Valentine’s Day 2026: 8 digital safety tips to avoid online scams
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and for many people, it means shopping for gifts, planning romantic meals, or spending more time on dating apps and social media in search of connection. That surge in online activity is exactly what scammers look for. These criminals often exploit the heightened emotions and urgency associated with the season, using social engineering tactics that feel personal and convincing. With emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) making fake profiles, messages, and promotional offers more believable, spotting scams has become increasingly difficult for everyday users. Romance scams remain one of the most common risks during this period. They rose by 19% globally in 2023, according to data from the behavioural biometrics cybersecurity company, BioCatch. In early 2025, Meta said it removed more than 408,000 accounts across Africa linked to romance scam activity, underscoring how widespread the problem has become across the region and beyond. Others encounter fake Valentine’s gift deals, suspicious email offers, or giveaways claiming to come from well-known brands, only to discover they are scams designed to steal personal data or compromise accounts. To stay one step ahead of cybercriminals this Valentine’s Day 2026, here are digital safety tips to help you stay protected while searching for love or planning the perfect surprise for your partner. 1. Guard your personal information Before diving into online dating or shopping, be mindful of what you share. Avoid posting sensitive details like your home address, phone number, or financial information on social media or dating apps. The less personal information you put out there, the harder it is for scammers to target you. Check your privacy settings on all your devices. Make sure your dating apps and social media accounts are set to limit who can see your personal information. Only allow people you trust to view sensitive content. 2. Secure your dating and social media accounts Valentine’s Day is a great reminder to show some love to your digital security. Many people still use weak passwords or reuse the same password across multiple accounts, which makes it easier for hackers or scammers to gain access. Using a password manager like Google Password Manager can help you generate and store strong, unique passwords for every account. Enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds an extra layer of protection, usually combining “something you know” (password) with “something you have or are,” such as a code sent to your phone or your fingerprint. Many devices and apps now support biometric authentication, which makes it much harder for anyone else to log in, even if they somehow get hold of your password. And always be cautious of login notifications or password-reset emails you didn’t request. 3. Verify offers before you click Scammers love to take advantage of Valentine’s Day deals, from fake gift cards to irresistible discounts at popular retailers. If you receive an email or a text message advertising a great deal, don’t click the link immediately. Instead, open a new browser window, type in the retailer’s official website, and compare it with the link you saw to make sure it’s legitimate. The same goes for giveaways or promotions you see on social media. Even if the ad looks convincing, take a moment to verify it before sharing personal information or clicking any links. Being cautious about what you click can save you from phishing attacks, malware, and other scams that prey on impulse and excitement during the season. 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 4. Verify identities before you trust them Even if someone’s profile looks legitimate, it is important not to assume they are who they say they are just because they have attractive photos or write professionally. Scammers often use stolen pictures or AI-generated images to create convincing profiles, and it is easy to get drawn in before realising something is off. One simple way to check is to do a reverse image search on their photos to see if they appear elsewhere online. If the same image shows up on multiple accounts or in unrelated contexts, it is a strong warning sign. Beyond photos, pay attention to inconsistencies in their stories or unusual requests for money or personal details. Taking a moment to verify someone’s identity before sharing sensitive information or investing emotionally can save you from heartbreak, financial loss, and unnecessary stress. 5. Use secure payment methods when shopping or gifting If you are buying gifts online, be careful about how you make payments, especially when dealing with unfamiliar sellers or websites. Avoid cryptocurrency payments or requests to pay with prepaid gift cards, as these methods are difficult to reverse once money has been sent. Instead, use trusted platforms or payment options that offer buyer protection, so you have a way to recover your money if something goes wrong. It is also important to confirm that the website or seller you are dealing with is legitimate before completing a purchase. Pay attention to unusual spelling or slight changes in domain names that may indicate a fake site. Before making a purchase, check reviews from independent sources, confirm contact information, and avoid platforms without clear return or refund policies. Fake online stores often appear around major shopping periods like Valentine’s Day, advertise attractive discounts, collect payments quickly, and disappear soon after. 6. Report and block suspicious accounts early If a conversation, offer, or online interaction begins to feel suspicious, it is safer to stop engaging immediately. Many people continue responding because they hope
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This Enugu-based startup believes Nigeria can manufacture world-class drones locally
