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In the world’s largest gaming market, China, console games play a relatively small part as their revenue has been meager compared to mobile and PC games for years — at least by the official numbers (more on this later). There remains a community of hardcore console lovers, but they are finding it harder to get hold of devices and cartridges recently.

A handful of grey market videogame console vendors on Taobao stopped selling and shipping this week, according to checks by TechCrunch and online posts by gamers. Before we examine what might be happening here, a bit of industry history is needed.

In 2000, China banned the sale and import of videogame consoles as concerns over addiction in teenagers grew. Even with the ban, imported consoles still existed in the grey market targeting a group of loyal players. Meanwhile, the online PC and mobile gaming industry flourished, in part thanks to their affordability and the social experience built into their mechanics.

When China finally lifted its restriction on consoles in 2015, giants like Sony and Microsoft quickly responded by releasing Chinese editions of their products through local partners. Nintendo Switch hit the Chinese shelves in 2019 via a much-anticipated partnership with Tencent, which itself is the world’s largest gaming firm. But the grey market largely persisted because mainland Chinese versions of the consoles are subject to strict regulatory oversight, which limits users’ choice to a small friendly range approved by censors.

Many Chinese players thus resort to brick-and-mortar electronics bazaars and online marketplaces to find imported editions of PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch, along with their games. These products normally enter China through parallel trading, the import of legitimate goods through unauthorized channels. The games that are brought in normally lack a Chinese gaming license, which is hard to obtain even by local publishers.

Several major videogame console importers on Taobao have suspended business. Screenshot: TechCrunch

It’s unclear how many imported consoles and console games were taken down from Taobao and what triggered the purge. Tgbus, one of the largest console game sellers on Taobao with 462,000 followers, currently has zero product listing. When asked by TechCrunch, a customer service staff said the store has temporarily halted shipping due to “a water leak in the warehouse.” When we pressed further, the person said it was due to “an electrical-equipment failure.”

Other vendors keep their responses vague, citing “special reasons” for the suspended services. One seller named the “Shanghai Gaming Console Store” said it suspended its business at the request of Taobao, without elaborating further.

Alibaba could not be immediately reached for comment.

The incident appears to inflict mostly console sellers with a sizable business at this moment. Imported cartridges and console devices can still be found on smaller Taobao stores and alternative platforms like Pinduoduo by searching the right keyword.

Some users see the move as China further tightening its grip on what gamers get to play. Over the past year, Apple’s China App Store removed thousands of games to wipe out games without China’s official greenlight. Other motives are politcal. Animal Crossing was pulled from grey market stores on Taobao and Pinduoduo after one of Hong Kong’s most well-known pro-democracy activists used the game as his protest ground.

Other users point out that customs officers regularly clamp down on parallel trading, which is designed to evade import tax because goods are carried by traders who appear as regular travelers. This isn’t the first time the console grey market has been hit, either. Some grey goods manage to fly under the radar before they attract critical sales. There are signs that the new Monster Hunter Rise, a Nintendo-Switch exclusive which isn’t available on the Chinese console edition, is stoking much interest among local players in recent weeks and may have driven some imports.

European satellite and communications startup, Hiber BV has secured €26 million in EU and private investment to expand its IoT satellite network.  The funding comes from the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), the EU’s innovation agency, which has a €278 million Innovation Fund. The EIC co-invested with an innovation credit provided by the Dutch government and existing shareholders. Other investors include Finch Capital, Netherlands Enterprise Agency and Hartenlust Group. Hiber’s satellite constellation tracks and monitors machines and devices in harder-to-reach places.

At the same time co-founder of Hiber, Laurens Groenendijk, is to step aside as managing director to turn his attention to “other investment initiatives” the company said in a statement. Steven Kroonsberg joins as CFO. Roel Jansen joins as CCO. Groenendijk has been Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Treatwell as well as a serial investor.

Coen Janssen, Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of Hiber, commented: “The €26 million funding is fantastic validation for Hiber’s success and a major boost for the European ‘New Space’ sector. It is a key step in realizing our aim of making the Internet of Things really simple and available for everyone in remote and developing regions of the world.”

In particular, because it can reach out-of-the-way areas, Hiber’s network may be able to reduce losses in food production and leakages from oil wells.

