At AVCA summit, investors push pragmatic approach as Africa’s exits surge
The African private capital market is entering a pragmatic phase, delegates at the African Private Capital Association’s (AVCA) annual conference heard, as venture-backed exits reached record levels in 2025 even as fundraising remained tough. Opening the association’s 22nd Venture Capital Summit in Nairobi on Wednesday, AVCA chief executive Abi Mustapha-Maduakor acknowledged the headwinds facing the sector but pointed to shifts witnessed in 2025. AVCA’s annual gathering brings founders, venture capital investors, corporate venture arms, philanthropic foundations, and policymakers “The centre of gravity is moving toward local capital, local expertise, and local conviction,” she said. Her remarks come as venture funding across Africa has slowed from its peak, mirroring a pullback in global risk capital, even as 2025 recorded a 25% year-on-year rebound to $3.4 billion. But investors at the conference argued that the adjustment is forcing a long-overdue rethink of how capital is deployed on the continent. “There’s a tendency to think something is broken when it doesn’t behave like the US,” said Tidjane Dème of Partech Partners. “African venture capital isn’t broken, it’s just young.” Increased deals Annual venture deal volumes have risen from about 30 a decade ago to more than 500 in 2025, while total investment has grown from roughly $400 million to about $4 billion, according to Mohamed Eissa of the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Despite that growth, investors said earlier assumptions about valuations and exit timelines have proved unrealistic in African markets, where regulatory hurdles and fragmented demand can slow growth. The question of exits remains a concern. With initial public offerings still rare, investors are now turning to mergers and acquisitions, which increased by 72% in 2025, as the most viable path to liquidity. Patricia Rinke of AfricInvest, a pan-African financial services company, and Andreata Muforo of TLcom Capital, an Africa-focused venture fund, said acquisitions should be treated as the primary exit route rather than a fallback, requiring greater coordination among funds across markets. Local capital Pressure is also building for domestic institutional investors to play a larger role. Alex Rumanyika of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) Uganda urged African pension funds to reduce their heavy exposure to government securities and allocate more capital to private companies. “If we don’t get into this space, it is going to be an existential threat,” he said, warning that pension funds risk missing out on sectors driving job creation and economic growth. Alongside venture capital, private credit is emerging as an alternative financing source, particularly for more established businesses. Investors said the asset class offers more predictable returns in markets where exits remain uncertain. “What works in Africa is deploying into stronger, more resilient businesses,” said Nathaniel Micklem of Ninety One, a global investment manager, cautioning against applying traditional private equity models too broadly. Walid Cherif of BluePeak Private Capital, a global asset management firm, said companies across the continent continue to perform even in the absence of clear exit opportunities, but warned that fund managers must demonstrate consistent returns to build credibility with investors.
Read MoreAmazon’s satellite internet unit Kuiper seeks Kenya licence after Nigeria approval
Kuiper, Amazon’s satellite internet project, which rebranded in November 2025 as Amazon LEO, is seeking regulatory approval to operate in Kenya as part of a broader push to expand across Africa. The company applied to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) for a Network Facilities Provider (NFP) Tier 2 licence that would allow it to build and operate telecommunications infrastructure nationwide, according to a regulatory notice dated April 17, 2026, seen by TechCabal. It would operate under the subsidiary Amazon Kuiper Kenya Limited. The move follows its recent regulatory breakthrough in Nigeria. In January 2026, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) granted Project Kuiper a seven-year licence covering satellite transmission, internet service provision, and international data gateway operations, clearing the company to begin operations from February. While commercial services have yet to launch there, Kenya could become another key test market as Amazon looks to establish a foothold in Africa’s evolving broadband landscape. Under Kenya’s telco licencing regime, a Tier 2 permit is meant for companies that build the behind-the-scenes infrastructure, like fibre cables, telecom towers, and data networks. Unlike the top-tier licences used by big mobile operators such as Safaricom, it still allows a company to operate across the country, but it must apply for radio frequencies in specific areas instead of getting one nationwide allocation. For Amazon, this means it can deploy ground infrastructure across Kenya’s 47 counties using a mix of technologies, including fibre backhaul and satellite-linked stations, but would still need to apply for spectrum in specific locations. The licence runs for 15 years and carries an upfront fee of KES 15 million ($115,000), alongside an annual levy of 0.4% of gross turnover. The regulatory requirements also introduce local ownership constraints. Kenya mandates that at least 30% of the licensee’s equity be held by citizens, although foreign firms are typically granted a three-year window to comply. Applicants must also incorporate a local entity, submit a detailed rollout plan, and meet tax compliance standards. Amazon’s entry would come at a time when satellite internet is already reshaping segments of Kenya’s broadband market. Starlink, operated by SpaceX, has emerged as the eighth-largest internet service provider in the country, with just over 22,000 subscribers as of December 2025. Starlink currently holds three primary types of authorisations in Kenya, including an international Gateway Systems and Services (IGSS) licence, Landing Rights Authorisation (LRA), and Application Service Provider (ASP) Licence While Starlink’s overall market share remains below 0.9%, it dominates the high-speed segment, accounting for more than half of all connections exceeding 100 Mbps. That growth has been driven in part by aggressive pricing strategies tailored to local conditions. Starlink offers installment payment plans and hardware rentals to lower the barrier to entry in a price-sensitive market, allowing households and small businesses to spread equipment costs over several months. If approved, Kuiper’s entry into Kenya would intensify competition not only among satellite providers but also with established local players such as Safaricom and Jamii Telecommunications, which dominate the fixed and mobile broadband markets. “The grant of these licences may affect the public and local authorities, companies, persons or bodies of persons within the country,” the CAK notice noted.