In a 2,000-square-metre facility in Nsukka, Enugu State, in southeastern Nigeria, engineers assemble airframes, test control systems, and fine-tune battery modules to prove a point: Nigeria can build hard tech. Arone Technologies, founded in 2018 by AI engineer Emmanuel Ezenwere, is one of the few Nigerian startups attempting to manufacture drones and modular solar energy systems locally. The company is betting on hardware, from autonomous aerial logistics to portable solar systems, built largely in Nigeria. That ambition is set to scale through a ₦12.95 billion ($9.52 million) partnership with the state-owned Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu. Over the next four years, both partners plan to establish what they describe as Nigeria’s first tech manufacturing plant dedicated to defence, aerospace, robotics, AI, and renewable energy, an entire industrial hub built within the IMT campus. “We’re building solutions that enable energy security and enable smart living,” Ezenwere told TechCabal in an interview. “Our primary focus is energy security and artificial intelligence.” Arone was founded “way before AI became sexy,” as Ezenwere puts it. The company’s early mission was practical: solving Nigeria’s last-mile healthcare delivery problem. Arone’s journey began in 2018 with a ₦3 million ($2,200) grant from Roar Nigeria, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka’s tech hub, alongside a $5,000 angel investment. It later raised a $100,000 seed round from Energia Ventures and AfriClim Accelerator, as well as investments from angel investors. For a company that once watched its capital evaporate in a drone crash, the ₦12.95 billion ($9.52 million) manufacturing partnership marks a dramatic evolution. Solving the last-mile problem Nigeria has more than 30,000 primary healthcare centres, many located in rural communities with poor road infrastructure. Deliveries of blood, vaccines, and emergency medication can take hours, sometimes too long. Arone’s answer was autonomous drones capable of carrying up to 5kg of medical supplies over distances of up to 200 kilometres. Through a network of “Avports”, autonomous vehicle ports stationed at blood banks and distribution hubs, drones can take off, deliver to remote clinics, and return without human intervention. A trip that might take one hour and fifteen minutes by road can be completed in about 15 minutes by drone. The company’s early cargo drone, capable of carrying 20kg, was among the first of its kind in Nigeria. Its maiden flight in 2019 was successful. The next one crashed. “We were thrilled with the accomplishment,” Ezenwere recalled. “But the reality was that the crash cost was greater than the capital we had raised.” The setback forced the team to rethink how to build hardware in Nigeria. Instead of chasing perfect, finished products, Arone began breaking systems into manageable modules, refining and iterating gradually. It also pivoted toward niches that could sustain revenue, including security applications. Today, Arone claims it works with the Nigerian Defence Research and Development Bureau and the Air Force, supplying drones for surveillance and security use cases. Manufacturing in a difficult environment Arone engineers at work in the Nsukka factory. Image source: Arone Building hardware in Nigeria is not for the faint-hearted. Ezenwere describes a landscape where every layer must be questioned: talent, materials, capital, and market readiness. “It’s not just manufacturing,” he said. “It’s the full food chain, research, development, manufacturing.” When asked what “manufacturing” means for Arone, Ezenwere is careful. No modern hardware company builds everything from scratch. But Arone says over 50% of its drone systems are indigenous. The company designs and builds its airframes locally, develops its control systems and software in-house, and owns its AI models. Motors and batteries are still sourced externally, though the company says it is working toward deeper localisation. For its AI surveillance platform, QView AI, Arone owns the entire software stack. The models combine custom-built systems with open-source components, but without third-party ownership of the final product. For enterprise clients, including government institutions, the system can be deployed on-premise, scaling from a few gigabytes of RAM to terabytes, depending on requirements. The strategy reduces exposure to currency fluctuations and import markups, though not entirely. “We are exposed,” Ezenwere admits, “but the level of exposure is reduced.” The cost advantage is significant. Arone’s Aurora drone, equipped with thermal imaging capabilities for night surveillance, costs around ₦3 million ($2,190). Comparable foreign drones with similar specifications can cost upwards of $10,000. “Why would someone interested in security applications choose to spend $10,000 when they can get the same capability locally?” he asked. Powering beyond drones As Arone scaled its drone operations, it encountered another Nigerian constraint: electricity. That constraint birthed its second division: modular energy systems. Its flagship product, Luminar 2.0, is a portable, suitcase-sized solar energy system designed to power appliances and critical equipment during outages. The largest Luminar model delivers 3KVA and 2000 watt-hours, enough to power a microwave, television, and fan, sufficient for a middle-sized household. The systems use lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries with smart thermal management, designed to withstand temperatures up to 45°C and operate for five to seven years. Arone’s drones. Image source: Arone. As of late 2025, Arone says it has deployed over 1.35 MWh of modular energy systems across all 36 states in Nigeria. Vaccine refrigerators are among the critical appliances powered by the systems during blackouts. Energy security, Ezenwere argues, is inseparable from technological independence. “It’s a mission for us to build an ecosystem that will transform Nigeria from a consuming nation to a producing nation.” Under the partnership with IMT, Arone will provide intellectual property and product designs, while IMT provides funding and infrastructure. Production targets include 5,000 Aurora drones per year, over 30,000 Luminar energy systems annually, and more than 200 QView AI servers. Beyond manufacturing output, the partnership aims to train more than 20,000 students. The goal is not merely to produce factory workers but future industrialists. “The objective is not just to train production workers,” Ezenwere said. “It’s to train people who will eventually build other industries.” Arone’s facility, located near the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, initially had to transport students by bus daily to build practical
Read MoreJumia’s China bet drives 82% surge in international sales
