station

Colorado-based space startup Orbit Fab is set to deliver hydrazine propellant to the Space Force satellite. This transpired after Orbit Fab won a $13.3 million USSF 4-year-contract to service geostationary (GEO) military satellites, to begin in 2025.

Cybersecurity

Microsoft launches Defender Cloud Security Posture Management and Defender for DevOps

Microsoft introduces new security services to protect code in the cloud: Defender Cloud Security Posture Management and Defender for DevOps. It aims to manage software development and runtime security across multi-cloud, multiple-pipeline environments.

Crypto

Magic Square builds a web3-friendly app store for developers

Nascent startup Magic Square aims to help developers list projects that are vetted by the community. 250,000 users have signed up to test its upcoming beta version. This traction is an aftermath of Apple’s 30% tech tax on developers, which antagonized web3 startups, with major NFT marketplaces like OpenSea and Magic Eden noticeably only allowing users to browse listings on their iPhone apps without enabling trading to avoid the steep fees.

AI

Swiss startup Jua launches AI-powered weather predictor

Zurich-based tech startup Jua introduces a new AI-powered platform to give meteorologists more data-driven insights to understand current uncontrollable weather conditions and patterns. This weather prediction model updates every 15 minutes and predicts more than 15 weather-based parameters, which include air pressure, wind direction, wind speed, and precipitation, improving extreme weather forecasts.

Funding

Stability AI Raises $101 Million in Funding Round

Stability AI announced that it raised $101 million in a funding round headed by Coatue and Lightspeed Venture Partners and O’Shaughnessy Ventures LLC. The company is behind the development of Dance Diffusion and Stable Diffusion, open-source music, and image-generating systems.