Sudanese Fintech Blooms
July 22nd, 2022
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 »Russia’s Dreams of a Red Sea Naval Base Are Scuttled—for Now
July 16th, 2022
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 »‘From Russia With Love’: A Putin Ally Mines Gold and Plays Favorites in Sudan
June 6th, 2022
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 »Sudan’s First Y Combinator Start Up
March 13th, 2022
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 »Sudan’s First Foreign Venture Capital Investment In 30 Years
October 19th, 2021
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 […]
Read more »Restoring Sudan’s Rail Network
August 15th, 2021
Via The Telegraph, an article on efforts to restore Africa’s third-largest train network – in Sudan – to its former glory which could throw a vital lifeline to millions: Sitting next to the colonial British railway director’s old residence on the banks of the Nile River, the general manager of the Sudanese Railways Corporation chuckles to […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.