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E-Business

Curacel Secures $3M Seed Funding to Power New Insurance Experiences

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Curacel, Africa’s leading insurance infrastructure provider, has raised $3 million in seed funding to roll out new technology solutions designed to power the next generation of insurance experiences in Africa. The new funding will also support the company’s expansion into North Africa.

The seed funding round included Tencent, AAF Management (invested in Sure, Flutterwave), Elefund (invested in Robinhood, Pie Insurance and Sure), Blue Point Capital Partners,  Pioneer Fund, Olive Tree Capital and Y Combinator, as well as James Park (CEO of Fitbit), Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola (CEO of Flutterwave), Babs Ogundeyi (CEO of Kuda) and other strategic investors. Top executives from Covergenius, Zopper and Pie Insurance will also join Curacel’s advisory board as part of the round.

The combination of a fast-growing population, a rising middle class and increasing access to financial services across the continent means more Africans have the opportunity to experience a wider range of products and services.

From buying cars to accessing accommodation, these experiences come with various risks and insurance companies play a huge role in making it easier to manage the risks and enjoy these experiences with confidence.

However, with insurance penetration across the continent still under 3 percent, many Africans are having to take on these entirely by themselves.

At the same time, the paper-based approach and antiquated technology that powers many insurers’ processes is time-consuming, unduly expensive and prone to fraud and waste.

African insurers lose more than $12 billion per year to fraudulent, wasteful and abusive claims, which makes them understandably cautious and risk-averse with the customer they choose to serve.

Curacel makes it easier for insurers to distribute their products, automate their claims processes, and drive revenue growth by giving them easy-to-use technology solutions that have been specifically designed to drive up insurance inclusion on the continent.

With Grow, Curacel’s embedded insurance product, more than 100 banks, fintechs, logistics companies and other tech-enabled companies, including ALAT (Nigeria’s first digital bank), Providus, PalmPay, Float, etc and others are empowered to increase their recurring revenues by offering digital insurance products that are seamlessly embedded into their existing products and services, driving much-needed insurance penetration and customer loyalty.

Leading insurers like AXA Mansard, Liberty Health, Old Mutual and Jubilee Heath also leverage Curacel’s market leading technology to improve the efficiency and accuracy of their claims processes.

The company’s AI-powered infrastructure means claims can be submitted and processed in real time, helping insurers to reduce their claims cycle by more than 70 percent and process up to 10x more claims.

Curacel has processed more than $100 million worth of claims, working with more than 20 insurers and more than 5,000 service providers in 8 countries across the continent.

In 2022, Curacel grew its transaction volume by 600 percent and increased its revenue by 500 percent. Starting with Egypt and Morocco, the new funding will enable the company to roll out its services in North Africa and deepen its presence in other parts of the continent.

According to Henry Mascot, CEO and co-founder of Curacel, “We are bullish on the potential of the right technology in the right places to close the protection gap across Africa and emerging markets.

It is an exciting time for us as we secure the capital to deliver the vision and onboard the people who have built these technologies at scale in more mature markets, and we are looking forward to delivering more technology solutions to drive up insurance inclusion.”

Omar Darwazah, Managing Director and General Partner at AAF Management, said “at less than 3%, the insurance penetration rate in Africa is one of the lowest in the world, presenting an incredible market opportunity for Henry and the team at Curacel to bridge that insurance gap.

“We are excited to participate in the company’s Seed round and join Curacel’s mission in building easy-to-use technology solutions for insurers to distribute their products on the continent.”

Serik Kaldykulov, General Partner at Elefund, said “Africa remains a relatively untapped market when it comes to insurance and technology presents the best opportunity to reach new users and deliver excellent services.

“Curacel has built a suite of solutions and an impressive track record of success that makes us very excited to be supporting them on their mission to use technology to drive up insurance inclusion in Africa.”

 


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E-Business

Domain of Deception as Attackers Deploy Spyware Under Guise of Legal Threats

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Kaspersky has detected a rapidly escalating malicious campaign that has targeted over 1,100 corporate users since June 2025. The attackers pose as a legal firm and in their emails threaten recipients with lawsuits over alleged domain name patent violations, aiming to deploy malware.

Victims who opened and launched the attached files – that mimicked legal documents – had a Trojan installed on their devices, and the attackers could spy on the content of their screens. Organisations across healthcare, finance, and education sectors have been targeted.

The campaign began with 95 emails on June 11 and has since continued to escalate. Apart from claiming that the recipient’s domain name violates patented combinations of a major brand and threatening litigation, in the email the fake legal bureau also expresses the patent holders’ interest in acquiring the domain and offers getting acquainted with the details of the alleged violations by opening the attached archive with “documents”.