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Inside the spam call machine behind Nigeria’s digital lending boom
In early 2025, Peace*, a research assistant at Covenant University, Ogun State, Southwestern Nigeria, had a health emergency and was short on cash. So, she did the first thing that came to mind: open the OPay app to take a loan. She navigated to EaseMoni, a loan product offered through OPay’s lending arm, reviewed the repayment terms, and took some loans. It was ₦6,000 ($4.21) the first time. Then subsequently, ₦24,000 ($16.85). Peace told TechCabal she repaid the loan before the one-month deadline, closed the app, and moved on. The app, however, did not. Image source: Chima David/TechCabal Image source: Chima David/TechCabal A few days later, the calls began: an automated and relentless stream of reminders about loan discounts and improved offers. “It was like an automated response, [talking] about how my loan discount has increased and how I should apply for a new loan,” Peace said. “Mind you, you don’t even have to eventually take the loan for them to bombard you with calls. Just going over the options alone without eventually borrowing will trigger the calls.” Image source: Lanre Adebanjo/ TechCabal Months later, she says, the calls have not stopped. “I’ve been looking for how to turn that [call] thing off, but I can’t find [how to]. It’s so annoying,” she said.Peace is not alone. In January 2026, Lagos-based growth professional Franklyne Ikediasor shared a curious experience on LinkedIn. After embarking on what he described as a personal “exercise” to understand Nigeria’s booming digital lending market, he found himself at the centre of a flood of unsolicited loan pitches. Image source: Chima David/TechCabal Image source: Chima David/TechCabal Ikediasor said his experiment allowed him to “test and experience a wide range of loan applications firsthand, reviewing limits, disbursement speed, interest rates, fees, and repayment structures.” Despite only interacting with a select few platforms, he soon began receiving calls and messages from lenders he had never even heard of, some offering to “buy over” his existing loans in a bid to capture his interest. “This is clearly illegal,” Ikediasor told TechCabal, adding that he scanned the 200-page terms-of-use documents for data-sharing loopholes. “Because I interacted with one application doesn’t mean that data should be passed to another. It’s not just an infringement; it’s predatory.” For a researcher and growth professional like Ikediasor, it did not sit right. “On average, I get about three [spam] calls a day,” he said. “I’ve already had two today. Some are robocalls, but others are human beings speaking to you,” he said. Image source: Chima David/TechCabal Image source: Chima David/TechCabal Their experience points to a broader issue: some digital lending companies and telcos have become persistent in calling their users. Across Nigeria, customers report a barrage of unsolicited promotional calls that disrupt work and invade privacy. For many, the calls continue even after they block numbers, clear outstanding debts, or—in extreme cases—delete the app entirely. Customers say these calls are rarely from human agents. Instead, users claim they are greeted by automated recordings pushing a variety of financial products, from airtime coupons to loan limits. The implications of automation that persists after an app is deleted go far beyond annoyance. It could allow Nigerians to normalise calls from random, unverified mobile numbers, creating a massive opening for vishing (voice phishing) scams, involving tricking people into sharing sensitive information over the phone. According to a 2025 report by the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL), phishing is one of the most frequently reported cybercrimes in Africa. The report stated that cybercriminals regularly impersonate recognised authorities and prominent corporations, exploit widespread unemployment by offering fabricated jobs, and use mobile platforms for prize-related and emergency-based scams. Since users are accustomed to organisations using unofficial channels to push loans, they are significantly more vulnerable to fraudsters who mimic this tone to hijack accounts. TechCabal also conducted a broader survey with 120 respondents across Nigeria. 79.2% said they frequently receive spam calls. The respondents include 54 Nigerian employed professionals whose workdays are being systematically interrupted, while the other respondents are students and unemployed young people. Image source: Chima David/TechCabal Image source: Chima David/TechCabal Of the 95 respondents who reported receiving these calls, 36 named OPay as a primary source of harassment. Other frequently cited sources included associated services such as EaseMoni and OKash, as well as telecommunications giants such as MTN and Airtel. EaseMoni, OKash, MTN, and Airtel did not respond to requests for comments as of presstime. TechCabal also spoke to 20 OPay customers across Lagos, Ogun, Abuja, and Plateau states. Their accounts revealed a consistent pattern: a high-frequency calling model that persists regardless of loan status, often utilising a rotation of mobile numbers to bypass blocks and filters. Adedayo Ojo, an associate consultant at TechCabal Insights, who says he receives OPay calls “at least four times a week,” captured a recording of one. In the audio clip, a female robotic voice said: “Enjoy a daily