Connect with us

News

Redesigned Naira Notes: CBN Storms Plateau Commercial Banks

editor

Published

on

Redesigned Naira Notes

Officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday 19th January stormed Jos, the capital of Plateau State to ensure that Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) dispenses the newly redesigned naira notes and to sensitize stakeholders and the public on the new notes.

The CBN team led by the Director of Payment System Management, Musa Jimoh visited some ATM galleries within the Jos metropolis and expressed satisfaction over the few ones visited and also visited markets and other commercial centers.

Addressing stakeholders at the Building Materials Market, the leader of the team, Mr. Musa Jimoh explained the CBN has provided enough new notes and currency to all commercial banks in the state, “and we ordered them not to load old currency in the ATMs anymore.”

According to him, “We made very good arrangements for the quick supply of the redesigned currency to all the bank branches across the 17 local government areas.”

He also advised members of the public and traders to accept the old notes, which are “still valid” until January 31st. Assuring you not to panic, the currency is safe and valid for now.

“There is no limit to how much a customer can deposit between now and January 31, 2023, as CBN has suspended bank charges.”

Musa called on banks not to hoard the newly redesigned notes, warning that any bank caught defaulting would be sanctioned.

He also urged the public to explore other payment channels, such as eNaira, POS, electronic transfer, USS new internet banking, and mobile money operators and agents, for their economic activities.

Nigerian Tribune findings further revealed that most of the commercial banks within Jos and Bukuru metropolis have totally complied with their ATM dispensing the new notes.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

News

New leaders, new fund: Sequoia has raised $7B to expand its AI bets

info

Published

on

By

Screen Shot 2023 01 13 at 3.33.43 PM.png

Few venture firms have bet more aggressively on AI than Sequoia Capital, and it isn’t slowing down.

The Silicon Valley stalwart has raised roughly $7 billion for a new fund, according to Bloomberg. Sequoia declined TechCrunch’s request for comment. The money will go toward what the firm calls its “expansion strategy” — essentially its late-stage investing arm, focused on the U.S. and Europe — and it’s nearly double Sequoia’s last comparable fund, a $3.4 billion vehicle raised in 2022.

That growth in fund size reflects something bigger: late-stage investing has taken on an entirely new meaning in the AI era. Companies can now scale at a speed and cost that would have been unimaginable a decade ago, and the firms backing them have to keep pace.

The money signals where Sequoia sees the future: deeply embedded in AI, from the giants building the underlying technology to the startups putting it to work. The firm has backed two of the most prominent players in the AI race — OpenAI originally and, more recently, Anthropic — both of which are reportedly eyeing public listings in 2026. The development that could mean a significant payday for the firm.

Sequoia isn’t only swinging for the foundational AI heavyweights, however. It has also placed bets on other buzzy startups, including Physical Intelligence, the Bay Area robotics startup, and Factory, which builds AI agents for enterprise engineering teams.

The fundraise is also the first major capital raise under Sequoia’s new leadership, with Alfred Lin and Pat Grady now serving as co-stewards of the 54-year-old firm.

Techcrunch event

San Francisco, CA
|
October 13-15, 2026

Continue Reading

News

Factory hits $1.5B valuation to build AI coding for enterprises

info

Published

on

By

GettyImages 1356382582.jpg

More than three years after the emergence of generative AI, AI-assisted coding remains by far the most popular and lucrative use case for the technology.

Although multiple companies — including Anthropic, maker of Claude Code, as well as Cursor and Cognition — are already vying for dominance, investors believe there is room for at least one more player.

On Wednesday, Factory, a startup developing AI agents for enterprise engineering teams, announced it had raised $150 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, and Blackstone. Keith Rabois, a managing director at Khosla Ventures, joined the startup’s board.

Factory founder Matan Grinberg told the Wall Street Journal that the company’s key differentiator is its ability to switch between different foundation models, such as Anthropic’s Claude or Chinese AI startup DeepSeek. However, startups like Cursor also don’t rely on a single model to generate code.

Factory’s customers include engineering teams at Morgan Stanley, Ernst & Young, and Palo Alto Networks.

The startup was founded in 2023 after Grinberg, then a PhD student at UC Berkeley, cold-emailed Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire. The two bonded over mutual academic interest. (Maguire’s PhD from Caltech is in the same area of physics Grinberg was studying.)

Maguire convinced Grinberg to drop out and launch Factory, with Sequoia backing the startup at the seed stage.

Techcrunch event

San Francisco, CA
|
October 13-15, 2026

Continue Reading

Trending