Jumia’s international sales, largely driven by China, grew 82% in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to its financial results, as the e-commerce giant strengthens its 2027 profitability strategy. After more than a decade of losses, Jumia has shifted its business model from chasing Africa’s aspirational middle class to repositioning itself for Africa’s lower-middle-income consumers, where 85% of the population lives on less than $5.50 a day, according to the World Bank. The company is rebuilding its business around affordability and mass-market volume, using Chinese supply chains as the engine, with a simple bet: cheaper goods move faster, generate more orders, improve unit economics, and create a clearer path to profitability than premium brands. That shift is now visible in the numbers. As of September 2025, Jumia had about 24,000 China-based sellers on its marketplace and roughly 2.2 million China-sourced items in warehouses across Africa. Of its more than 25,000 international merchants, Chinese partners dominate. In Q3 2025 alone, items sold from China grew 55% year-on-year. By Q4 2025, items sold from international sellers grew 82% year-over-year, driven by expanded direct sourcing capabilities. Jumia strengthened this pipeline by opening a new office in Yiwu, China. Overall, Jumia’s 2025 revenue grew 13% to $188.9 million, while gross merchandise value (GMV) jumped 13.59% to $818.6 million. However, despite topline growth, operating losses only declined marginally by 4.24%, underlining how fragile its path to profitability remains. “We closed 2025 with clear momentum across the platform, delivering strong GMV and revenue growth, improving customer engagement, and continued progress on our path to profitability,” Francis Dufay, Jumia Group chief executive officer, said in 2025’s full-year results. This growth is reflected in orders, which grew 32% year-over-year, and quarterly active customers ordering physical goods, which rose by 26% year-over-year in Q4, 2025. Nigeria continues to play a leading role, with orders up 33% and GMV up 50% year-over-year. For 2026, Jumia says it will focus on scaling usage across its existing markets and deepening customer engagement by improving availability, affordability, and reliability. “A more stable macro environment and local currencies provide a supportive backdrop for both consumers and vendors,” Dufay said. “We remain focused on unlocking operating leverage, optimising our cost structure, and refining our market footprint.” The profitability push is also reshaping Jumia’s geography. The company exited Algeria in February 2026, following earlier exits from South Africa and Tunisia in 2024. It is now operational in only eight countries. Jumia expects to break even and achieve positive cash flow in Q4 2026, with full-year profitability targeted for 2027, a goal now increasingly tied to how effectively it can turn Chinese supply chains into African consumer volume.
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This Kenyan startup promises school pickups digital paper trail
On school mornings across Kenyan cities, transport handovers happen fast and mostly on trust, yet when something goes wrong, schools often lack verifiable records of who arrived, when, and through which entry point, a gap that creates risk for pupils, parents, and administrators and turns routine logistics into a safeguarding and accountability problem. Many school transport routines still rely on paper registers, phone calls between drivers and teachers, and scattered text messages, even as the new Traffic (School Transport) Rules, 2025, and National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) notices require proper records and reporting. Meanwhile, GPS‑based school‑bus apps and communication platforms raise questions under the Data Protection Act 2019 about children’s location data and consent. For most schools, the practical need is not a full‑day trace of a child’s movements but a reliable, auditable record of key handover moments where legal duty of care changes. TerraGO, a Kenyan school operations startup, built its system around logging these predefined handover actions rather than continuously following children. The platform focuses on creating time- and place-based records tied to specific school-defined touchpoints rather than producing a stream of location data. Each logged action answers a narrow question: did a registered band or tag interact with an approved reader at a known location within an expected time window? This gives schools a way to confirm that a pupil passed through a set checkpoint without building a full movement history. The hardware in the child’s bag or on their wrist Children carry a wearable in the form of a wristband or bag tag that uses near field communication (NFC), while schools install readers at bus doors, gates, and key entrances. Once students arrive in school, a tap on one of these readers creates a record linked to that device, that location, and that moment. According to co-founder Collins Muriuki, schools decide where those readers sit, whether at the bus step, the main gate, or reception, and the system treats each tap as a discrete entry in the school’s transport and arrival log. “NFC tap confirmations at school-defined touchpoints,” Muriuki said. How a school morning plays out A typical bus journey starts with a child tapping the reader as they board, which logs the boarding event. During the trip, the school can activate a temporary link that shows the bus route to both the school and the parent. The journey also includes a map tied to the vehicle rather than an individual child, which expires when the journey ends. On arrival, the child taps again when getting off the bus and once more at the gate or entrance, and each of these actions can trigger a notification if the school and parent have chosen to receive them, while children who walk or arrive by car tap at the entrance to create a single arrival record. The system stays focused on those taps, so if a registered band interacts with a known reader in the expected time band, the platform can report that the pupil was present at that point, without relying on a phone in the child’s pocket or a chain of GPS signals. What parents see and what they do not Parents can view confirmations for arrival and pickup events, and turn notifications on or off. Live map visibility appears only during an active bus trip and ends when the route ends, with no replay of past journeys and no scrollable route history inside the app. Image: Terra GO Outside those time-bound journeys, the parent view centres on event records rather than maps, which keeps the focus on handovers rather than continuous tracking. Pickup without biometrics At pickup, parents generate a short term code and name the adult allowed to collect the child, then share