Digital Nomads: Kennedy Adetayo traded an MBA for a life of global expansions and Maltese sunsets
“I was in Lagos, but barely in Lagos. I was almost abroad every other time,” Kennedy Adetayo recalled of his role as Regional Marketing Manager at Exness, a global fintech company and multi-asset broker. But it did not start this way. When Adetayo pivoted from his academic background in agribusiness, he was driven by a hunger for the world mentioned in the case studies on Apple and Google from his Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) classes. “I wanted something different,” he said. And he went for it: a career rich in marketing, branding, and artificial intelligence (AI) for global companies, just like he had always wanted. The MBA pivot in his early career days After obtaining his MBA in Agricultural Business Operations from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, in southwestern Nigeria, Adetayo realised he did not want to build a career around fast-moving consumer goods—or agri-only products. In his first role after completing his MBA in February 2015, he worked as a brand officer at Africa Prudential, a Nigerian-based share registration and dividend management provider, where he oversaw printed banners and ensured brand compliance. In that time, Adetayo realised he loved reading and writing and had an eye for mistakes in narratives. So, when an opportunity for a copywriting role at Aqua Agency, an integrated marketing agency, arose, Adetayo applied. “The difference was my interview process,” he recalled. “During my live walk-in interview, I sat down and created a full campaign from beginning to end. It wasn’t the answer they expected, and they just hired me on the spot.” When he joined Aqua Agency in February 2016, Adetayo and other strategists handled briefs for companies such as MTN. It was here that the Head of Strategy and Digital Innovation, Adepoju “PJ” Bakare, offered guidance, and soon after Bakare’s conversation with management, Adetayo started working in strategy by June 2016. Adetayo during timeat Aqua Agency. Image source: Adetayo. In 2018, a Dubai-based management consulting and marketing company, Livingstone-Templeton, was expanding into Nigeria, and Adetayo applied with the same playbook with which he secured his role at Aqua. “I gave them a 90-day plan for it as part of my interview process,” he admitted. “And they absolutely loved it and asked me to come execute it myself.” By June 2018, Adetayo was a Brand Manager at the multinational before joining TigerWit, a UK-headquartered global financial technology company, in February 2020. This was where things started to shift for Adetayo. Deepening the African footprint In 2018, two years before Adetayo joined, TigerWit launched a partnership with the football club Liverpool, a partnership that extended till 2021. TigerWit planned to expand into Africa by January 2020. The then Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Tim Hughes, had shared the company’s expansion plans. By February 2020, as the Marketing manager for the Nigerian and African region, Adetayo was tasked with establishing TigerWit’s presence in Nigeria and Africa. “Part of my role in TigerWit included relations with the foreign teams [in] London and Dubai,” he said. “They both had independent marketing teams, and I had to be in sync, so that our global brand could also be in sync, and there’s no off-brand messaging, even though most of my brand branding was localised, but it was also in regulation with the global brand guidelines.” Only four months after Adetayo had come onboard, he was promoted to Head of Marketing/Business Development, Africa. His role went beyond traditional marketing; he was responsible for establishing TigerWit’s brand in Nigeria, driving user acquisition and retention, and overseeing campaigns for everyday traders (B2C), payment partners and other intermediaries (B2B), and engagement with regulators and banks (B2G). “TigerWit was not that big before they came into Nigeria, and by moving to Nigeria, their numbers went exponential for multiple reasons. We are over 200 million in Nigeria,” he said. Observing the impact of Adetayo’s work at TigerWit, Exness, a global fintech company and multi-asset broker, invited him to replicate the success: “They asked if I would be able to handle at least 30 African countries. I said, ‘I wouldn’t know till I try.’” The role was travel-heavy and initially focused on West African countries, then moved into East and Southern Africa. There was one major recurring constraint: visas. Within West Africa, Adetayo had fewer visa issues, but between East and Southern Africa, getting a visa became a major challenge. Twice, Adetayo was rejected when he had applied for a South African visa. In one of those rejections, Exness was opening a new office in South Africa, and he needed to be present as the regional marketing lead. His visa difficulties were unusual enough that they exposed a new challenge for the company. So, Exness created a dedicated team to handle visa-related issues for cases like his. Eventually, he built relationships with two travel agents whom he used in rotation to secure his visas. Adetayo headed to Cape Town. Image source: Adetayo. At Exness, Adetayo found an unusually supportive environment: the company cared primarily about results, giving him wide autonomy to decide where he needed to be and how to execute. If he needed to fly to a market like Kenya the next day, the response was essentially to approve the budget and let him get on with it. Adetayo on a safari trip in Kenya with Exness. Image source: Adetayo. Discovering data and Malta Adetayo began repositioning himself towards data analysis to strengthen his role at Exness. So, in early 2021, he enrolled at Isles of Content to learn marketing data analysis, then transitioned into a contract role with the school. There, he handled real user and product data for brands targeting Nigeria and Africa. “They’re [Isles of content] based in Nigeria, but their clients are in Malta, and are serving Nigerian markets,” Adetayo said. The data work sharpened his decision-making at Exness but also opened his eyes to opportunities beyond pure regional marketing, making it easier to contemplate life after a role he felt was close to the peak of what he
Read MoreChams grows 17.9% in 2025 on a $4.26 million SIM and bank card boom
