CutStruct Technology Raises $600k for B2B Procurement Solution, LiveVend
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CutStruct Technology, a platform that digitises the construction process for efficiency, has raised $600,000 ina pre-seed funding led by Zedcrest Capital, DFS Labs, Lofty Inc and Kola Aina of Ventures Platform to build its premier product, LiveVend.
LiveVend is a construction procurement platform that allows buyers (real estate developers, contractors, etc.) to engage vetted vendors on a simple and transparent platform while enjoying other services such as transportation, goods-in-transit insurance and trade credit which is offered by Sterling Banks’ buy-now, pay-later product – Specta for Business.
According to two second-time founders, John Oamen and Tayo Odunsi, LiveVend, the company’s flagship product, has onboarded over 100 vendors and major construction materials manufacturers.
In a statement, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) CutStruct, John Oamen, described the platform as quite simple.
“We connect construction vendors to buyers. All the complex work takes place in the background,” stated Oamen. “The vendor vetting, sorting out the appropriate coordination, ensuring the goods are insured, guaranteeing fulfilment, and securing financing – these are the complex things we do in the background while our users engage with a simple platform.”
On his part, the Chief Strategy Officer, Tayo Odunsi, explained that the platform is free for buyers. They can also access weekly pricing data of major building materials across major locations in the company’s beachhead market, Nigeria.
To create the LiveVend solution, CutStruct partnered with solution providers, which include Axa Mansard for insurance, Sterling Bank for construction materials financing, Apel Trustees for escrow service, VerifyMe for vendor verification and Greychapel Legal for all legal and deal structuring.
Meta Announces Layoffs of 11,000 Staff
Facebook parent Meta recently announced that it would cut more than 11,000 workers, or 13 per cent of staff.
This came at a time when tech giants that added employees by the tens of thousands through the pandemic are now retrenching.
In a statement, Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg apologised to employees and also admitted that he had underestimated how much revenue would plunge due to increased competition and the slumping digital-ad market.
Meta’s layoffs followed similar cuts at Twitter, Lyft and other tech firms. Meta’s stock has plunged more than 70 per cent this year as its troubled, expensive shift toward metaverse technology rattles investors.
“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I am especially sorry to those impacted,” said Zuckerberg.
The layoffs will impact employees in every organisation under Meta’s wings, such as Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, as well as its virtual reality and augmented reality arm Reality Labs.
The meta chief says layoffs are a “last resort.” Several other measures are also in the works, including scaling back budgets, reducing benefits, shrinking its real estate footprint, and making the AI infrastructure more efficient.
Bloc Partners SMEDAN to Provide Fintech Services to SMEs
Bloc, a finTech infrastructure company, has partnered with the Small & Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to provide fintech services to SMEs in Nigeria.
Following our partnership with SMEDAN, we look forward to onboarding SMEs and introducing them to the extraordinary possibilities they can achieve with FinTech. Bloc will provide easy access to financial services — digital banking, bill payment, lending, loyalty cards management, social commerce, POS issuance, and so much more — for SMEs who want to use fintech to unlock more value for themselves and their customers, said Bloc in a statement.
On their part, the Director-General, SMEDAN, through the corporate affairs department, explained they were confident the partnership with Bloc and the developed platform would benefit the SMEs who collaborate with them by simplifying access to financial services and FinTech infrastructure provided via Bloc.
“With over 4,000,000 businesses registered on our database, our success as an agency is measured by how much we can do for them, and we believe we have reaffirmed our commitment to innovation via our partnership with Bloc,” it said.
The Chief Business Development Officer, Bloc, Kingsley Ikart, explained that “as an infrastructure company, we believe that this partnership also provides a new entry point for start-ups that collaborate with us to extend their product offerings and services to SMEs who may not know that they exist.”
Ikart added, “This is a win-win for us, our customers and SMEDAN; small and medium businesses can now leverage the power of FinTech infrastructure, products, and services to improve how they do business and offer the best customer experience.”
Telegram Releases New Feature Allowing Subscribers to Sell Usernames
Instant messaging app Telegram has launched a new feature to allow users to buy and sell short, recognisable usernames for personal accounts, public groups, and channels.
The new update announced on Telegram’s official page commenced an auction for the best usernames on Fragment, a free collectible trading platform. With this new feature, Telegram usernames have become digital assets that can be secured and sold between parties.
According to the platform’s unveiling note, ownership of the collectible usernames is secured in the immutable ledger of TON, a fast and scalable blockchain network. Interestingly, the new feature allows owners to add multiple username aliases to their accounts, group, or channel.
Telegram’s new update marks a milestone in Web3 adoption, and users can now secure their usernames with blockchain.
To acquire usernames on Telegram, buyers are to visit Fragment, search for their desired username and click on auction, provided the username is still available. Buyers will then be redirected to a page which shows the highest bid along with the bid step and minimum bid.
You can purchase a collectible username by exchanging it with a special currency called Toncoin – the amount you need will depend on the current highest bid, just like any other auction.
To use this currency, you must first create a secure wallet to store it, deposit new funds, and connect it to Fragment.
Google Launches Tool to Help People Prepare for Interviews
Google has launched Interview Warmup, a new tool that uses artificial intelligence to help users practice answering job interview questions in various fields.
Part of the Grow with Google and Career Certification initiatives, it asks common interview questions and transcribes answers in real time.
Originally intended to help Google Career Certificate learners prepare for job searching, Interview Warmup is now open to anyone.
Using voice-to-text or the keyboard, users can practise answering questions commonly asked in interviews and job-specific ones picked by an expert in that field.
Interview Warmup has field-focused questions for information analytics, e-commerce, IT help, undertaking administration, UX design or basic.
Google does not save audio or the transcripts from interview sessions, though users can manually copy or download a transcript upon completion. This feature is currently only available in the United States.
Since Interview Warmup was designed for Google Career Certificates learners, you may run into specific questions for each certificate. However, the tool is available for everyone and has frequent questions applicable to many fields.
More than 70,000 people have earned a certificate, and 75 per cent of graduates report positive career impacts within six months of graduating, Google says.
Tech Personality of The Week
Adora Nwodo
This week’s tech personality is Adora Nwodo.
Nwodo is a software engineer at Microsoft currently building Mixed Reality on the Cloud. She is also a published author, public speaker, and tech content creator.
In 2018, she started adorahack.com, where she shares articles on software engineering, productivity, and career growth. The next year, she created a YouTube channel called AdoraHack, where she shares tech content that could be useful to software developers.
Adora is the cofounder of unstack, an open source-based conference for tech talents in Africa and around the world, where she focuses on hands-on workshops and world-class talks that empower people to learn. She serves as the Vice President of the Nigerian chapter of the Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Association (VRARA), where she works alongside others to create more awareness for Virtual and Augmented Reality Technologies.
In February 2021, Adora won the Young CISO Network Excellence in Disruptive Technology, Cloud and Embedded Device Security Award for her work in building and advocating for Disruptive Technology on the Cloud.
In October 2021, she released her first book, ‘Cloud Engineering for Beginners’, which introduces people to the concept of cloud computing, viable career paths in cloud engineering and how to navigate a cloud engineering career.