interest rate as low as 0.3%. Borrow ₦10,000 and repay as little as ₦10,900 in one month. Log in to your OPay app now to check your limited-time offer.” Click below to answer or decline the call. OPay declined to comment as of the time of publication. Seamless onboarding, relentless outreach OPay’s rise in Nigeria, following its entry in 2018, was built on simplicity. Months after entry into the country, the company implemented the strategy of using a phone number as an account number. This design choice lowered the barrier to entry for millions of unbanked Nigerians. However, this same phone-number-as-identity model inadvertently created a double-edged sword. While it made onboarding seamless, it also turned their direct phone lines into the primary target for the company’s customer retention and marketing strategies. Several current users were originally acquired through OPay’s earlier ecosystem approach, which included services like ORide, an on-demand motorbike ride-hailing service, and OFood, a food delivery service. By consolidating those users into a unified database, OPay successfully retained the users as fintech customers. The guardrails of data privacy The Nigeria Data Protection Act
Read MoreNgozi Chukwu chose journalism, then blockchain, and found her function
Ngozi Chukwu’s earliest childhood memory is of writing a song on her balcony. She was in her first year of secondary school, maybe 11 or 12 years old. She had moved to a new secondary school and was having a terrible time. So she went home and wrote. The song had a Hannah Montana beat. It is still in her head. Years later, she would win multiple writing prizes at a petroleum company’s summer camp. But she never imagined that media was something she would do. “It seemed to me a thing that was natural to me, to be able to write things, poems, compositions, essays,” she says. “So I thought that the harder thing was science, engineering.” She studied electronic engineering at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, one of Nigeria’s premier federal universities. When engineering killed the joy Chukwu had started university excited. Then came her first laboratory class, and it was terrible for her. “It was obvious to me that this lab was not for 2013,” she says. “There was no space for us to breathe. I can’t explain to you how deeply my heart sank. I gave up on school.” That is where she says she lost her spirit. Not the joy of learning—the joy of classes, of school, of the structure she thought would guide her. She started spending time at the art faculty instead and became interested in social impact. She volunteered as a grant writer for a non-governmental organisation (NGO). She participated in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), a mandatory one-year program for Nigerian university graduates, as a teacher in Ilorin, the capital city of Kwara State in the North Central region, teaching English, geography, and history. It felt meaningful to her. When she returned to Lagos after her service year in 2020, she wanted to continue to teach. She got a job at a private school with ten kids in her class. But she realised quickly that she did not know how to do the job well. “I felt like the kids were smart, they were learning things faster, and they were already good,” Chukwu says. “ The teachers had to do extra. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough extra. So I had to try to sit down and learn how to teach and come back, or just find something else to do.” Around that time, NFTs and Web3 started trending, and she got curious. After research, she thought blockchain could change the world. She started unpaid writing for projects that would later pause for different reasons. But it made her interested in reporting about tech. Then she saw an opening at TechCabal, a media publication reporting on Africa’s tech ecosystem. With no previous experience in journalism, Chukwu was reluctant to apply, but the publication’s reputation convinced her. “I hadn’t done many interviews then; quite frankly, I hate interviews,” she says. “Being in a formal setting to be assessed causes my brain to freeze.” She said she had gotten the job by being honest, maybe too honest. In her interview, when she was asked what the best thing she had written was, she said, “A joke.” She explained that one of her biggest ambitions was to be a funny person, to make people laugh. “It felt like the most obvious thing to say when I was asked,” Chukwu recalls. “ I talked about the blockchain projects I had written for obvious reasons, but I tried to let my personality shine through in the blogs and poems I mentioned. I was nervous about it, but they said they were good. I guess they were, because I got the job.” The painting and the panic On Chukwu’s first day at TechCabal as a junior newsletter writer, she was sweating because she had jumped buses. She wore tiny braids to look professional. She was nervous. On that first day, she was sitting in one of the offices with other employees and was trying not to panic. Then she looked to her right and saw a painting by Shutabug, a digital artist. A big parachute carrying a danfo, the yellow buses that served as public transportation, plying the roads of Lagos. “I can’t explain to you how that made me feel,” she says. She has written about that painting seven times since. “There’s a function to these things,” she says. “Art does something in the moment, even aesthetically.” In her first three