Chams Holding Company Plc, a Nigerian identity management and transactional technology provider, grew its income by 17.89% to ₦17.48 billion ($12.61 million) in 2025, according to its unaudited full-year results. The growth was largely driven by a 573.16% jump in card sales, which the firm categorises as “data card products supply of cards,” to ₦5.90 billion ($4.26 million). This was driven by increased SIM card purchases from telecom operators, and banks’ demand for cards remained strong. Chams 2025: The Revenue Decoder How card manufacturing became the new growth engine. Total Revenue ₦17.48bn ▲ 17.9% vs 2024 Net Profit ₦605.6m ▲ 54.9% vs 2024 The “Card Boom” Factor +573% Growth Revenue from producing SIMs and bank cards exploded in 2025. 2024 Card Sales ₦0.88bn 2025 Card Sales ₦5.90bn Where did the money come from? (2025) Biometrics & Machines ₦10.65bn (61%) Card Sales (SIMs/Payment) ₦5.90bn (34%) The TC Take: While machines are still the cash cow, the future is plastic. The surge is driven by telco SIM demand and new bank card issuance. Data source: Chams HoldCo 2025 Unaudited Results Chams’ profit for the year climbed by 54.86% to ₦605.58 million ($436,753). Since 2020, the company’s turnover has jumped by 728.75%. The 5-Year Sprint Revenue trajectory (2020–2025) ₦2.11bn 2020 +728% ₦14.84bn 2024 ₦17.48bn 2025 728.75% Growth in 5 Years Chams has multiplied its revenue ~8x since 2020, driven largely by its pivot to card production and identity management. The company’s 2025 results show how it is cashing in on two of Nigeria’s busiest lanes: SIM distribution and payments infrastructure. As telecom operators buy more SIM cards and banks continue issuing cards, Chams earns more from supplying the physical layer behind those ecosystems, while biometrics still does most of its revenue heavy lifting. “The expansion into the production of SIM cards for telecommunications providers and initiatives in cross-border payments are key contributors to performance enhancement,” the company told TechCabal in March 2025. The company is also a major player in biometric identity solutions, with clients across government and financial services. Its banking customers include Keystone Bank, First Bank, and Sterling Bank, while public-sector partners include the Independent National Electoral Commission, the Nigerian Customs Service, the National Health Insurance Scheme, the Nigerian Communications Commission, and several pension fund administrators. Despite the surge in card sales, biometrics-related revenue, including counting, phone, computer, and sorting machines, remained Chams’ largest income line in 2025, generating ₦10.65 billion ($7.68 million). That product mix also pushed the cost of sales up by 30.77%, contributing to a 13.06% decline in gross profit. The Profit Paradox How Chams made more profit while margins shrank. 1. The Pressure (Cost of Sales) Cost of Sales ▲ Spiked 30.77% – ₦13.71bn Result: Gross Profit (Down 13.06%) ₦3.79bn 2. The Relief (Efficiency Gains) The company slashed overheads to protect the bottom line. Admin Expenses ↓ 19.7% Major efficiency boost Taxation Cost ↓ 57.2% Significant saving 3. The Bottom Line ₦605.6m ▲ Net Profit grew 54.9% Takeaway: Lower Admin and Tax bills absorbed the shock of rising Cost of Sales, allowing Net Profit to soar. After posting a 42% year-on-year revenue growth in 2024, Chams chairman, Demola Aladekomo, said the company would pursue fundraising as part of its growth strategy. On August 5, 2025, Chams announced plans to raise ₦7.65 billion ($5.52 million) through a rights issue and private placement. By December 23, 2025, the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) said an additional 2,348,030,000 ordinary shares had been listed following the rights issue. As of January 30, 2026, the company had a market capitalisation of ₦45 billion ($32.46 million), with its share price at ₦5 ($0.0036).
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5 African startups building transport, talent, and tokens
Startups On Our Radar spotlights African startups solving African challenges with innovation. In our previous edition, we featured five game-changing startups pioneering artificial intelligence, agriculture, clean energy, and finance. Expect the next dispatch on February 6, 2026. This week, we explore five African startups in the mobility, cryptocurrency, agriculture, and artificial intelligence sectors and why they should be on your watchlist. Here are our picks for today: BodEr wants to cut carbon emissions with its e-ride hailing platform (E-mobility, Kenya) Born out of a frustration with Nairobi’s traffic while working in logistics at ShipShap, a shipping company, Martin Lusasi and Kelly Mutugi founded BodEr, a Kenyan ride-hailing platform focused exclusively on electric two-wheelers. It connects urban commuters and small businesses to e-bike riders, aiming to reduce travel time, lower costs, and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Lusasi says the user journey mirrors regular ride-hailing platforms where users download the app, log in, request a ride, select an e-bike, wait for pickup, and pay either in cash or through the app. BodEr’s dashboard. Image: BodEr. The startup does not manufacture its own bikes; instead, it partners with e-bike manufacturers. For its pre-launch tests, Lusasi said BodEr is working with Roam, an electric mobility company, and is also in discussions with Ampersand, an electric transport energy company, to expand supply. While riders who already own e-bikes can sign up directly on the platform, others who do not can access financing to acquire bikes through partnerships with microfinance institutions. As of January 2026, BodEr is at its minimum viable product (MVP) testing stage and says it has completed over 200 test rides, with a public launch planned for February 2026. BodEr operates a multi-stream revenue generation model. On the consumer side (B2C), the startup plans to take a 15% commission per ride, and expects to earn 10% profit on electric bike purchases on the business side (B2B). It intends to offer corporate mobility and delivery services through its fleet and generate revenue from there. The startup also plans to introduce a leasing and subscription model, including daily, monthly, or yearly options, targeted at campus communities. Why we’re watching: BodEr is entering Kenya’s competitive ride-hailing market with a narrow focus on electric two-wheelers. Rather than competing head-on with platforms like Uber and Bolt, the startup differentiates itself by focusing on an entirely green fleet and targeting secondary cities such as Embu, Kisumu, and Mombasa. BodEr plans to integrate AI-based route optimisation to help riders avoid traffic, as well as an internet of things (IoT) model that prevents a ride from starting unless the system detects that the rider is wearing a helmet. In 2024, BodEr won Kenya’s TotalEnergies Startup of the Year (Energy category), which came with a $12,000 grant, and secured AUD 100,000 ($70,000) from the KMA Foundation Palladium grant competition to fund app development. Pyn wants to turn job hunting into a guaranteed outcome (HRTech, Nigeria) Pyn, a job placement platform founded in 2025 and designed to move away from the manual effort of recruitment for both candidates and businesses, emerged from the personal experience of the founder, Charles Okala, who struggled to secure roles as a candidate and struggled to find the right talent as a founder. In his view, the job market forces candidates into a volume-driven process of sending out countless applications with little feedback, while businesses are left sifting through several resumes to find a handful of suitable candidates. Pyn’s core proposition is to take away job searching entirely. Rather than acting as a job board, the startup operates a placement system designed to match verified talent with companies and guarantee outcomes. The startup began as an AI-powered service that helped candidates apply for jobs by creating tailored resumes, submitting applications, and tracking responses. Although Okala says that the model attracted over 5,000 users, he realised he could not verify skill levels, which led to Pyn’s current model. Pyn’s dashboard. Image: Pyn. Under the model, candidates submit their CVs, specify the roles they want, and enter a three-day manual verification process. Instead of relying on credentials alone, the startup assesses candidates through real-time proof of work, observing them solve problems live to test factors Okala says cannot be faked with AI-generated portfolios. Once