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Cascador, a Nigeria-focused platform for growth-stage entrepreneurs, has selected 10 Nigerian companies for its 2026 ScaleUp Program, a 12-week accelerator focused on helping businesses sharpen their strategy and prepare for their next stage of growth. The selected companies operate across sectors, including proptech, clean energy, agriculture, healthcare, beauty and wellness, tourism, minerals and food production, and were chosen from more than 1,000 applicants, according to the company. This marks Cascador’s latest effort to build a pipeline of Nigerian businesses ready to scale but still require capital and leadership support. It comes two weeks after Cascador partnered with Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Youth Development (FMYD) through the Nigerian Youth Academy (NiYA) to launch a program to help youth entrepreneurs build stronger businesses. “The next chapter of Nigeria’s entrepreneurial story will be about what happens when proven businesses get the support they need to scale,” said David DeLucia, Co-Founder of Cascador. “That is the opportunity this cohort brings, where visionaries, innovators and impact-driven leaders can grow their businesses sustainably with lasting economic value.” The selected businesses include Venco, a digital platform for managing payments, utilities, communications and operations in multi-tenanted communities; SunFi, a clean energy financing platform; ColdHubs, which operates solar-powered cold storage to help farmers, traders and food businesses reduce post-harvest losses; EHA Clinics, a healthcare company providing integrated primary care, digital, pharmacy and home-care services; and Beauty Hut Africa, a technology-enabled beauty retail and distribution company. Others are BEYOND Fitness, a wellness company; Ziba Beach Resort, an experience-led leisure and tourism business; Tulay Africa, which connects global industrial buyers with African producers of export-grade critical minerals; Maanj Agric, which connects smallholder farmers to financing; and Finger Chops, a bakery producing and distributing bread to households across Nigeria. The 10 companies selected for the 2026 ScaleUp Program will go through a 12-week hybrid programme that combines two weeks of in-person sessions with 10 weeks of virtual sessions for founders and their leadership teams. The in-person component will include the programme kickoff and pitch week, while participants will receive one-on-one support from investors, African and international experts, and strategic partners. “The founders in our 2026 ScaleUp program reflect the ambition, resilience and entrepreneurial talent driving Nigeria’s economy forward,” said Trish Thomas, chief executive officer of Cascador. “Their businesses are already creating jobs, generating value and spurring growth across some of the country’s most important sectors. Our focus now is helping them scale further and unlock their full potential, giving them the training, mentorship, networks and leadership skills needed to power their next phase of growth.” In an interview with TechCabal in April, the company noted that founders will undergo detailed assessments of their businesses across areas including finance, operations, legal and technology over the 12 weeks, allowing Cascador to identify gaps that could limit their growth. Cascador said that this support is tailored to each company rather than being generic. The programme is also designed to give founders access to Cascador’s network of advisors, venture capital firms, strategic partners and banking relationships. By the end of the program, founders are expected to have a clearer customer focus and stronger business operation models, the company noted. Selected businesses will also be eligible for follow-on funding through Cascador’s Catalytic Fund, which deploys up to $5 million annually in growth capital through local-currency debt, equity and guarantees. The programme will end with a live Pitch Day, where participants will compete for $50,000 in awards. Since launching operations in 2019, Cascador said it has supported over 70 ventures that have collectively raised $125 million in capital. Cascador’s past cohorts include digital lending platform Sycamore, energy company Koolboks, mobility and logistics solutions Fex Delivery and Drive45 Mobility, and payments infrastructure provider Lenco. Cascador plans to run another ScaleUp cohort in spring 2027, with applications expected to open in November 2026. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Alan, the French health insurance company, has acquired Tanel, a Dakar-based digital health startup operating in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, for an undisclosed amount that marks its first move into Africa. The transaction closed in June and gives Ventures Platform, AAIC Investment, and a group of angel investors a full exit and breaks almost every pattern the African exit market has recently shown. The deal reinforces that African startups can be built for global acquisition: Tanel sold to an investor it had spent two years reporting to, from a market missing entirely from Africa’s exit data. “The plan was to raise the Series A earlier this year, and then Alan reached out, and we ran a dual process,” Mouhamed Ndoye, Tanel’s CEO, said in an interview with TechCabal. “At some point we realised that going through the acquisition with Alan was more interesting for us, given the opportunity to expand across Africa.” The big four markets—Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, and Kenya—accounted for 81% of disclosed African exits between 2011 and 2026, according to research from Ventures Platform