It is worth noting that the attackers, likely to avoid detection, attach an archive that is not password protected, and inside it includes another archive that is password protected and a file containing the password along with it.

After the user entered the archive password and clicked on the alleged legal document inside, a Trojan was installed on the device. The user saw a message displayed that read, “This document cannot be opened on this device. Try opening it on another windows device,” and simultaneously the Tor Browser was covertly downloaded and installed in the background.

Through it, the malware regularly sent snapshots of the user’s screen to the attackers over the Tor network. The malware also autostarts whenever the computer is restarted.

“This campaign is a sophisticated blend of psychological manipulation and technical deception, leveraging fear of legal action to coerce businesses into executing harmful files hidden in attached archives. Its rapid growth since June 11 underscores the urgency for organisations to bolster defenses.

Victims face the risk of losing their private data. Robust email security, employee training, and swift incident reporting are essential to counter this evolving threat,” comments Anna Lazaricheva, spam analyst at Kaspersky.

 


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Global Crypto Heists Surge to $2.1Bn in H1 2025 as Digital Assets is Weaponised

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In a sobering revelation of the evolving threat landscape facing the digital asset ecosystem, blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs has disclosed that over $2.1 billion worth of cryptocurrency was stolen in the first half of 2025 alone, spanning at least 75 high-profile hacks and exploits.

Global Crypto Heists Surge to $2.1Bn in H1 2025 as Digital Assets is Weaponised

This staggering figure marks a 10 per cent surge over the previous first-half record set in 2022 and nearly eclipses the total stolen in all of 2024.

But beyond the monetary scale, the report reveals a deeper concern: a growing trend of state-sponsored cyber aggression weaponising  crypto assets for strategic and geopolitical purposes.

The most devastating breach to date occurred in February when Dubai-based exchange Bybit lost $1.5 billion—the largest  crypto heist in history.

TRM Labs attributes the attack to North Korean state actors, noting that the incident alone accounted for nearly 70 percent of total losses during the period and doubled the average hack size to $30 million.

“The Bybit hack redefined the threat landscape,” the report stated.

“It exemplifies how digital asset theft has transcended criminal opportunism and morphed into a tool of statecraft.”

Indeed, North Korea-linked entities were responsible for an estimated $1.6 billion of the total stolen, further entrenching Pyongyang’s status as the most prolific nation-state threat actor in the crypto sphere.

Yet the menace is diversifying. On June 18, Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex was breached for over $90 million by a group reportedly linked to Israel, Gonjeshke Darande (Predatory Sparrow).

Unusually, the stolen funds were routed to unusable vanity addresses, underscoring symbolic and political motives rather than financial gain.

TRM Labs flagged this as a “disturbing shift,” with digital asset theft increasingly deployed as a weapon in asymmetric geopolitical conflict.

The report also found that more than 80 percent of losses stemmed from infrastructure breaches, including private key theft, seed phrase leaks, and front-end compromises— attacks typically ten times costlier than other vectors.

Meanwhile, DeFi exploits such as flash loan manipulations accounted for 12 percent of losses, reflecting persistent smart contract vulnerabilities despite years of scrutiny.

As digital currencies become enmeshed in global rivalries, TRM Labs warns that conventional cybersecurity approaches are now inadequate.

“Massive breaches, often tied to nation-state operations, require a new defence paradigm,” the firm asserted, urging industrywide adoption of advanced safeguards and cross-border collaboration among regulators and law enforcement.


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CAC Launches AI-powered Business Registration Portal

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Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has inaugurated the pilot take-off of its new Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered registration portal.

CAC Launches AI-powered Business Registration Portal

A statement issued by the commission explained that Malam Hussaini Magaji, registrar-general of the CAC, made the announcement during the 2025 Stakeholders Forum in Port Harcourt.

According to him, “the initiative is a major milestone in Nigeria’s business facilitation drive.”

The Registrar further explained that the upgraded portal marks a complete overhaul of the Company Registration Portal (CRP), saying that it comes with advanced features designed to simplify and speed up business registration.

The new system, according to him, allows for instant name reservation approvals, likening the ease to creating an email account, and stressing that the AI-powered platform could suggest available alternatives to business names and approve them immediately.

Another innovation, he stated, is the ability to register a business using only the National Identification Number (NIN) of a director or proprietor, pointing out that there is an ambitious target of completing business registration and certificate generation within 30 minutes, subject to real-time NIN validation.


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