verified, Pyn guarantees a job offer within 60 days that matches the candidate’s level and salary expectations or issues a full refund. Pricing for candidates to access this service is ₦30,000 ($21.58) for junior, ₦75,000 ($53.96) for mid-level, and ₦300,000 ($215.85) for senior talent. For businesses, Pyn sells access to verified talent, not CV databases. Companies can request between three and nine candidates, paying per verified profile. Pricing starts at ₦9,000 ($6.48) per verified junior candidate, ₦25,000 ($17.99) for mid-level, and ₦45,000 ($32.38) for senior roles. The startup reports nearly 10,000 users on the platform so far. Under its earlier model, it claims that about 20% of users secured jobs. In the newer placement-focused pilot, tested with 400 users, Pyn reports a 70% success rate in job placements. Why we’re watching: Pyn is reframing hiring as a placement and verification problem rather than a search problem. Rather than optimising for application volume, the startup is betting that both candidates and companies will pay for certainty. Its key differentiator is the real-time proof-of-work verification, which it argues is necessary in an era where AI can easily fabricate portfolios. MyCryptocasa wants to make getting crypto into a social gaming experience (Crypto/Web3, Nigeria) Dosunmu Damola started building in 2024 MyCryptocasa in response to what he describes as a stagnant cryptocurrency ecosystem in Nigeria, one dominated by repetitive buy-and-sell activity and platforms with little differentiation. After seeing how crypto and Web3 ecosystems operate in Europe and other markets, Dosunmu set out to build a product that allows users to do more with their digital assets, especially without requiring deep prior knowledge of crypto. MyCryptocasa combines traditional crypto trading features with a Web3 gaming layer, which can also be used independently. Its Web3 offering includes money-backed multiplayer games, inspired by
Read MoreNigeria takes 49% stake in World Bank-backed $2bn fibre project
Nigeria has begun the financial advisory process for its ambitious plan to deploy 90,000 kilometres of fibre-optic cable under the $2 billion Building Resilient Digital Infrastructure for Growth (BRIDGE) Project, supported by the World Bank. As part of the agreement with the Bank, which has already approved $500 million in financing, the government is required to appoint a financial advisory firm to structure and manage the project’s funding. “The first selection process of a financial/transaction advisory firm is near completion,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy told TechCabal. The transaction firm would provide financial advisory services to the special purpose vehicle (SPV) or project company, which would oversee the deployment of the 90,000km fibre across 774 local government areas in the country. The government will hold a 49% stake in a majority privately-owned and managed Project Company to be established to implement the initiative, according to a financing agreement released by the World Bank and dated January 20, 2026. According to the spokesperson, the SPV or project company has not been formed. “Once the transaction advisory process is concluded, the SPV will be formed,” the spokesperson said. “The government’s role is as a minority shareholder in the SPV. Deployment is the responsibility of the SPV’s management team and will commence after it’s been established. We are working towards breaking ground this year.” Under the terms of the financing agreement signed with the International Development Association (IDA), the Federal Government of Nigeria will maintain a minority 49% stake in the company, while private investors retain operational control. The financing agreement is a critical foundation for the BRIDGE Project because it formally secures the $500 million concessional credit from IDA, setting out the rules, responsibilities, and milestones that govern how the project will be implemented. It defines the government’s 49% stake, ensures private investors maintain operational control, and establishes clear mechanisms for disbursing funds in phases tied to network deployment targets. The BRIDGE Project, approved by the World Bank Group Board of Directors on October 8, 2025, is designed to expand access to high-quality broadband. It targets regions that have historically been left out of Nigeria’s digital economy, offering wholesale, open-access services to licenced telecommunications operators. The fibre project would target 33 million Nigerians who are currently offline across the 774 local government areas The project will be implemented in phases, with milestone-linked funding tranches, according to the World Bank agreement. The first phase, covering 30,000 kilometres of the planned network, is expected to roll out in early 2026 following preparatory activities and the completion of key procurements, including a transaction advisory service to guide the project company’s setup. Subsequent phases will extend coverage to additional regions, with the government’s shareholding carefully structured to not exceed 49%. To manage the project, the government will channel its participation through the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI), which acts as the federal government’s investment arm. The agreement was signed on December 30, 2025. MOFI’s role includes representing government interests, exercising voting rights in line with the company’s governing documents, and ensuring that project objectives align with national priorities and World Bank requirements. The $500 million credit from the IDA is structured as concessional financing, with a maximum commitment charge of 0.5% per annum on unwithdrawn funds. Repayment is scheduled to begin in October 2030, with semi-annual installments over 20 years. Funding will be disbursed in five tranches, with the first $150 million going toward the company’s initial equity capitalisation. Subsequent tranches are contingent on the Project Company meeting specific network deployment milestones—5,000 km, 20,000 km, and 40,000 km, culminating in the launch of wholesale open-access services. According to the agreement, the government would transfer its equity financing to the project company’s dedicated account, ensuring smooth capital flow and alignment with the project’s timeline. The Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy will oversee strategic oversight, while the Federal Project Financial Management Department will handle financial management. A Project Implementation Unit (PIU) would be established to coordinate day-to-day activities, supported by a project management company responsible for procurement, monitoring, and evaluation, and adherence to environmental and social safeguards. The BRIDGE Project incorporates significant environmental and social safeguards. The government and the Project Company are required to implement the Environmental and Social Commitment Plan (ESCP), which addresses risk management, grievance resolution, gender-based violence prevention, and community engagement. Regular reporting to the IDA will track compliance with these standards throughout the project. The project will also provide technical assistance to government agencies to enhance the deployment of high-quality, climate-resilient broadband. The support aims to ensure that the new digital infrastructure strengthens public services, education, healthcare, and broader economic development across Nigeria.
