Browsing: Startup acquisition in Africa

German bio-tech firm BioNTech acquires Tunisian-born AI startup, Instadeep, for £562 million. www.theexchange.africa
  • German-based biotech company BioNTech is set to acquire InstaDeep, founded by a Tunisian-born and U.K.-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup, for up to £562 million (US$680 million) in its largest deal yet.
  • The Tunis and London-based enterprise AI startup uses advanced machine learning techniques to bring AI to applications within an enterprise environment.
  • The startup has offices in Paris, Tunis, Lagos, Dubai and Cape Town.

German pharmaceutical giant BioNTech announced it is acquiring Tunisian artificial intelligence start-up InstaDeep, in what is being hailed as a massive win for Africa’s tech ecosystem. The agreement is reportedly worth an estimated £582 million (US $682 million)

The two companies collaborated in 2020 to rapidly set up an intelligent system to detect Covid-19 variants, and this deal would accelerate BioNTech’s goal of harnessing the power of machine learning to improve the drug discovery process.

This acquisition is as a result of this long-term partnership that …