weeks, she said she cried a lot and fell sick. She did not understand newsletters or how to rehash news. Her friends asked if she was sure she could do it. “I don’t believe in myself,” she recalled telling them. “I’m quitting.” But she did not quit. “I’m not a quitter,” she clarifies. “I’m a complainer. But I’m not a quitter.” She had a good manager, Timi Odueso, whom she calls the best manager ever. He taught her how to make rehashing news interesting. The more she wrote, the more interested she became in what was happening in the world. She started to understand the function of the work. People needed stories. People used stories. It felt good to be necessary. What she learned about breaking news Over time, Chukwu discovered what kind of stories she liked. Business and product stories. Breaking news. She covered Chowdeck as a product, the ecosystem’s network with the Paystack Mafia, and an analysis on the impact of failed startups on the ecosystem. She loved being the first to report something. “I loved covering those because people’s idea of what fintech is in Africa is very different,” she says. But she also learned something frustrating: to get the best of these stories, you need sources inside companies. And Chukwu insists that in Africa, this is slightly more difficult. “People don’t really care about their jobs that much,” she says as an observation. “And I think maybe that’s the thing that’s different about our ecosystem versus Silicon Valley. People there love to defend their work. People
Read MoreNigeria moves to mandate organisations to disclose cyber attacks amid rising threats
Nigeria is moving to end the culture of silence around cyberattacks, pushing banks, fintechs, and other organisations to disclose breaches or at least share intelligence in the wake of rising threats. Kashifu Abdullahi, director-general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigeria’s tech regulator, said organisations must begin disclosing breaches, or at the very least, share intelligence, because attacks are becoming more frequent and increasingly interconnected. “The landscape is elevated because of AI and other dynamics, and we are all connected,” Abdullahi told TechCabal on the sidelines of GITEX Africa in Morocco on April 9. “If one organisation is compromised, it can become a launch pad for others.” His comments come as cyber incidents continue to hit both financial institutions and government agencies, more recently, the Corporate Affairs Commission. Despite this, reporting remains weak. In its latest publicly available fraud report, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) said only 60 out of 163 institutions reported fraud incidents in 2023, a compliance rate of just 37%. “Non-reporting of fraud incidents is a breach of the CBN circular on the Establishment of Industry Fraud Desks,” it said. Data from the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) showed that the amount involved in fraud cases reached ₦5.26 billion ($3.81 million) across 14,697 incidents in the third quarter of 2025. For Abdullahi, the reluctance to disclose incidents is rooted in reputational concerns that no longer hold in a connected digital ecosystem. “If you look at what happened recently, they exploited a bank, from the bank they got access to Remita, and so on,” he said. “That notion that if I am attacked and I make it public, it will damage my image has to change.” Instead of silence, regulators want structured information sharing across institutions and agencies to prevent attacks from spreading across the system. NITDA said it is working with the Office of the National Security Adviser and the Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy to improve coordination among agencies and private sector players. On April 1, Minister Bosun Tijani said the government would partner with industry players to establish a cybersecurity coordination council. Three weeks later, he said the council will focus on building a coordinated national cyber resilience framework anchored on accountability, intelligence sharing, and policy alignment. The Central Bank of Nigeria has also stepped in. On March 30, it introduced a cybersecurity self-assessment tool (CSAT), requiring financial institutions to evaluate their preparedness for threats, while formally recognising AI as a tool in combating financial crime. “We are always trying to be ahead of the game,” Abdullahi said. If Nigeria follows through, it would align with a growing global shift toward mandatory breach disclosure and coordinated cyber defence. In Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires organisations to notify users when a data breach poses a high risk. In Africa, Algeria mandates breach reporting within five days, while Kenya requires initial disclosures within 48 hours. Under South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), organisations must notify both regulators and affected individuals after a breach. In April, 2025, regulators tightened enforcement by requiring companies to log incidents through a central portal, detailing what happened, the data involved, and mitigation steps. According to the International Monetary Fund, stronger reporting and information sharing among financial institutions can significantly improve collective resilience against cyber threats. For Nigeria, regulators are now betting that forcing more openness, whether through disclosure or intelligence sharing, will make the system harder to exploit.
