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Nearly 74% of the R504 million ($30.69 million) generated by South African artists on Spotify in 2025 came from listeners outside the country, making the rest of the world South African music’s biggest market on the streaming platform. This was disclosed by Spotify at its new Rosebank office in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Wednesday. The R504 million ($30.69 million) earned by South African artists is a 28% year-on-year increase, nearly double the earnings recorded in 2023. The growth underscores how streaming platforms are turning African music into an export industry, and reflects a sustained international appetite for South African music genres such as amapiano. The announced figures are part of the global streaming platform’s annual Loud & Clear report. The report attempts to give visibility into artists’ earnings on the platform. According to the company, it pays out two-thirds of every dollar it generates from music streaming to rights holders, who eventually pay artists. Globally, it paid out $11 billion in 2025, and Nigerian artists earned over ₦60 billion ($43.92 million) in royalties. South Africa has roughly a quarter of Nigeria’s population, making the per-capita earnings comparison notable. In 2025, South African artists were discovered by first-time listeners more than 1.6 billion times, up 40% from the previous year. More than half of the royalties generated by South African artists on Spotify went to independent artists or labels, reflecting how streaming is lowering barriers to global distribution and allowing artists to monetise audiences without major label backing. The announcement also comes as Spotify deepens its investment in Africa’s music ecosystem, following its launch in South Africa, its first on the continent, in 2018. Speaking at the company’s Johannesburg event, Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy, Spotify Sub-Saharan Africa Managing Director, said South African artists have become “a globally dominant creative force.” “Their success is driven by worldwide demand, ensuring that independent and local talent alike are being discovered by billions of listeners and taking the international stage by storm,” she added. Spotify’s data also showed that South African artists accounted for 67% of songs featured on Spotify South Africa’s Daily Top 50 chart in 2025. The company highlighted strong growth in music performed in Zulu, with a 37% increase in global royalties and more than 120% over two years. Local streams of South African female artists grew by 22% year-on-year, while their international streams grew by 20%. Overall, nearly 3,550 South African artists were added to editorial playlists on Spotify in 2025, and cloud rap, pop country, acoustic country, pop rap, and worship are the country’s fastest-growing genres over the last five years, according to Spotify data.
Read MoreTechCabal is announcing Grey, the US-based global cross-border payments company serving nearly three million users across 70 countries, as the headline sponsor of Moonshot 2026, for the conference’s return on October 28 and 29, 2026, at the National Theatre, Lagos, Nigeria. Grey’s headline partnership marks a new chapter for Moonshot, with the Y Combinator-backed fintech taking the top sponsorship slot for the first time as the conference enters its fourth edition. The partnership comes as Grey expands its cross-border capabilities with regulatory approval in Canada and the launch of Canadian dollar payouts, and deepens its push into B2B payments, placing the company at the centre of cross-border payments, one of the most active categories in global fintech today. Why Grey? Grey’s headline partnership comes at a moment when cross-border payments have become one of the most consequential fintech categories globally, with several companies in the sector operating across multiple countries and licenses. Built in Lagos, Moonshot’s home, Grey is a US-based global company now serving nearly three million users across 70 countries, with transfers to over 170 destinations in 30+ currencies. The company also powers virtual cards accepted at 150 million merchants worldwide, making it one of a small group of fintechs whose footprint genuinely matches the continent’s ambitions. Its recent expansion across South Asia and Latin America, introducing local payouts in Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Uruguay, demonstrates the global reach the conference’s programs celebrate. The February 2026 launch of Grey Business places the company directly in the path of the founders, operators, and SMEs the conference convenes. As Moonshot prepares for an edition focused on African tech’s role in the global economy, Grey’s combination of African roots and global reach makes the partnership a natural fit. “Cross-border payments are one of the few categories where Africa is building global infrastructure, not just consuming it. Moonshot is where that conversation is happening, and Grey wants to be part of shaping what gets built next. We have spent the last four years building for people and businesses that operate across borders, and a meaningful share of them are based on this continent. Showing up at Moonshot as headline sponsor is the right way to acknowledge that,” said Idorenyin Obong, CEO and co-founder of Grey. “Grey has built one of the most consequential companies in African fintech, a global payments business with nearly three million users that started in Lagos,” said Tomiwa Aladekomo, the CEO of Big Cabal Media. “Having them as the headline sponsor of Moonshot 2026 is a natural fit, and we are excited about the conversations their team will be leading on stage and in our halls this October.” What Grey’s partnership means for Moonshot 2026 Grey’s presence at Moonshot 2026 will include a headline keynote from CEO Idorenyin Obong on the future of borderless money, a private executive roundtable convening business decision-makers and investors, and an immersive on-site experience featuring both Grey’s consumer product and Grey Business. Full program details will be announced in the lead-up to the event. About Grey Grey is at the forefront of providing secure and convenient global banking solutions to meet the needs of customers and businesses. Grey holds a Money Service Business license from FINTRAC in Canada and FinCEN in the USA, and our primary focus is on emerging markets. Our range of services enables individuals and businesses to easily own and manage multi-currency accounts. This includes currency exchange, sending and receiving payments to and from over 170 countries, as well as access to virtual cards. About Moonshot by TechCabal Moonshot by TechCabal is the flagship pan-African technology conference convening founders, investors, operators, policymakers, and creatives from across Africa and beyond. The fourth edition takes place on October 28 and 29, 2026, at the National Theatre, Lagos. The conference theme and full programme will be announced in the coming weeks. To stay updated, visit moonshot.techcabal.com About TechCabal TechCabal is Africa’s leading technology media platform, providing reporting, data, and context on African technology, business, and innovation since 2013. TechCabal is part of Big Cabal Media, which also operates Zikoko, Cabal Creative, and TC Insights.