and Stears that tracked 181 verified venture-backed exits. A third of those exits came from financial services. As a healthtech startup in Francophone West Africa, Tanel does not fit the usual pattern, and an European acquirer bought it at a time when foreign buyers have been pulling back. International acquirers made up 56% of disclosed exits in 2020. By 2025, that share had fallen to 33%. Tanel was founded in 2021 by Mouhamed Ndoye and Makhtar Diop to fix how Senegalese employers manage health coverage, which was still largely paper-based. It started with pharmacy management software and expanded across the patient journey. The founders had tried to fix Senegalese healthcare through in-home primary care and prescription delivery but hit a brick wall each time. They concluded the infrastructure they needed did not exist, so they built it, starting with pharmacies and expanding across the patient journey. The startup is a licenced insurer and carries the risk itself, which sets it apart from startups that simply administer another underwriter’s cover. Tanel sells mainly to employers and designs health plans for their staff. It built its own contracted network of pharmacies, hospitals, and clinics in both markets so patients get care directly instead of paying upfront and claiming back. Tanel now covers about 70,000 lives across more than 400 companies and connects users to more than 1,200 pharmacies and healthcare providers, Ndoye said. About 30,000 of those covered are paying customers, with each policy extending to a spouse and children. Ndoye said Tanel was profitable in 2025 but declined to give revenue figures, and at the time of the acquisition, Senegal accounted for 90% of revenue and Côte d’Ivoire for 10%. Tanel raised $2.45 million across two rounds before the acquisition: $350,000 in a pre-seed and $2.1 million in a 2024 seed round. Ndoye and Diop are staying on as general managers, both reporting directly to Alan’s chief executive. Ndoye said the arrangement has been autonomous so far and that the whole Tanel team is moving into equivalent roles at Alan. How an investment became an acquisition Alan backed Tanel in that 2024 seed round, and Ndoye said he stayed close to Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve, Alan’s chief executive, afterwards, with monthly calls and monthly investor updates. That gave the French company two years of visibility into the business before it moved. Alan made the first approach, asking whether Tanel’s founders would consider a sale. “There was a lot of alignment over the last few years,” Ndoye said. “We realised they are very similar in culture and similar in mission, so we said, why not go down this route?” The sequence resembles the one that produced one of Africa’s biggest exits. Stripe led Paystack’s $8 million Series A in 2018, watched the company scale for two years, then acquired it outright in October 2020 in a deal worth $200 million. Ndoye called the comparison “a bit similar”, noting that Alan came in earlier, at seed stage, and at a far smaller company. Neither company disclosed the price, and Ndoye declined to give a range or to say how much was cash and how much was Alan stock. He described the outcome as “meaningful” for the investors involved. “We are in the health insurance space, so there were some regulatory clearances, but they went through very quickly,” Ndoye said about the acquistion’s regulatory process. Tanel never set up an employee share scheme and had planned to do so at Series A but sold before it got there. Ndoye said Alan gives shares to every employee as company policy, so Tanel’s staff will now get Alan stock. What changes for Tanel The most immediate operational change is reinsurance. Tanel had been underwriting and carrying its own risk on a balance sheet built from $2.45 million in total funding. Reinsurance lets an insurer pass part of its exposure to a larger balance sheet, freeing up capital and allowing it to write bigger books. “We take on the risk. That is something we have managed ourselves,” Ndoye said. “One of the good things about Alan is that we now benefit from reinsurance, because Alan works with global reinsurers able to take that on.” The second change is product. Ndoye described Alan as a company that has moved from paying claims after the fact toward flagging health risks before they escalate and said Tanel’s customers will get access to that. Alan raised €480 million in June and said it would spend part of it on acquisitions, AI, and healthcare services. The company said at the time that it would also use the money to expand into new countries and pursue acquisitions. Tanel is the first of those in Africa. “It is the story of moving from just paying for health insurance, which is reactive, to being proactive, looking at your health and telling you what might happen so you stay healthier in the long run,” Ndoye said. Alan sells health insurance