Read MorePapermap.ai wants your business-related questions in Pidgin, Twi, or French
Before co-founding Papermap.ai, an AI-powered no-code business intelligence platform, in July 2025, Simeone Nortey, a software developer, found himself spending less time coding and more time answering questions from work colleagues. The marketing team wanted data insights, but getting those answers usually meant digging through databases or running complex queries. It’s a familiar situation in many growing businesses. Engineers want to spend their time writing code, while everyone else just wants clear answers from data. To bridge that gap, companies often rely on dashboards, hire analysts, or invest in expensive data tools, solutions that can be slow, complex, and costly. For Papermap.ai, a Ghanaian startup operating across Africa and the US, the solution may lie in an AI agent that understands how business users actually talk. According to Isaac Sarfo, co-founder and CEO, Papermap’s AI doesn’t just respond to English prompts. It understands Pidgin, Twi, French, and other natural languages, allowing non-technical users to query company data as they would ask a colleague. However, Papermap did not start as an AI analytics company. “We originally started by building an inventory management platform powered by AI,” Sarfo told TechCabal in an interview. “But we quickly realised that the upside for analytics made a whole lot more sense.” Inventory, he explains, was only one data pipeline. Most businesses sit on multiple streams of data, from payments and users to ads and operations, that rarely connect cleanly. Today, Papermap is a no-code data platform that lets companies centralise their data and query it without hiring a data team. Instead of using SQL, which specifies what data to retrieve rather than how to retrieve it, or Python, a versatile programming language, users can simply ask questions in natural language. Papermap’s AI agents generate the code, pull the relevant columns, and return charts, insights, or reports in real time. Why natural language matters For Papermap, “natural language” is not just a user experience feature. “It can be Pidgin. It can be Twi,” Sarfo says. “I can ask it a question in Twi, and it will act as a data analyst and pull the data I’m looking for.” That localisation reflects a broader thesis: Across Africa, advanced analytics faces major hurdles: high costs, limited skills, and challenging data environments. In some countries, broadband alone can eat up 44% of monthly income; fewer than 5% of young people have advanced data or cybersecurity training, and roughly half of big‑data projects fail or stall due to complexity, skill gaps, and expensive setup. Much like mobile money allowed the continent to bypass traditional banking infrastructure, Sarfo believes agentic AI can help startups skip the expensive data stacks that dominate the US market. This localisation reflects a broader belief about why many African businesses struggle with data analytics. The challenge is not only cost, but also complexity and context. Sarfo argues that just as mobile money allowed the continent to bypass traditional banking infrastructure, agentic AI can help startups skip the expensive, technical data stacks common in the US. By meeting users where they are linguistically and operationally, Papermap aims to make data less intimidating and more usable, opening advanced analytics to businesses that would otherwise be locked out. “We actually think of ourselves as that complex data infrastructure,” he said. “The difference is that we abstract away the difficult part of the work.” A “glass box” alternative As data volumes explode, Sarfo cites estimates that over 80% of global data has been generated in just the past few years, and traditional analytics workflows are becoming harder to sustain. Engineers are writing code faster, but analysing the data behind it is lagging. Papermap’s answer is what Sarfo calls a “Cursor for data”: a tool that accelerates analysis for both non-technical users and trained analysts. “We are more of a glass box AI,” Sarfo said. “When you ask a query, you can see exactly what happened, the tables it pulled from, the code it wrote.” Papermap’s primary customers are growth-stage businesses caught in what Sarfo calls the “infrastructure gap”: too large for spreadsheets, but unable to justify a six-figure data engineering team. In the US, the company targets businesses earning between $10 million and $100 million in revenue, a segment that represents roughly 10% of SMBs but accounts for nearly half of GDP and employment. Africa, however, demands a different approach. “In Africa, it’s more of an API play,” Sarfo says. Instead of selling directly to thousands of merchants, Papermap embeds its AI inside platforms that already have scale. In Ghana, Papermap works with VDL Fulfillment, a fulfillment company serving over 5,000 merchants. Merchants can now ask questions directly within the platform, such as how many orders were fulfilled, what failed, and what’s delayed, without waiting for support teams. A multi-tenant architecture ensures strict data separation. In Nigeria, Papermap partners with fintech company Wallets, helping it turn payment data into forecasting and credit-underwriting tools for merchants. Another partnership with healthtech startup DoktorConnect aims to let users query personal health data and receive AI-generated insights ahead of doctor visits, a project that could eventually reach millions of students. Localisation also shapes how Papermap distributes its product. With WhatsApp dominating communication across Africa, the startup is building a WhatsApp connector that allows business owners to text questions like, “How much money did we make this week?” Behind the scenes, the AI writes the code, runs the query, and returns an answer that can inform real decisions, without dashboards or exports. “Our goal is to accelerate AI adoption on the continent,” Sarfo says, “and help data be used more in day-to-day business decision-making.” Papermap’s first backer is Jeff Dean, Google’s chief scientist. The company said it raised $500,000 pre-seed round in August 2025 and plans to raise a $5 million seed round later this year. Policy, however, remains a challenge. Sarfo argues that innovation is moving faster than regulation across much of Africa. While he sees progress, he believes governments need to engage more seriously with AI as a foundational technology. Papermap says