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OPPO Find X9 Ultra vs Find X8 Ultra: Which should you buy?
Table of contents The biggest upgrades on the Find X9 Ultra OPPO Find X9 Ultra: Full specs and features OPPO Find X8 Ultra: Full specs and features Side-by-side comparison When OPPO launched the Find X9 Ultra at its headquarters in Chengdu, China, on April 21, 2026, the biggest story was the geography. For the first time since OPPO introduced the Ultra-tier label in 2024, an Ultra-range Find X phone is available outside China. The Find X8 Ultra, which launched a year earlier in April 2025, was never officially released outside China. That global shift changes everything for you as a Nigerian buyer. Both phones are imports for now since there is no official OPPO Nigeria channel for either. However, the X9 Ultra, with confirmed launches in the UK, Europe, and India, will be far easier to source through grey-market vendors than its predecessor ever was. Here is how the two phones compare across every meaningful spec. The biggest upgrades on the Find X9 Ultra OPPO’s tagline for the X9 Ultra is Your Next Camera, and the phone mostly lives up to it. The most significant change over the X8 Ultra is the camera system. Where the X8 Ultra used a 50 MP 1.0-inch Sony LYT-900 main sensor alongside three 50 MP companions, the X9 Ultra moves to a five-camera rear setup led by two 200 MP sensors. These are a Sony LYT-901 main camera and an OmniVision OV52A 3x telephoto. On top of that, OPPO added an industry-first 50 MP 10x optical periscope built around what the company calls a Quintuple Prism Reflection design. Engadget, which tested the phone ahead of launch, called the 1/1.12-inch main sensor the largest 200 MP sensor in a phone yet. Beyond cameras, the X9 Ultra brings several other upgrades: A newer Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, replacing the X8 Ultra’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Battery capacity jumps from 6,100 mAh to 7,050 mAh with a silicon-carbon build OPPO calls the Glacier Battery Display peak brightness rises from 2,500 nits to 3,600 nits, and the refresh rate hits 144 Hz in supported games Android 16 and ColorOS 16 out of the box IP66 added on top of the IP68 and IP69 ratings that the X8 Ultra already had Bluetooth 6.0, 8K video, an O-Log2 log profile with ACES support, a 50 MP autofocus selfie camera, and AirDrop-compatible Quick Share for transfers between your phone and iPhones or Macs OPPO Find X9 Ultra: Full specs and features Image source: The Tech Chap on YouTube 1. Display The X9 Ultra has a 6.82-inch LTPO 2.0 AMOLED panel at a resolution of 3168 x 1440, which works out to 510 pixels per inch. It runs at an adaptive 1-120 Hz refresh rate, with 144 Hz unlocked in select games. Touch sampling sits at 300 Hz. Brightness is rated at 800 nits typical, 1,800 nits in high-brightness mode, and 3,600 nits peak HDR. The panel supports Dolby Vision, HDR Vivid, and HDR10+ with 10-bit colour. PWM dimming runs at 2,160 Hz, the minimum brightness drops to 1 nit, and the top glass is Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. OPPO uses what it calls an X3 luminescent material with pixel-level gamma correction. 2. Processor, RAM, and storage The X9 Ultra runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a 3 nm chip (model SM8850-AC) with two Oryon V3 Phoenix L cores at 4.6 GHz and six Oryon V3 Phoenix M cores at 3.62 GHz. The GPU is an Adreno 840 clocked at 1,200 MHz. RAM is LPDDR5X, available in 12 GB or 16 GB. Storage uses UFS 4.1 in 256 GB, 512 GB, or 1 TB options inside China. For global buyers, OPPO is selling only the 512 GB and 1 TB variants. 3. Battery and charging The Glacier Battery is a 7,050 mAh silicon-carbon cell. It supports 100 W SUPERVOOC wired charging, 50 W AIRVOOC wireless charging, and 10 W reverse wireless charging. The charger also works with 80 W SUPERVOOC, 18 W PD, 18 W QC, and 55 W PPS profiles. OPPO claims up to 31 hours of YouTube playback per charge, though that figure is based on manufacturer lab conditions. 