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YouTube gets a competitor as Facebook’s Watch is launched globally

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Facebook has finally announced the launch of Facebook Watch, their video platform which is now available everywhere.

Facebook Watch allows you to discover videos and interact with friends and creators and it seems like the company’s true competitor to Google’s YouTube.

In the past year, Facebook says they have been able to make Watch’s experience more social so that it is easy to see what videos your friends have liked or shared, watching videos from Pages or creating shows that have an audience participation at the core.

Apparently more than 50 million people have watched videos on Watch for at least a minute and the total time taken to watch videos on the platform has increased by 14 times since the start of 2018.

Read also: Facebook suspends over 400 apps that collect your data

In addition to letting you discover new videos or catch up with creators you love on Watch, you can also view videos you saved to watch later and even watch videos focused on audience participation like trivia games or Premieres.

Watch is a proper YouTube competitor and one of the ways YouTube attracts creators is being able to share revenues with them. Now Facebook says they are expanding their Ad Breaks program so more creators can make money from their videos while giving them tools like insights and best practices in Creator Studio.

Facebook also started IGTV recently which targets its now 1 billion user strong ecoystem and now they want to target their over 2 billion user ecosystem with Watch, making it a bigger player than YouTube currently.

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Egyptian property startup Partment expands into Greece

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Egyptian-run property startup, Partment, has taken its expansion drive beyond the continent by establishing a presence in Greece, following a “five-fold” increase in market size within a year in Egypt.

The CEO of Partment, Nadim Nagui, who disclosed this on Monday, said the expansion drive came following the startup’s closure of a $1.5 million pre-seed funding round to enhance the infrastructure of its platform and deploy its MVP in October 2022; and since then had seen a five-fold growth in market size in Egypt.

According to Nagui, “Partment’s mission is to unlock fresh investment prospects, fostering advancements in the proptech and real estate domains, not only within Egypt but on a global scale.

“Our entry into Greece marks a significant milestone in our journey. This expansion aligns with our global vision of enhancing people’s well-being through sustainable second home access, making real estate investments affordable and accessible to all, while driving generational wealth and building modern, diversified portfolios conveniently.

“We have thoroughly researched the Greek real estate market and are confident that our innovative platform will cater to the growing demand for flexible and sustainable investment models.

“Greece offers tremendous potential for both investors and vacationers, and we are excited to deliver cutting-edge proptech solutions.”

Founded in 2022, Partment is a prop-tech platform which provides diverse second home co-ownership opportunities.

It also offers a solution for second home co-ownership, and through a digital platform and smart booking system, enables users to co-own second homes at a fraction of the price, while providing an end-to-end property management service.

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SA’s fleet management startup, GoMetro raises $11.5 to digitize operations

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South Africa’s fleet management startup, GoMetro, has completed another round of Series A funding worth $11.5 million to enable it digitise its heavy duty commercial transport operations and further develop its platform in its key markets.

Founder and CEO of GoMetro, Justin Coetzee, said the startup, which had earlier raised a $1 million seed extension round back in May 2022, would invest the new funds into realising its “mission to digitise heavy duty commercial transport operations and further develop its state-of-the-art fleet management platform in its key markets of the United Kingdom, EU, USA and South Africa.”

According the CEO, the new round of funds was led by new investor Zenobē, with significant participation by FutureGrowth Asset Managers.

“At GoMetro, our mission is to embrace data-driven decision-making systems that empower operators to better manage fleet utilisation, optimise resources, reduce risk and enhance customer satisfaction can be a real competitive edge that catapults transport companies beyond the reach of their competitors,” Coetzee said.

He explained further that GoMetro aimed to use the funding to strengthen its software platform to provide fleet operators with even more robust tools for managing and optimising all-electric fleets.

“This includes refining existing features and introducing new functionalities that align with the evolving needs of the industry, as well as expanding the number of devices supported on GoMetro Bridge.

“GoMetro’s Bridge is a cloud-based platform that manages the data streams required for successful electrification of buses and trucks.

“With GoMetro Bridge, users gain access to a wide range of telematics-driven features specifically designed to support their transition to all-electric fleets – using their own telematics data to provide an assessment of the fit to expected EV adoption scenarios for a fleet owner,” he said.

“Getting the chance to apply our technology to the biggest single electric bus fleet in the United Kingdom will accelerate our research and development into supporting EV buses and trucks on GoMetro Bridge,” he noted.

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