Read MoreAgritech funding in Africa drops to $168 million in 2025 as investor interest shifts
When Seyi Alabi, co-founder of Nigerian agricultural technology startup Crop2Cash, was pitching investors for a seed funding round in 2025, he felt the disadvantage almost immediately. Crop2Cash uses digital tools such as Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) technology to provide formal financing to smallholder farmers. Despite having a minimum viable product, reaching over 500,000 smallholder farmers, and seven years of operations, Alabi sensed that being in agriculture shaped how investors received his pitch before the conversation properly began. “I could tell that I was starting from a goal or two down,” Alabi said. His experience mirrors a broader shift in investor interest in 2025, a trend evident in the funding data, as agritech slipped down the list of capital priorities across Africa’s tech ecosystem. Data from the 2025 Africa Investment Report, an annual report of funding activity in the ecosystem compiled by Briter Intelligence, a market intelligence and data platform, shows that agritech funding declined to $168.1 million in 2025, down from $206.9 million in 2024. Deal volume also followed a similar trajectory, falling from 146 deals in 2024 to 135 deals in 2025. Other sectors, including fintech, logistics, and energy, captured a larger share of capital despite a general downward trend in deal counts across the continent. According to the State of Tech in Africa (SOTIA) report by TechCabal Insights, housing and real-asset-linked funding grew by 3465.2% to $82 million in 2025 from $2 million in 2024, and the fintech sector continued to absorb the largest share of venture capital at 40%, underscoring growing investor interest in infrastructure-heavy but commercially viable solutions. The last five years have seen agritech funding move through an uneven trajectory. According to Briter Intelligence data, funding in the agritech sector peaked during the 2021 and 2022 funding surges, reaching record highs of $360 million and $483 million, respectively. Capital reversed sharply in 2023, when agritech funding fell by more than half to $194 million. A slight uptick in 2024 to $206 million was quickly undone by the further drop in 2025. Why agritech startups struggled to hold investor attention At the launch of SOTIA on January 23, 2026, industry leaders at a roundtable discussion described the pullback from agritech as part of a reorientation toward capital efficiency and faster-returning models, rather than a rejection of agriculture’s long-term importance. “Capital always follows the path of least resistance,” Lola Masha, partner at Antler, an early-stage venture capital firm, said. She pointed to the mismatch between agritech’s operating realities and venture capital expectations, explaining that sectors such as fintech offer a more natural fit for venture capital because they provide a much faster path to profitability. She also noted that agriculture’s exposure to climate volatility, informality, and fragmented data makes it harder to predict compared to sectors like fintech or energy. “Agritech is hard,” she added. “It’s a very tough space to be in.” Masha also pointed to the decline in the composition of capital that historically supported agritech. Much of the sector’s earlier growth was driven by development finance institutions (DFIs) and climate-linked capital. However, with capital shrinking on the DFI side, she said, capital flows into adjacent sectors like agriculture also shrink by extension. Get The Best African Tech Newsletters In Your Inbox Select your country Nigeria Ghana Kenya South Africa Egypt Morocco Tunisia Algeria Libya Sudan Ethiopia Somalia Djibouti Eritrea Uganda Tanzania Rwanda Burundi Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Central African Republic Chad Cameroon Gabon Equatorial Guinea São Tomé and Príncipe Angola Zambia Zimbabwe Botswana Namibia Lesotho Eswatini Mozambique Madagascar Mauritius Seychelles Comoros Cape Verde Guinea-Bissau Senegal The Gambia Guinea Sierra Leone Liberia Côte d’Ivoire Burkina Faso Mali Niger Benin Togo Other Select your gender Male Female Others TC Daily TC Events TC Scoop Subscribe “Globally, a lot of VC capital doesn’t necessarily always go into it (agritech) because it’s oftentimes [sic] supported by government capital, subsidies, or sovereign funds,” she said. “Expecting VCs in this environment (Africa) to shift into agritech may be a stretch, but it’s not a natural fit.” From Alabi’s perspective, part of agritech’s funding challenge in 2025 was tied to conditions beyond investor sentiment alone, pointing to economic pressures facing farmers themselves. By November 2025, Nigeria’s food inflation had fallen for the fifth consecutive month to 11.08%, resulting in lower food prices in parts of the country, while the cost of operational inputs such as fertiliser remained elevated. The result, Alabi argued, was that farming stopped making economic sense for many smallholders during the year. Faced with a tougher fundraising environment, Crop2Cash did not abandon capital raising, but it changed its strategy. “It gets to a point where you don’t have to die on the hill of fundraising,” he said. “When you have a product that works and users who are interfacing with your product, you can grow organically and generate revenue. “ The surge in agritech funding between 2021 and 2022 was driven by an era when investors were willing to allow longer timelines for returns and absorb higher risk across emerging markets. Once that cycle ended, agritech’s structural realities, including long production cycles, exposure to climate volatility, informality, and complex unit economics, became harder to justify for a venture capital framework that is focused on speed.
