Via CNN, a report on Russia’s alleged plundering of gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in Ukraine: Days after Moscow launched its bloody war on Ukraine, a Russian cargo plane stood on a Khartoum runway, a strip of tarmac surrounded by red-orange sand. The aircraft’s manifest stated it was loaded with cookies. Sudan rarely, […]
Read more »Via Tech Crunch, a report on Sudanese fintech company Bloom, which recently raised US$6.5M backed by Y Combinator, GFC, and Visa: Bloom, a Sudan-based fintech that offers a high-yield savings account and adjacent digital banking services, has raised a $6.5 million seed round. This investment is coming after the startup’s undisclosed pre-seed round last year. […]
Read more »Via Foreign Policy, an article on Russia’s scuttled plans for a Red Sea Naval Base in Sudan: Russia’s hopes of establishing a naval base at Port Sudan on the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest waterways, have run aground, according to two U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to Foreign Policy on condition of anonymity. U.S. officials have […]
Read more »Courtesy of The New York Times, a report on how the shadowy network known as the Wagner Group is getting rich in Sudan while helping the military to crush a democracy movement: In a scorched, gold-rich area 200 miles north of the Sudanese capital, where fortunes spring from desert-hewn rock, a mysterious foreign operator dominates the […]
Read more »Via Quartz, a report that Sudan has its first Y Combinator startup: When the demo day for Y Combinator’s winter cohort of startups begins later this month, Bloom will put Sudan on the American accelerator’s famed map for the first time. The barely year-old company was founded by Ahmed Ismail, a Sudanese former Barclays investment bank […]
Read more »Via Impact Alpha, an article on Sudan’s first foreign venture capital investment in 30 years – $5 million for Alsoug.com: Macroeconomic, political and currency risks can make investors wary of infrastructure and private equity in Africa. Sudan, which is open for investment after the Trump administration removed Sudan from the list of terrorist states last year. Sudan was […]
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