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In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Good morning. Editor’s note: Yesterday’s TC Daily subject line, “Paystack cuts the Allawee,” was intended as a pun but may have suggested that Allawee had shut down. To clarify, Allawee, the Nigerian card-issuing fintech startup, has been integrated into Paystack following its acquisition by the payments company. In the latest episode of Headlines by TechCabal, hosts Eme Agbor and Muktar Oladunmade and guest Noah Banjo, our Analysis and Special Reports Editor, discussed some of the biggest stories shaping business, tech, and security across Africa. They break down Meta’s new $0.0101 fee for WhatsApp Business and what it could mean for businesses. They also look at the new regulations affecting drivers on ride-hailing platforms such as Uber and Bolt in Johannesburg, South Africa. And finally, the hosts discussed AI and its use in creating presentation slides and content, and why digital safety is becoming important as more people adopt online tools. Watch the episode on YouTube. Become smarter about tech and commerce in Francophone Africa, and the policies shaping them. Read previous editions here first and subscribe below. Subscribe MTN Nigeria has a new growth problem WIOCC raised $300 million Shoprite finalises R&A Cellular acquisition Kenya merges eTIMS with government payments World Wide Web 3 Opportunities Telecoms MTN Nigeria has a new growth problem Image Source: MTN MTN Nigeria has more customers and is making more money than ever, but each customer is bringing in less money. What happened? The telecom operator added 7.5 million subscribers in H1 2026, taking its customer base to 92.2 million. Service revenue rose 25.9% to ₦2.99 trillion ($2.25 billion), but the average amount MTN made from each customer fell 1.67% in naira terms and 8.82% in dollar terms. State of play: In 2025, MTN’s biggest growth lever was pricing. Its 50% tariff increase helped drive a sharp rise in revenue. But that boost is now largely annualised, and revenue growth is slowing. Between the lines: MTN now needs to grow without relying on another major price increase—something that may not happen again for years. Data is its clearest opportunity. Average data usage per subscriber rose 15.2% in H1 2026, while data revenue grew 38.4%. MTN is also looking beyond mobile data, with home broadband and fintech offering new ways to earn more from its customers. Zoom out: For now, adding subscribers can make up for falling revenue per customer. But that gets harder as subscriber growth slows. MTN’s challenge is becoming less about getting more customers and more about getting existing customers to spend more. Our senior reporter Temitayo Jaiyeola wrote a deep dive on this; read it on our website. Every business owner needs to watch this. The business questions you Google, answered by experts. Watch for free. Funding WIOCC, the Africa-focused data centre company, raises $300 million from Saudi investor and AFC Image Source: Tenor The West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) Group, an Africa-focused digital infrastructure provider, has raised $300 million, its biggest fundraising haul yet. The company wants to expand its data centres, fibre networks, and subsea cables. What happened? On Tuesday, WIOCC signed an agreement with Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), a development finance institution, and Vision Invest, a Saudi Arabian investment company, to raise a combined $300 million from both investors. WIOCC is swapping an undisclosed amount of shares in its business for that capital. The money will fund new data centres, expand the company’s terrestrial fibre network, and investments in new subsea cable assets. Explain like I’m new here: WIOCC sells connectivity and infrastructure to telecom operators, cloud companies, Internet service providers (ISPs), and other businesses, and operates across more than 30 African countries. In 2021, WIOCC raised $200 million in mixed debt and equity funding. According to Serrari, a Kenyan financial data publisher, the company raised over $400 million across three separate rounds in 2025, including a $65 million sustainability-linked debt from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Proparco, and other investors. It’s a factor of the industry WIOCC operates in: Teraco, South Africa’s largest data centre operator, has close to 190 megawatts (MW) and about $877 million in committed investment. Vantage Data Centers, a global hyperscale data centre developer, is building out its Johannesburg campus in Waterfall City with investment of up to $1 billion. Cavaleros Group, a property developer, is developing large data centre campuses in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. Why should you care about the big numbers? Data centre infrastructure operators are becoming aggressive about providing local capacity, and they are raising big money to do so. With more local data centres, we can reduce reliance on foreign infrastructure and keep more of Africa’s data closer to home. A survey for Nigeria’s health logistics buyers. If you’re a Health Logistics Buyer in Nigeria, participate in our report by filling out the survey by 4 September. It takes less than 10 minutes. M&A Shoprite, the South African retailer, is taking its financial services to spaza shops Image Source: Zikoko Memes Shoprite, the South African retailer, is already one of the most recognisable chain markets for weekend and last-minute shopping runs. What happens when it owns the payment rails that process transactions at local tills and spaza shops—smaller provision stores—in South Africa? After aggressively scaling back, exiting markets such as Ghana and Malawi in 2025, and prioritising its home market, the retailer just bought a point-of-sale (PoS) business. Yes, your guess is as good as ours. What happened? In its financial results released on Tuesday, the South African retailer reported that it has bought a 51% majority stake in R&A Cellular, which makes PoS devices from South Africa’s busy province of Mpumalanga. The value of the deal, which finalised on August 14, was not disclosed. Why does this matter? Owning a critical payments infrastructure business could enable Shoprite to expand deeper into payments. Small businesses, an estimated 15,000, use R&A Cellular’s PoS devices in South Africa, where it is a prominent niche provider. Between the
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