Read MoreLade Falobi’s clarity-over-cleverness lesson for African tech marketers
Lade Falobi does not want to save the world. “I try not to project philosophical worldviews onto marketing. I’m not a doctor. Nobody is going to die if a B2B SaaS (Business-to-Business Software as a Service) product isn’t perfect. We’re just making things better for people.” This mindset is the hallmark of Falobi’s journey, a narrative that stretches from winning teenage photography awards to building Marketing for Geeks (MFG), a community that has become a ‘sanctuary’ for marketers who value marketing first principles. The journalist’s daughter and the conceptual lens Falobi was born into a cult of reading and writing. With a father, an uncle, and an aunt in journalism, her childhood was spent navigating bookshelves that held ideas far beyond her years. Before Falobi transitioned to marketing as an adult, she was a teenage photographer who believed a camera could reveal deeper realities than the naked eye. While she now views that philosophy with fondness, the core instinct remains: reverse engineering, a working backward process that breaks down the thinking behind a finished product. Falobi applies this instinct by trying to understand and replicate the thinking behind successful ads in the ones she creates. “Replication is doing what someone else did. Reverse engineering is understanding why they did it,” she explains. This obsession with “why” led her to an internship at The Independent, a national newspaper publishing in Lagos, Nigeria, where she spent her holidays. The unlearning: From billboards to conversion In 2021, after the COVID-19 pandemic and an Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike stalled her final year of university, Falobi took a job at a JK&O, a traditional advertising agency, working on billboard-scale campaigns. But a message from a founder with a growth agency changed her trajectory. Falobi left traditional advertising for the growth agency serving tech startups. The transition was a culture shock of the highest order. “I had to unlearn the idea that creativity is everything,” Falobi admits. “In tech, people start from a place of distrust. Clarity becomes more important than cleverness. If your creativity overrides how clearly you explain what the product does, you’ve failed.” This realisation propelled her through her stints at Enterscale in 2022, a marketing and growth agency focusing on tech startups, where she moved from copywriting to product marketing. The move from agency life to in-house roles at companies such as Motherboard, a B2B Human Resources technology firm, in 2023, and Rivva, an administrative artificial intelligence company, in 2025, brought a new challenge: raw data access. “Suddenly, I was the one responsible for setting up Mixpanel and Customer.io from scratch,” she says of data and marketing funnel platforms that in-house marketers use to manage their customers. The transition from advising to “being in the deep end” meant learning to create event tracking plans and managing third-party vendor integrations that directly affected product quality. For Falobi, this was where marketing met product growth. The “Geek” supremacy: Marketing for Geeks In 2022, Falobi started writing a newsletter on MailChimp about pop culture, but she realised she wasn’t actually interested in the topics she was covering. Then she made a switch: “I sent a mail to 30 or so subscribers I had at the time, ‘I’m talking about marketing from now on, if you don’t like it, leave.’ They didn’t leave, surprisingly.” She moved to Substack and leaned into the ‘geek’ label, a label she defines as not being an expert, but being interested in a subject enough to seek knowledge about it. She called it ‘Marketing for Geeks.’ Marketing for Geeks (MFG) wasn’t a calculated personal branding move. It was a byproduct of her obsessive nature. “At one point, I had a swipe file of over 10,000 ads. I just wanted to document the things I was noticing about these ads – why they worked, why they didn’t.” MFG shares marketing tips, insights, and analyses into marketing campaigns, strategies, and ads through the African tech ecosystem. It has garnered a following of over 2,000 followers according to Falobi, and has morphed into a WhatsApp community of marketers across the continent. The transition from a newsletter to a community was fueled by a desire to solve Falobi’s concern about the Lagos-centric nature of the ecosystem. “Everything is in Lagos, all the meetups, most of the events,” she says. “I wanted something for just the Ibadan residents. I wanted the people in Lagos to finally be the ones feeling the FOMO (fear of missing out).” MFG quickly outgrew its borders and now exists as a community of over 700 people on WhatsApp in a space where thought supremacy matters more than clout. While the members that do not reside in Ibadan now ironically outnumber the ones who do, the community’s soul remains rooted in Falobi’s first principles. Her insistence on first principles makes her wary of the current AI hype, especially for entry-level marketers who do not have a firm grasp of marketing first principles. “AI makes entry-level people outsource their thinking before they even know what they don’t know,” she warns. “While a senior marketer uses AI to sharpen a brief, an entry-level person might let the AI lead the way. The result is a significant drop in the quality of the ecosystem’s output.” “If you don’t understand user psychology or frameworks like Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion, you can’t tell when the AI is giving you nonsense.” What’s next? JumpWag. Falobi is currently pivoting into her most ambitious role yet: Founder. Her startup, JumpWag, is a TikTok growth tool born out of her own struggle with video content. Falobi and her all-female co-founding team are building a bootstrapped tool to help creators jump on trends contextually using AI. “I wanted to build something I could sell to my own community, rather than just promoting other people’s products,” she says. For Falobi, the path forward isn’t just about more marketing; it’s about building the tools that make the marketing better.
Read MoreAI will reshape African healthcare. Who controls it matters
In 2026, the most important debate about AI in African healthcare is about ownership, decision-making, and whether the technology actually improves patient outcomes, experts said at the Applied Machine Learning Days Africa conference in Johannesburg on Tuesday. AI is rapidly entering Africa’s healthcare sector, projected to reach $259 billion by 2030, one of the world’s biggest growth markets. Yet this rapid expansion is happening in systems where the average is roughly 2.6 doctors per 10,000 people across the continent, and only a handful of countries meet the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommended doctor-to-population ratio. An estimated 24 million people were living with diabetes in Africa in 2021, a number expected to more than double to 55 million by 2045. These numbers mean AI will not be a “nice-to-have” experiment, but will likely shape who gets care, how they get it, and at what cost. Professor Annie Hartley, who leads the Laboratory for Intelligent Global Health and Humanitarian Response Technologies (LiGHT), noted that Africa’s AI-in-healthcare debate must focus on ownership, not dependence on global vendors “We have to have control,” she told TechCabal. “We have to have ownership of these tools. We cannot rely on other countries to make these tools for us.” Africa’s healthcare systems face severe resource constraints, from financing to basic infrastructure. On average, countries in the WHO African region spent about $117 per person on health in 2020, compared to a global average of more than $1,200 per capita, and only five countries in the region reached even $271 per person. On the infrastructure side, almost all African countries fall below the global average of 2.7 hospital beds per 1,000 people, highlighting how limited physical capacity