that code with the guardian, and at the gate a staff member checks the string and sees either a match with the child’s details and expected adult or a warning if the code has expired, is presented by an unlisted person, or appears at an unusual time. Codes reset daily and cannot be reused, and the system avoids facial recognition or fingerprint scans, relying instead on these time-limited digital passes. How schools use the dashboard Inside the school, administrators see a morning view that compares expected and confirmed arrivals by route and class, helping them spot pupils who boarded a bus but have not yet checked in at the gate, those who are late, and flagged exceptions. Staff open individual records when the dashboard signals an issue, and alerts go out only when set conditions match, such as the right band, reader, and time window, while unclear or partial data does not trigger a message. Data scope and control The system’s records depend on physical taps at registered readers, not on continuous location feeds. Schools control their operational data, while parents see only records tied to their own child. Access to past data is time-limited and linked to specific uses, such as reviews. The company says it does not sell child data, Muriuki insisted, and that access to live and historical records inside its systems is logged and restricted by role. “Even internally, Terra staff cannot casually explore a child’s historical data. Access is tightly controlled and logged,” Muriuki said. The process of onboarding a school Bringing a school onto the platform starts by mapping its classes, routes, gates, and policies, then importing student, guardian, and transport details into that structure. After that, staff run test scenarios such as mock bus runs and trial pickups before any live use. Rollout then takes place in stages, by route, grade, or entry point, which allows staff to adjust processes in smaller groups rather than changing everything at once. How much does the product cost? The product has a wearable and a subscription. Each child uses a Terra GO band, an IP68-rated wrist device, which the company claims can last for one year without recharging. The band costs KES 2,500 ($19). Parents pay KES 500 ($4) monthly for the software, which covers
Read MoreAfter years on the sidelines, Africa’s telecoms return to the bond market
Africa’s telecom bond market has spent much of the past decade caught between promise and perception. On one hand, demand for connectivity has surged, driven by population growth, urbanisation, data-hungry consumers and the steady transition from 3G to 4G and now 5G. On the other hand, global investors have often viewed African telecom debt through a lens of risk. Between 2021 and 2025, however, the narrative shifted more decisively. Across the continent, telecom operators returned to the bond market in size, refinancing maturing obligations and raising fresh capital for infrastructure expansion. While no single figure captures Africa’s total telecom bond activity, sector reports and landmark transactions suggest that several billion dollars were raised through corporate bonds and structured debt in recent years. MTN Nigeria pioneered the space in 2018 with a ₦200 billion ($146 million) bond programme aimed at diversifying funding sources and managing local currency exposure. However, other operators largely stayed on the sidelines until 2022, when Mauritius-based Axian Telecom issued a $460 million bond, signalling a renewed interest in the continent’s telecom debt market. In July 2025, Axian Telecom again issued a $600 million bond to scale infrastructure across Madagascar, Tanzania and Togo. The deal was twice oversubscribed, attracting an order book of more than $1.3 billion, a clear signal that investor appetite for African digital infrastructure had strengthened. Meanwhile, IHS Towers remained active in debt markets, reporting total indebtedness of approximately $3.9 billion as of mid-2025 while refinancing high-cost notes and preparing for maturities in 2026 and 2027. These transactions suggest that Africa’s telecom bond market is reopening in earnest. At the centre of this revival is a familiar but often underestimated player: the anchor investor. Typically, a major institutional player, such as a pension fund, mutual fund, or insurance company, an anchor investor commits to purchasing a substantial block of securities ahead of an IPO, helping to stabilise demand and build market confidence. This matters because the telecom bond market, where companies raise debt from investors by issuing tradable securities, provides the long-term, reliable capital required to build digital infrastructure at scale. Fibre networks, towers, data centres and 5G deployments demand heavy upfront investment that far exceeds what operators can fund from revenue alone. When the bond market works well, it gives operators access to affordable financing for network expansion, spectrum acquisition and rural coverage. “Bonds remain one of the most underused but strategic financing tools in telecoms,” said Rotimi Akapo, Partner and head of Telecommunications, Media and Technology (TMT), Advocaat Law Practice. “They allow operators to raise long-term capital at scale, match funding to the life of network infrastructure, and expand their networks and infrastructure without diluting ownership. In emerging markets, a functioning telecom bond market can be a real backbone for financing the digital economy.” Reframing the funding narrative A common misconception about Africa’s digital infrastructure is that the continent suffers from a chronic lack of capital. Folatomi Fayemi, Investment Specialist at Ninety One, which manages the Emerging Africa & Asia Infrastructure Fund (EAAIF), said the issue is less about the absolute availability of funding and more about structure, confidence and signalling. EAAIF was the anchor investor in the Axian Telecom $600 million bond issue. “There can be slight misconceptions as to the availability of funding because of the amount of demand that is required,” he said. “There is funding that’s coming. And there’s always going to be more funding because of the infrastructure divide we have on the continent. The demands keep growing; they don’t slow down. You just keep needing to deploy.” Two of the world’s ten largest telecom infrastructure companies by scale are African-focused tower firms. IHS Towers and Helios Towers are both listed companies that have built businesses centred overwhelmingly on Africa’s connectivity needs. In 2024 