Nicklas Bergman, European Innovation Council Fund Committee Member, commented: “I am glad to announce the EIC Fund support to this highly innovative company aiming at creating a European champion in the satellite Internet of Things sector. This equity financing will help Hiber to enable affordable and ubiquitous connectivity for the IoT solutions.”

Elia Montanari, Head of Management and Control at the European Space Agency, commented: “This major success has been supported at European level by collaboration of major EU bodies (EIC, EIB, ESA) fostering the Space Value Chain”.

Many work teams, especially stores and restaurants, rely on manual spreadsheets to ensure their operations are running smoothly. Based in Singapore, Nimbly develops software that automates more of that process. Its features include digital checklists, inventory management and field audits that can be accessed through a mobile app. The startup announced today it has raised $4.6 million in pre-Series A funding, led by Insignia Ventures Partners, with participation from Sovereign’s Capital and Saison Capital.

Founded in 2018 by Daniel Hazman and Jonathan Keith, Nimbly is currently used by more than one hundred organizations in seven countries, including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the United States. Most of Nimbly’s users are in the retail or food and beverage industries, and include KFC, Kopi Kenangan, 7-Eleven and Under Armour. Some clients also come from the fast-moving consumer goods and agriculture sectors, like Cargill and Wilmar.

The new funding brings its total raised to $5.7 million and will be used for Nimbly’s Southeast Asia expansion, including a new partnership with restaurant operator Express Food Group, and adding products like more analytics, mystery shopper and employee training.

Nimbly is designed to replace spreadsheets, emails and messaging apps by combining their functionalities into one app. This includes checklists, audits and live video to ensure that standard operating procedures are followed across all locations. For example, restaurants may use Nimbly to see if food safety and hygiene standards are being followed. FMCG companies can use it to track inventory at stores and share information about how their sales and promotions compare to competitors, while use cases for agriculture include verifying that suppliers are following sustainability measure at their farms.

In a statement, Insignia Venture Partners founding managing partner Yinglan Tan said, “SaaS enterprise is an emerging vertical in Southeast Asia with more businesses of all sizes and across industries seeking to transition and even upgrade their capabilities to software tools. That makes us very excited to have partnered with Daniel, Jonathan and their team at Nimbly as they lead this space in building software stack capable of serving the operational needs of companies first in Southeast Asia, and then globally.”

African-focused talent recruitment and outsourcing company TalentQL today announced that it has been accepted into Techstars Toronto.

The company will join nine other startups in the accelerator’s class of 2021. This comes two weeks after Nigerian bus-booking platform Plentywaka announced its participation in the program as well.

TalentQL was launched last November by serial entrepreneurs Adewale Yusuf, Opeyemi Awoyemi and Akintunde Sultan. Before TalentQL, Yusuf co-founded Nigeria-based tech media publication Techpoint Africa; Awoyemi co-founded online recruitment site Jobberman; and Sultan founded nonprofit tech accelerator DevCareer.

The company has a “talent pool” developers join before passing through different assessments. Once the engineers pass the assessments, they can join the company’s “talent network” to access opportunities.  

The pandemic accelerated the need for international companies to seek cheaper and remote talent around the world. TalentQL is hoping to tap into what it thinks is a gold mine. According to Yusuf, the company, which is also U.S.-based, wants to decentralize access and democratize opportunity for Africa’s top tech talents. 

For most of its local clients, TalentQL mainly assists with recruitment. The other model entails hiring vetted engineers for international companies, managing them, and providing tax and health insurance services.

“We’re coming to the market to support the talent with health insurance, some tools to work with and a community to be part of. These are some of the offerings I think sets us apart from other companies,” Yusuf said.

But despite that, the company has faced the same challenge that has plagued the space — the lack of senior engineering talent. When most engineers reach that level of expertise, they tend to leave the country to the U.S. and Europe for better opportunities or, better still, launch their own startups. It’s a problem Andela faced in the past, resulting in the layoff of 400 junior developers “due to market demand for more senior engineering talent.”

Yusuf says this is why the company is pursuing a Pan-African and diasporan play (Africans in the U.S. and Europe), hoping to fill in the gap with senior talent from these places. And to further consolidate its Pan-African ambitions, it is planning to open an office in Kenya in the coming months.