remains even before new AI tools are added on top. Hartley said Africa’s so‑called constraint, stringent resources, is a design advantage. That limited computing and funding can incentivise more optimised tools, smarter use of local data, and continuous learning from real-world use in clinics and communities. “When imported AI systems misread African realities, whether due to language, epidemiology, or workflow differences, local teams are forced to be more vigilant, iterating and adapting instead of treating models as fixed products,” she said. Hartley believes this positions African researchers and practitioners to lead globally in “continuous learning from low amounts of data” by valuing and carefully curating the data they do have. Start with citizens’ problems, not AI features “The greatest conversation is not about which platforms to buy, but about what citizens of Africa want to achieve in terms of health status,” Tom Lawry, an AI health advisor and managing director at Second Century Tech, an advisory firm, said. He urged starting with real challenges, such as a few doctors, overworked nurses, and rising chronic diseases, before mapping an AI roadmap. Lawry’s approach is deliberately low-tech at first. He said Africa already knows most of its pain points in healthcare. “What is needed now is for doctors, nurses, and teams to map out processes, define problems clearly, and only then identify where AI can add value, whether by boosting clinician efficiency, cutting administrative hurdles, or improving patient outcome,” he said. He pointed to a diabetes case study in Singapore, where AI was used to identify people with pre-diabetes and pair that with behaviour-change interventions. The result was a measurable slowing of progression to full diabetes, saving lives while avoiding the higher annual costs once patients become fully diabetic. This kind of population-level use case resonates strongly with African realities, where diabetes prevalence is rising quickly, and budgets are constrained. Funding, pilots and proof that AI works for Africans Both perspectives converge on the question of how to move from ideas to working systems in environments where budgets are thin and donor funding is dwindling. Lawry noted that, practically, money tends to follow clearly defined problems that matter to governments and citizens, which is why pilots grounded in real outcomes are so important. A concrete pilot, say, reducing the progression from pre-diabetes to diabetes in a particular district, gives policymakers evidence of health and economic returns, much like Singapore’s programme, where avoiding full diabetes reduced government spending per patient by thousands of dollars annually. Hartley said that even with donor-funded pilots, African institutions must control their data, models, and governance. That means investing in local labs, capacity, training on local data, as well as designing AI that works with limited infrastructure. If AI in African healthcare grows to match the broader global market’s outlook, where AI in health is projected to exceed $500 billion globally by 2033, it will sit at the centre of clinical decision-making, population health, and financing. The real question is whether those systems will be owned, governed and optimised by Africans, for African problems, or whether the continent will once again be a passive consumer of technologies built elsewhere.
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From S26 to TriFold: The Samsung Galaxy phones coming in 2026
Table of contents 1. Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra 2. Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus 3. Samsung Galaxy S26 4. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 5. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 6. Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold 7. Samsung Galaxy A57 5G 8. Samsung Galaxy A37 5G 9. Samsung Galaxy A27 5G 10. Samsung Galaxy A17 5G 11. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 Olympic Edition Samsung’s 2026 phone lineup is built around deeper on-device AI and a new release schedule. After launching flagships in January for the past two years, Samsung is moving back to a late-February window. This was confirmed during CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2026 sessions and media briefings. The main announcement will happen at Galaxy Unpacked on February 25, 2026, in San Francisco. Pre-orders will open on February 26, followed by a special pre-sale from March 5 to March 10. The full retail launch begins on March 11, 2026, across the United States, Europe, India, and Nigeria. Samsung’s 2026 plans go beyond just the S-series. The company is expanding its foldable lineup, including the Galaxy Z TriFold, which will launch globally in Q1 2026 after its South Korean debut in late 2025. The mid-range lineup is also arriving earlier, with the Galaxy A17 5G launching on January 7, 2026. All these devices are part of Samsung’s 2026 theme, “Your Companion to AI Living.” This means your phone is designed to run advanced AI features directly on the device, while keeping your data private. That said, here are the Samsung Galaxy phones coming in 2026. Samsung Galaxy phones coming in 2026 Samsung’s 2026 phone lineup covers premium, foldable, and budget devices. Each model is designed to balance rising hardware costs with your need for longer software support and stronger AI features. 1. Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra The Galaxy S26 Ultra remains Samsung’s top premium phone. In 2026, it focuses on better comfort, stronger display tech, and longer battery efficiency. The design now uses slightly rounded corners, replacing the sharp look of the S24 and S25. This makes the 6.9-inch body easier for you to hold with one hand. The phone features an M14 OLED panel that reaches over 3,000 nits of peak brightness and uses new organic materials to improve power efficiency. It also debuts the “Privacy Display” (Flex Magic Pixel). This feature automatically narrows your screen’s viewing angle when sensitive apps are open, helping protect your screen in public. Powering the device is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, used globally, so you get the same Galaxy AI experience everywhere. The phone supports up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, which is needed for on-device LLMs and the improved ProVisual Engine. Market price: In the United States, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is expected to start at $1,299.99 for the 256GB model, with the 512GB and 1TB versions priced at $1,419.99 and $1,659.99. In Nigeria, the starting price is projected at ₦1,705,000, driven by the global DDR RAM shortage and local currency changes. 2. Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus The Galaxy S26 Plus is built for you if you want a large screen and flagship power without paying for the Ultra’s camera system. For 2026, the biggest design change is the new camera island on the back, replacing the separate lens rings used before. Samsung is using different processors by region. The United States and China will get the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, while Europe and India are expected to use the Exynos 2600. The display remains 6.7 inches, with higher peak brightness and the same anti-reflective coating as the S25 Ultra. Market price: In the United States, the Galaxy S26 Plus is expected to cost $999.99 for the 256GB model and $1,119.99 for the 512 GB model. In the UK, the starting price is projected at £999. 3. Samsung Galaxy S26 The Galaxy S26 is designed for you if you want a compact flagship with stronger battery life. The screen has grown from 6.2 inches to 6.3 inches, making room for a 4,300 mAh battery, up from 4,000 mAh in earlier models. Even with the larger battery, the phone stays slim at about 6.9mm and weighs 164g, so it still feels easy to hold. All versions now come with 12GB of RAM, which is 4GB more than before. This supports Galaxy AI tools like AI Select and Generative Edit. Like the Plus model, the S26 uses a Snapdragon and Exynos split depending on your region. Market price: In the United States, Samsung is expected to keep the starting price at $799.99 for the 128GB/256GB model. In Nigeria, the projected price is ₦1,135,000. 4. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is expected to be announced in July 2026. This model focuses on making foldables thinner and reducing screen creases. Samsung is introducing a dual Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG) structure, with glass layered on both sides of the OLED display. This reduces crease depth by 20% compared to the Z Fold 7. The phone may use carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) in the internal frame to cut weight. This could bring the device down to 215g, which is close to the weight of standard flagship phones. The camera is also expected to improve, with a possible 200MP main sensor, matching the S-series. Market price: The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is expected to start at $1,999.99 for 256GB, $2,119.99 for 512GB, and $2,419.99 for 1TB. 5. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 The Galaxy Z Flip 8 is built for you if you want a slim, stylish foldable with better everyday use. Samsung is targeting a design that is 10% thinner than the Flip 7 and weighs 150g. The phone will feature a 4.1-inch Super AMOLED FlexWindow cover screen. You will be able to reply to messages and use third-party app widgets without opening the phone. The main camera is being upgraded to 50MP, with better image processing to reduce shutter lag. Market price: The Galaxy Z Flip 8 is expected to start at $999.99 for the 256GB version. 6. Samsung Galaxy
Read MoreMinister Tijani gives NCC 90 days to penalise operators for network failures
Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, has directed the country’s telecom regulator to impose automatic penalties on operators for network failures within 90 days. The directive signals a shift from voluntary compliance to stricter regulatory accountability in a sector long plagued by repeated service disruptions. The directive comes at a time when public frustration with telecom services is at a peak. In 2025, MTN alone recorded 1.62 million customer complaints, highlighting persistent issues with dropped calls, slow data, and outages. These disruptions, subscribers say, have persisted despite repeated regulatory assurances. “The expectation is clear: Nigerians must experience tangible improvements in the quality, reliability, and value of telecommunications services,” Tijani said in a letter dated January 8, 2026, to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) seen by TechCabal. “Infrastructure investment enables capacity; regulatory enforcement and accountability must deliver quality,” he added. Tijani’s letter makes clear that incremental reforms are no longer sufficient. Persistent dissatisfaction with call quality, data performance, network availability, and complaint resolution timelines, he said, requires more visible and consistently enforced regulatory action. The NCC told TechCabal that concerns about telecom services have shaped its strategic focus for 2026, with an emphasis on turning regulatory oversight into measurable improvements in service delivery. “Deliberate efforts are being made to expand the availability of information in the public domain, with the dual objective of strengthening public confidence and reinforcing operator responsibility in delivering improved Quality of Experience (QoE) to consumers,” the commission stated. At the heart of the directive is a 90-day framework designed to shift telecom regulation from discretionary oversight to predictable, enforcement-led supervision. The first phase of the directive, to be implemented within 30 days, centres on transparency and public accountability. The NCC has been instructed to publish quarterly, operator-specific Quality of Service scorecards benchmarking each operator’s performance. These scorecards will track core indicators such as call completion rates, dropped calls, and actual data speeds compared with advertised claims. The move builds on the NCC’s earlier efforts to improve visibility into network performance. In May 2025, the regulator launched the Uptime Report portal, requiring operators to report and publicly disclose major network incidents, including fibre cuts. Hosted on the NCC’s website, the portal functions as a real-time status dashboard where operators log qualifying outages, detailing their causes, affected locations, impact on subscribers, and restoration timelines. It also identifies external parties, such as construction firms or vandals, linked to infrastructure damage. Despite these measures, the portal has not yet curbed the frequency of fibre cuts, with incidents continuing to rise month on month. The directive also mandates the creation of a Consumer Experience Index to track how subscribers perceive network quality, ensuring user feedback is published alongside technical data. Operators must also submit region-specific performance reports, enabling the regulator to identify congestion hotspots and regional disparities with greater precision. The most significant changes take effect after 60 days, when the NCC will introduce automatic, progressive sanctions for repeated service breaches. This marks a clear departure from the regulator’s traditional reliance on discretionary enforcement, which often resulted in delays or inconsistent penalties. A case in point is the interconnect debt between Globacom and MTN, which had lingered for nearly two years and was only resolved in January 2024 through last-minute, “amicable” mediation. The episode underscored the regulator’s previous preference for negotiated settlements over strict, rule-based enforcement. Under the new framework, repeated network failures will trigger predefined penalties, creating a clearer cost for poor performance. The Minister has also directed the introduction of time-bound Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for resolving consumer complaints. Operators’ compliance rates with these SLAs will be published, adding another layer of accountability. To ensure reported improvements are credible, the NCC has been mandated to conduct targeted audits and spot checks, particularly in locations that consistently record poor network performance. These checks are intended to verify operator claims and prevent cosmetic compliance. The final phase of the directive, to be completed within 90 days, introduces escalation measures for chronic offenders. Operators with persistent service deficiencies will be required to submit formal remediation plans outlining how they intend to address recurring issues. These plans must include clear timelines and specific investment commitments. Where non-compliance persists, the NCC has been authorised to impose tougher regulatory measures, including restrictions on expansion approvals or access to certain regulatory incentives. The Minister stressed that recent tariff adjustments granted to operators are conditional, warning that “improved consumer outcomes must match enhanced commercial viability.” At the end of the 90 days, the NCC must publish a final progress report comparing current service levels with baseline outcomes, demonstrating whether the new enforcement regime has delivered tangible improvements. The directive also lands against the backdrop of ongoing efforts to protect telecom infrastructure. In June 2024, telecommunications assets were designated Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) by presidential order. Operational steps will include nationwide mapping of critical assets such as fibre routes, towers, and data centres, engagement with state governments, and public awareness campaigns to curb vandalism. Despite these measures, industry data shows that service disruptions remain widespread, underscoring the gap between policy intent and real-world outcomes.
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