alone, IHS raised more than $1 billion in bonds, while Helios Towers executed a similarly large issuance. In 2025, these firms continued reshaping their balance sheets, refinancing debt and extending maturities. “These are businesses that are raising large bonds,” Fayemi said. “You’re talking about roughly $1.8 billion-plus going into two companies focused primarily on connectivity across Africa.” EAAIF anchored the IHS Towers and Helios’ combined over $1.8 billion bond issuances in 2024. For Fayemi, this scale underscores an important shift: telecom infrastructure in Africa is increasingly seen as a growth story anchored in demographic fundamentals. “Population growth matters,” he said. “When you step back and look at markets like Nigeria, where you already have three or four operators, it’s not about adding more players. It’s about meeting growing demand. For these businesses, this is growth.” The rise of specialisation One structural shift underpinning renewed investor confidence is the shift away from vertically integrated telecom operators toward specialised infrastructure providers. Globally, mobile operators are shifting away from owning every part of their networks. Towers, fibre, data centres and related services are now often run by specialist companies that can invest and operate more efficiently. This has led many operators to sell their tower assets to TowerCos to free up capital and reduce maintenance costs. Vodafone moved 55,000 sites into Vantage Towers, Deutsche Telekom grouped its towers under DFMG, and U.S. carriers like Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile sold large portfolios to American Tower and Crown Castle. Zain adopted a sale-and-leaseback model with IHS Towers, while Telefónica sold towers to KKR and partnered with American Tower. Africa follows the same trajectory. Tower companies focus on site acquisition and maintenance. Fibre operators invest in long-haul and metro networks. Data centre companies specialise in power redundancy and cooling systems. This specialisation improves capital allocation and creates clearer revenue visibility. For bond investors, clarity matters. Telecom infrastructure assets typically generate predictable, long-term cash flows backed by multi-year contracts with mobile operators. That predictability aligns well with institutional investors seeking duration and yield. In 2025, this clarity coincided with a broader financing pivot. Across Africa’s tech and telecom ecosystem, debt accounted for 41% of total funding, reaching a record $1.6 billion, a 63% increase from 2024, based on the 2025
Read MoreOnly 26 African startups raised $174 million in January. Here’s what it signals
African startups raised $174 million in January 2026, trailing last year’s tally by $102 million and well below the 12-month monthly average of $263 million, according to Africa: The Big Deal, a monthly funding tracker. While a month-on-month dip from December to January is routine in African venture capital (VC), what stands out this January is how few startups raised money, with only 26 startups raising above $100,000, just over half the recent monthly average and the lowest January tally since at least 2020. The data reveals how narrow Africa’s VC funnel has become and how unforgiving the path ahead may be for African startup funding. Over a third of the month’s funding went to Egypt’s lending startup, valU, which raised $63 million in debt from a local bank. Nigeria’s MAX, a vehicle financing startup, followed with $24 million in a mix of equity and asset-backed financing. The two transactions accounted for half of all capital deployed in January. Neither deal reflects risk-seeking venture capital, as they are structured around lending books, assets, and predictable cash flows. Instead, they emphasise a pattern of investor comfort with revenue and collateral and a clear unease with uncertainty, the very condition that defines early-stage startups and venture capital. “After a decade of asset-light evangelism, 2026 will mark the return of the balance sheet as a competitive advantage,” Olivia Gao, a principal at Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV), a growth-stage VC firm, told TechCabal. “Startups that own or finance productive assets—vehicles, devices, and equipment—will outcompete pure marketplaces by controlling supply, monetising financing margins, and unlocking private credit partnerships,” she added. Nearly 40% of African startup funding now comes from local investors What does this mean for African startup funding If you strip out those two rounds, January looks very different. There was very limited equity activity, few first-time raises, and almost no early-stage momentum. The month reflects a deeper problem in African VC as the industry drifts toward safety. In the search for predictable returns, many firms are backing proven, familiar business models, with little appetite for riskier bets. African startup funding is beginning to look more like credit underwriting than long-term experimentation. This shift compounds an existing funnel problem in African tech. Many early-stage startups are already stuck in a capital valley, unable to raise growth-stage funding. If risk aversion now seeps further downstream, into pre-seed and seed investing, the damage will surface in 18 to 36 months. Fewer companies will have been funded, even fewer will reach Series A readiness, and exits will become scarcer, shrinking the ecosystem over time. As capital becomes more conservative, founders will be forced to optimise for early cash generation and focus on smaller, local markets, where expansion costs are lower. While this may produce leaner, more disciplined, and more profitable businesses, it also narrows the pool of venture-scale bets that deliver outsized outcomes and define a thriving startup ecosystem. It can be tempting to frame this shift as rational adaptation. Inflation is high, exits are scarce, and as the life cycle of funds ends, limited partners are demanding returns. Some African investors can argue that investing in asset-backed, cash-flow-driven models is a rational adaptation to these macro conditions and not a failure of imagination, but that thinking goes against what venture capital is. If this safety approach were prevalent during the boom of the early 2020s, startups like Paystack, Wave, and Moniepoint would likely never have raised their earliest institutional rounds. When safety becomes the organising principle of an emerging-markets risk capital, improvement at scale does not happen.