Read MoreChimoney, a Nigerian-founded fintech that built cross-border payment infrastructure for businesses, has shut down, citing a lack of capital to sustain operations. In a May 1 email seen by TechCabal, the Canada-based startup told customers it had stopped processing new transactions and integrations and had begun refunding customer balances. “As of May 1, 2026, Chimoney has ceased all new transactions and integrations,” the email read. “No balance on file: No action needed on your end. This is our final operational email.” Businesses that relied on Chimoney’s payment rails will now have to find alternatives, exposing the fragility of building on startup infrastructure: when the provider goes down, so does the payment rail. Founded in 2022 by Uchi Uchibeke, Chimoney enabled businesses to pay freelancers and vendors in 41 currencies across Africa, North America, and Latin America. The startup provided businesses with a single API for cross-border payments, supporting bank transfers, mobile money, airtime, gift cards, and stablecoin rails for off-ramps. In 2023, it joined the Techstars Toronto accelerator. Chimoney raised $280,000 in total funding, according to startup directory Crunchbase, excluding undisclosed grants. Uchibeke said this figure was closer to $1 million. “Under $1 million is too thin for a venture-scale fintech across multiple jurisdictions,” Uchibeke said in an emailed response to TechCabal. “I should have either raised meaningfully more or bootstrapped properly with a profitable beachhead. Trying to operate at venture scale on bootstrap capital was the wrong strategy.” Chimoney notified investors of its planned wind-down in February 2026 and clients in April, according to Uchibeke. The company also published migration guides for developers before halting transactions on April 30. Uchibeke noted that client wallet balances are being refunded through a self-service dashboard that will remain open until August 31, 2026. Clients can select their preferred payment method, submit account details, and complete two-factor authentication. Chimoney said refunds are being processed within seven to 14 business days. Uchibeke added that unclaimed balances after August 2026 will be transferred to the relevant provincial unclaimed property offices, in line with Canada’s framework for dormant and unclaimed balances. “When revenue stayed flat, and there was no clear path to additional capital, the responsible decision was to wind down while we could still return every client dollar and meet every regulatory obligation,” he said. Chimoney processed tens of thousands of transactions for hundreds of business and enterprise clients, according to Uchibeke, although he declined to disclose exact figures. He said the company never solved distribution at scale, partly because too much focus was placed on product development over customer acquisition. The company had positioned itself as an early mover in API-first cross-border payouts and said it was one of the first production Interledger payment providers globally. In 2025, it attempted to reposition itself around AI agent payment infrastructure, allowing AI agents to hold wallets and move money under policy controls. “The thinking was that the convergence of agentic AI, stablecoins, and our existing infrastructure (Interledger wallets, multi-chain support, licenced rails, identity layer) put us in a defensible position,” Uchibeke said. “We shipped it, [but] it did not generate enough traction in time. The distribution and customer acquisition didn’t move fast enough on the runway we had left.” The pivot coincided with Chimoney securing a Payment Service Provider (PSP) licence under the Bank of Canada’s Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA) in November 2025, allowing it to hold end-user funds. Despite the shutdown, Uchibeke said Chimoney’s parent entity, Chi Technologies Inc., will remain active and retain its PSP licence under dormant status. Chimoney is the latest venture Uchibeke has wound down, following the closure of AfricaHacks in 2023, a developer-focused community platform that later evolved into the World Innovation League (WII), a Canadian non-profit focused on digital skills and workforce development. He has also built several other products, including Oruly, a hybrid AI-and-human task outsourcing platform, and Food Waste Log, a food-waste tracking tool for restaurants. Uchibeke is now building APort, a separate product that requires AI agents to request and receive authorisation before they move money, change data, or trigger other sensitive actions on behalf of businesses. He said the new company is independent from Chimoney and carries none of its customer balances or regulatory obligations.
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