Although TalentQL is fully remote, Yusuf says this has to happen to establish the right kind of understanding between on-the-ground recruiters and the engineers.

“We want a situation where when we’re recruiting from other countries, our technical recruiters are from those countries. We want them to be able to speak the language of these engineers and understand the culture of their countries,” he said.

TalentQL currently has over 100 tech skills available with more than 2,000 developers on its platform. These developers cater to clients from the U.S., Europe, Nigeria and Kenya. The CEO says the company is also in talks with some Fortune 500 companies to execute placements for their African expansion. 

In addition to the $300,000 pre-seed secured last year, the 6-month-old company will receive a $120,000 investment from Techstars. But besides the funding, Techstars’ backing will be crucial in two ways, according to Yusuf. First is how it operates going forward in a crowded tech talent marketplace with the likes of Ethiopia’s Gebeya and Nigeria’s Decagon and Semicolon. The other would be helping the company to be a global company, not just an African one.

For Sunil Sharma, the managing director of Techstars Toronto and an investor in five Nigerian startups, Techstars’ investment in TalentQL gives the accelerator a chance to participate in the burgeoning tech talent space. 

“The rise of Nigeria is more widely appreciated now in terms of technology sectors like finance, mobility and e-commerce, where talented Nigerians are not only bringing innovation and disruption but are doing so rapidly and at scale. Equally as intriguing is the opportunity relating to talent itself as Nigerians and Africans across the continent are contributing more to supporting tech companies across the world, and we think this is just the start.”

Everli, the European marketplace for online grocery shopping that started in Italy but now also operates in Poland, Czech Republic and France, has raised a $100 million in Series C funding.

The round is led by Verlinvest, with participation from new investors Luxor, DN Capital, C4 Ventures, and Convivialité Ventures. FITEC (part of Fondo Italiano d’Investimento), 360 Capital, Innogest, and DIP also followed on.

Everli, formerly called Supermercato24, says it will use the injection of capital to accelerate growth and further expand its international footprint.

Founded in 2014, Everli lets customers order from local supermarkets for delivery. The company uses gig economy-styled personal shoppers who go into the store and ‘pick’ the products ordered and then deliver them same-day, or for an added cost within an hour. The company charges a delivery fee to consumers, but also generates revenue from fees charged to partnering merchants, and, notably, through advertising.

It has become the delivery partner of some of Europe’s largest grocery brands, offering access to over 300,000 products across the 70 cities it operates in. And, like other online grocery offerings, Everli has benefited from a boost in e-commerce and a reliance on delivery services prompted by the pandemic and country lockdowns.

“Everli is focused specifically on the grocery space,” says Federico Sargenti, CEO at Everli. “Rather than small baskets, or picking up just the basic essentials, Everli is focused on delivering whatever you need right up to your full weekly shop, with same-day delivery and a one-hour delivery window of your choice.”

He says that what further differentiates Everli is its strong relationships with retailers, and the use of their existing infrastructure. “Instead of being tethered and restricted to a radius around our own expensive central warehouses, we are able to operate across a much wider geographical footprint, entering small-to-medium density areas and offering many customers their first opportunity to receive same day groceries, [all] while retaining sustainable unit economics”.

Sargenti describes Everli as more similar to Instacart than many other European delivery firms, including the new crop of dark stores or those that offer groceries as a secondary service to takeouts. “[This is] why we’re leading the grocery space in Europe and securing brands like Lidl, Kaufland, and Carrefour,” adds Sargenti.

In 2020, Everli sales almost quadrupled to $130 million. That growth is happening more and more outside Italy, with its international expansion now responsible for over 20% of orders.

“We are proud to have played a role in helping many people during these difficult times, but we are only getting started, as this industry will never be the same again,” says Sargenti in a statement. “The shift to online delivery is not reversing, and expectations on all sides are only increasing. We have built a model which we believe offers unparalleled value to consumers, through wide access to the retailers and products they love, even in less urban areas, and to retailers, who are now able to affordably compete online and reach a whole new consumer base”.

Adds Simone Sallustio, Executive Director at Verlinvest: “Everli combines its tech & data excellence with the grocery retail experience of its partners and this combination provides it with the perfect position to cement itself as the European e-grocery market leader, delivering the best experience to consumers, value to retail partners, and digital activation to brands”.