Read MoreCBN, NCC propose 24-hour refunds for airtime and data sent to wrong numbers
Nigeria’s telecom and financial regulators are moving to mandate 24-hour refunds for everyday airtime and data mistakes, from over-purchases to wrong-number transfers. The joint exposure draft released on Monday, by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), seeks to fix long-standing consumer pain points around mistaken airtime and data purchases by replacing non-existent refund practices with clear rules, legal thresholds, and standardised timelines. For the first time, mobile network operators (MNOs), NCC-authorised licencees, and banks would be formally accountable for consumer errors such as wrong-number transfers and mistaken value purchases. Under the framework, the overpurchase of airtime and data by a subscriber will be reversed within 24 hours after a complaint is lodged. For airtime or data sent to the wrong phone number, the framework introduces value-based thresholds. Transactions of ₦20,000 ($14.64) and above will require an affidavit of indemnity or a notarised indemnity letter before reversal is processed, while smaller transactions between ₦1,000 ($0.73) and ₦20,000 ($14.64) will depend on recipient consent, to be facilitated by the mobile network operators. The recovery timeline is set at 24 hours. In January, TechCabal reported that the CBN and NCC will introduce a new consumer protection framework that mandates near-instant refunds for failed airtime and data transactions, from March 1, 2026. The regulators, in a statement at the time, said subscribers who are debited without receiving value would be entitled to a refund within 30 seconds, a move aimed at addressing one of the most persistent complaints in Nigeria’s digital services ecosystem. The draft framework released on Monday expands on these efforts, which aim to address mistaken purchases and tackle rising consumer complaints around failed airtime and data transactions. “This development buttresses the need for the proposed framework to institutionalise clear accountability, standardise resolution timelines, and ensure a sustainable, coordinated approach to consumer redress across the financial and telecommunications ecosystems,” said Aisha Isa-Olatinwo, director, consumer protection and financial inclusion. If adopted, subscribers will be able to lodge complaints with either their bank or mobile network operator for refunds when they are debited without service delivery, wrong value purchases, or send airtime/data to the wrong number. The framework mandates banks and MNOs to create formal dispute resolution processes, document all claims, and process them within defined service-level timelines. For oversight, the regulators plan to introduce a central monitoring dashboard for tracking reversals, SLA breaches, and customer complaints. “This will facilitate the establishment of a real-time national “Failed Transactions Dashboard” with uniform error code, with end-to-end visibility across the value chain,” the document read. When disputes remain unresolved after five working days, subscribers can escalate them to the CBN and NCC. If adopted, the framework would expand consumer rights for millions of Nigerians who rely on digital channels for airtime and data purchases.
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Digital Nomads: How 67 countries shaped this risk analyst’s view of African tech
Driving through the Egyptian desert along the Red Sea, hotspotting a MacBook while typing reports in the back seat because being offline for a three-hour flight is a luxury that a risk analyst cannot afford. Other times, it’s realising that Kizomba, a dance you once learned in the vibrant streets of Dakar, Senegal, somehow exists in different forms across the continent and is a gateway to connecting with people in communities as you travel. This is the life of Maya Hautefeuille. In one decade, she’s a photojournalist in the Middle East, documenting the Syrian revolution and the aftermath of the Arab Spring. In the next, she is a senior analyst, uncovering the intersection of politics and economics within African countries for 14 NORTH, a company providing insights and business intelligence for Africa’s frontier and emerging markets. Staying close to communities in what Hautefeuille labels as being ‘on the ground’ has helped her realise that places that are very misunderstood from the outside. “I like to make sense of places [and] help people make better decisions ultimately,” she said. “Maybe that came across in how I was raised, and I grew up a bit mixed and all over the world.” Building bridges from Japanese classrooms to French social movements Born to an American-Japanese mother and a French father, Hautefeuille spent most of the first decade of her life in Japan, shaped by education from a school built to overcome the trauma of the Second World War, and under a curriculum imbued with peacemaking philosophies. According to Hautefeuille, the learning emphasis leaned towards students being good global citizens, as opposed to a strong micro-focus on being nationalistic to their respective countries. “There’s nowhere else on earth where they taught [me] those things and made it as though it should be your life mission to be a good citizen of wherever you are and build your bridges,” she said. Hautefeuille would later live out what it meant to be a global citizen, moving to the United States when she was 10, then a year later to France, and eventually Australia and across Asia. She spent her late teens in her home country, France, where she observed the country punctuated by social movements and protests. “I was very into politics and questions of power…and inspired by movements that claimed to be about liberation,” she said. Being ‘on the ground’ in France also fuelled Hautefeuille’s interest in Africa and the Middle East, specifically due to France’s historical relationship with North Africa, and post-colonial movements that had taken place in Africa. “If I hadn’t gone to France,” she admitted, “I wouldn’t have been able to see these things at a closer level.” And so, in 2007, Hautefeuille pursued a Bachelor’s in African studies at Columbia University in New York. She was only there for a year, but it was a turning point for how she viewed the world. Relearning power with Mahmood Mamdani Studying under professors like Mahmood Mamdani, an Indo-Ugandan anthropologist, academic, and political commentator, with whom she resonated because of his multicultural background, Hautefeuille was introduced to new ways of thinking about power and history. “I had one teacher who really impressed upon me,” she recalled. “The way he taught his theories is very different, and because he always brought an identity element [to his teachings], being an Indian-African and part of liberation movements.” However, in search of a school that she felt encompassed African studies more holistically, she transferred to the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London the next year. At SOAS, she learned Swahili and Arabic, regarding language as the crucial infrastructure for understanding the Indian Ocean trade, which linked East African city-states to Middle Eastern countries such as Arabia and Persia. Before her master’s program, between 2008 and 2009, Hautefeuille had hitchhiked without public transportation or a personal vehicle from France to Touba, the spiritual capital of Senegal, travelling through Spain, Morocco and Mauritania. That early, gritty immersion to study the Mouridiya Sufi brotherhood, an Islamic order, served as her first experience with the country, and it was not an easy journey. “[I stayed] with Senegal families whose life revolved around that holy city, the mosque, the rituals, the sharing of food, the cooking of the food, the greeting of the marabus. It was like a very regulated lifestyle around the mosque.” After completing her studies in 2011, she began her master’s at the same school in the same year till 2012, but this time in Middle Eastern studies. While her degree was within the Middle Eastern studies department, her focus remained firmly on West Africa. Hautefeuille was drawn to the program for a very specific reason: the study of Senegalese religious movements. Her field ‘’Anthropology/Sociology of Religions’’ was hosted in that department, and she intended to study Senegalese Sufi movements through that lens. After she completed her master’s, Hautefeuille moved to East Jerusalem for a post-graduate research internship in a British/Palestinian studies centre. It was a period in the Middle East that marked the beginning of her photojournalism. Hautefeuille in East Jerusalem. Image Source: Maya Hautefeuille From late 2013 to 2018, Hautefeuille was based on the Turkish-Syrian border, sometimes in Palestine, in Lebanon, where she strengthened her command of Arabic, all the while documenting migration and hospital bombings as a freelance photojournalist and advocate. Hautefeuille photographed for Al Jazeera and Danwatch. Her interest in photojournalism stemmed from the urge to document and understand the relationship between power, people, and identity. “In conflict, you’re seeing really impactful things, and I had had an urge to document that,” she said. “So I started with journalism.” But as December 2018 closed in, while Hautefeuille continued advocacy work on Syria, she began feeling professional fatigue as the conflict stalled. And soon, she was yearning for the life she had once experienced in Senegal once more. Trading rituals of the Touba for the rhythm of Dakar By April 2019, Hautefeuille returned to Senegal. But this time, to Dakar. Where she
Read MoreFintechs lead Africa’s digital maturity, but insurers post strongest gains in 2025
African insurers have recorded the continent’s fastest digital maturity progress over the past year, narrowing the gap with fintech as the financial sector shifts focus from rapid expansion to operational efficiency and profitability, according to the African Financial Industry Report released by Deloitte, a leading global consulting and professional services firm, and the Africa Financial Summit (AFIS). The report, based on interviews with senior executives from more than 70 financial institutions across Africa, shows that more than half of institutions now consider themselves digitally mature, with 54% reporting advanced digital capabilities, up from 48% in 2024. The growing focus on digital maturity signals that African financial institutions are moving beyond digital experimentation, treating technology as essential infrastructure for profitability, risk control, and regulatory compliance, as rising costs, cybersecurity threats, and tighter funding conditions push the sector toward more disciplined and efficient operations. This shift mirrors broader changes across Africa’s financial technology ecosystem, where the era of growth-at-all-costs has given way to sustainability and risk management. Fintech funding fell sharply from $863 million in the first half of 2023 to about $185 million in the same period in 2024, as global financial conditions tightened and investors pushed companies to prioritise profitability and operational discipline over rapid expansion. At the same time, rising fraud losses have underscored the risks tied to digital scale, with Nigeria’s Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) reporting ₦52.26 billion ($38.3 million) lost to fraud in 2024, much of it through digital channels. Across the banking sector, growing cyber threats and the high cost of integrating AI and cloud infrastructure are also pushing institutions to treat digital systems less as competitive differentiation and more as core infrastructure required to manage risk, comply with regulation, and sustain margins in a more constrained operating environment. Ambroise Depouilly, managing partner at Deloitte Francophone Africa, said the sector’s transition reflects consolidation rather than slowdown. “The African financial sector has entered a phase of maturity,” he said. “Confidence is high, fundamentals are strengthening, and continental integration is becoming a reality.” Whilst fintechs remain the most digitally mature institutions, with 67% classified as digital leaders, insurers recorded the biggest year-on-year progress. Some 59% of insurance companies now occupy advanced digital positions, including 12% in the leaders category, marking a 19-point increase from 2024 and reflecting a strategic focus on building digital foundations to reach underserved markets. Banks, however, show a two-speed transformation, with 45% considering themselves advanced in digital technology, whilst 35% rank themselves as followers, compared to 15% in 2024, revealing disparities based on investment capacity. Illustrating this disparity, six major Nigerian banks, including Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO), Zenith, and UBA, spent ₦268.7 billion ($171.5 million) in technology infrastructure in 2024, a 74.5% increase from 2023. As institutions strengthen their digital foundations, they are deploying technology across key operational areas. Some 81% of respondents cited digital transformation as a key lever for improving financial performance and customer experience, though the focus is shifting from launching new digital products to strengthening existing processes and controls. Central to this transformation is artificial intelligence, which is emerging as a core tool across the sector. Executives expect AI to have a strong or transformative impact across key functions, with 77% citing fraud detection as a major use case, whilst 70% pointed to operational process optimisation. Credit risk analysis and personalisation of financial products were also identified among the leading AI applications, with 72% citing personalisation and 68% pointing to chatbots as having a significant impact. However, most AI deployments are currently focused on strengthening existing risk management and operational processes rather than launching entirely new business models. Institutions are prioritising use cases with immediate returns on investment, particularly in fraud detection and credit scoring, as cybersecurity concerns intensify. On the cybersecurity front, threats are becoming more pressing. Cybersecurity was ranked as the main concern by 51% of respondents, up from 39% in 2024, with 58% reporting high or very high exposure to cyber risks. Strategic risk exposure also increased significantly to 40%, whilst regulatory risk exposure rose to 35%. Rising costs linked to talent, technology investments, and regulatory compliance are putting pressure on operational efficiency, pushing institutions to rely more heavily on automation and data-driven systems. These mounting security challenges are driving regulatory changes across the continent. Across key markets, regulators are tightening oversight around cybersecurity, digital identity, and financial crime prevention as digital financial services scale. Nigeria’s central bank has strengthened risk management and cybersecurity requirements for financial institutions, while Kenya and Ghana have expanded digital identity and e-KYC frameworks to improve traceability in financial transactions. Regulators across multiple markets have also introduced updated fintech licensing and anti–money laundering guidelines, reflecting growing pressure to align with global compliance standards and reduce systemic vulnerabilities as cross-border digital payments increase. Despite these challenges, confidence in the sector has reached its highest level, with executives rating their organisations’ three-year economic prospects at 8 out of 10 in 2025, and 74% expressing optimism, supported by easing inflation and improved operational visibility. Fintechs, however, have adjusted their expectations downward, rating their outlook at 8.33 out of 10, compared to 9.25 in 2024, as they enter a phase of demonstrating economic viability.
Read MoreBrastorne, the startup bringing rural Africans online, is expanding to Ivory Coast
Brastorne Enterprises, a Botswana-based startup that transforms feature phones into Internet-enabled devices for rural Africans, plans to begin operations in Côte d’Ivoire by the end of the first quarter of 2026 as it rolls out a lightweight web platform designed for farmers using entry-level smartphones, the company told TechCabal. The expansion will be done through a partnership with mobile network operator Orange, a long-time partner of the company, as it continues to scale services aimed at users without reliable internet access or high-end devices. Brastorne’s expansion comes as agritech platforms across Africa increasingly adopt hybrid models that combine USSD services with web and smartphone platforms in response to uneven connectivity across the continent. Smartphone adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa remains below 55%, with gaps most pronounced in rural areas where the majority of smallholder farmers live. Platforms such as Kenya’s DigiFarm, M-Kulima, and Farm.io have built services around USSD and SMS to reach farmers using basic phones while gradually introducing online platforms as internet access improves, reflecting a broader shift in African agritech toward moving users online while maintaining access for farmers who still depend on low-bandwidth channels for information, market access, and advisory services. Founded in 2013 by Martin Stimela and Naledi Magowe, Brastorne operates in Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Guinea, and Zambia, with nearly six million users. The company targets Africans without smartphones or reliable internet access, a population it estimates at about 760 million, and has partnered with organisations including Heifer International in Zambia as well as mobile operators Orange, Mascom, and MTN across its markets. The platform currently runs three core services: mAgri, which provides farmers with market information, trading opportunities, and agricultural advice; Mpotsa, an interactive voice and SMS service delivering localised content on health, education, and employment; and Vuka, a social communication service designed for feature-phone users. Brastorne co-founder Naledi Magowe said the company will keep its USSD services for feature-phone users even as it introduces a lightweight web platform for smartphone users as connectivity improves. “We chose a web app instead of an app because when we look at the farmers that we’re reaching, they do have smartphones, but entry-level smartphones where space becomes an issue,” Magowe said. “If you’re coming with an application, it’s going to be uninstalled very quickly because they want to save space.” The new web platform will allow farmers to ask questions in local languages through text, voice, or images, with responses generated by an AI system trained on agricultural data, weather information, and market intelligence. If the system cannot resolve a query, it escalates the request to a human agronomist. “We want the farmer to be able to, for example, if they’re noticing some kind of pest or disease on their plants, just take a picture, upload it on the web app, and the AI gives diagnostic information and links them to an expert,” Magowe said. According to the company, the platform integrates live weather data, pest and disease surveillance, and market pricing information to provide context-specific recommendations. It will also include training modules, certification programmes through university partnerships, farmer-to-farmer video content, and a digital marketplace where users can list and view products. Magowe said artificial intelligence (AI) will increasingly be used to personalise user experiences and improve efficiency, although the company is still building technical capacity. “We’re still looking for talent that can help us solidify our AI operation,” she said, noting that specialised AI expertise remains limited across the continent. 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 Brastorne also plans to introduce financial services such as credit and insurance for smallholder farmers through partnerships with mobile money platforms, including Orange Money and MTN MoMo. Magowe said localisation will be central to the Côte d’Ivoire launch, a factor she described as key to Brastorne’s success across multiple African markets. “Every country is very unique. What’s being farmed is different, the climate is different, even livestock priorities are different,” she said. “We work with local content partners to ensure the right translations, the right content, and that our products are tailored to the needs of farmers in each market.” While partnerships with mobile network operators have enabled scale, they have also slowed expansion timelines, a challenge the company is trying to mitigate. “Just to get things situated in Botswana, it took us about three years. And then the next market we went into was DRC. That took almost two years. Then the next market took about a year,” Magowe said. “So it does reduce over time. However, it’s not as fast as we need it to be because we’re also a business and we need to grow and we have a team and we still have to operate.” Despite the challenge, the company is proceeding with its Côte d’Ivoire launch as it accelerates its shift from USSD to AI-driven platforms across new markets. As Brastorne prepares to enter Côte d’Ivoire, it is also exploring expansion into Burkina Faso, Benin, Sierra Leone, and Ghana, with the long-term goal of operating in at least 19 African countries and reaching over 45 million users, helping to narrow the continent’s connectivity gap.
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