4. Camera system OPPO’s partnership with Hasselblad, the Swedish camera brand whose cameras went to the moon, has been in place since 2022. The X9 Ultra marks the fourth generation of that collaboration, now branded the New-Generation Hasselblad Master Camera System. Hasselblad co-branded the launch event in Chengdu. Video: 8K at 30 fps on both 200 MP sensors; 4K at 30, 60, or 120 fps; 4K Dolby Vision up to 120 fps; 1080p slow motion to 240 fps; 720p slow motion to 480 fps. The O-Log2 log profile supports real-time LUT preview, LUT burn-in, ACES colour management, and custom 3D LUT imports. OPPO also introduced a feature called LUMO, an internal optical zoom processing system that quadruples the pixel count at the 2x and 6x focal lengths. Optional accessories include the Hasselblad Earth Explorer Kit (a grip-case with a 300 mm teleconverter for roughly 13x optical) and the TILTA KHRONOS Kit, which includes ND filters, manual focus handles, and an internal HDMI output. 5. Design and durability The X9 Ultra measures 163.16 x 76.97 mm. Thickness is 8.65 mm for the Canyon Orange version and 9.10 mm for Tundra Umber, with weights of 235 g and 236 g, respectively. The frame is aluminium alloy. The Canyon Orange back is glass; Tundra Umber uses an eco-friendly vegan leather inspired by the Hasselblad X2D 100C Earth Explorer Edition camera. Globally, the phone ships in Tundra Umber and Canyon Orange. Polar Glacier is China-exclusive. The phone carries IP66, IP68, and IP69 ratings, plus Swiss SGS five-star drop and shock certification. There are two physical buttons besides the power and volume keys: a customisable Shortcut Button on the left and a pressure-sensitive Quick Button on the right that doubles as a camera shutter and zoom slider. 6. Software and AI The X9 Ultra ships with Android 16 and ColorOS
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This AI doctor answers the hardest questions women ask
28 avril 2026 Hello , Welcome back to Francophone Weekly by TechCabal, your weekly deep dive into the tech ecosystem across French-speaking Africa. For readers who want to understand Francophone Africa beyond headlines—through markets, startups, and systems. New editions of the newsletter will land directly in your inbox every Tuesday at 12 PM WAT. By default, this newsletter is in French. If you’re reading this in your email inbox, click the “Read in English” button below to switch to the English version. If you’re reading on our website, you can either click the button below or toggle the language selector at the top right-hand side of the page to view the English edition. Read in English A minuit, quand les cliniques sont fermées et les salles d’attente vides, une femme à Abidjan tape une question sur son téléphone. Elle veut savoir pourquoi ses règles sont en retard, ce que signifie une douleur qu’elle ne sait pas nommer, une inquiétude qu’elle porte en silence depuis des semaines. Elle n’écrit pas à une amie. Elle ne fait pas défiler un groupe Facebook en espérant une réponse. Elle parle à Kiko — l’assistant de santé basé sur l’intelligence artificielle de La Ruche Health, disponible sur WhatsApp, vingt-quatre heures sur vingt-quatre, gratuitement. Ce n’est pas un cas extrême. C’est le cas d’usage central. Depuis son lancement en 2022, La Ruche Health, une start-up spécialisée dans les technologies de la santé basée à Abidjan, affirme que a répondu à plus de 500 000 questions de santé via Kiko, facilité plus de 5 000 téléconsultations payées avec des spécialistes vérifiés, et constitué une base de patients dans dix pays — sans un seul cabinet, une seule salle d’attente, ni un seul carnet d’ordonnances. Quatre-vingt-dix-huit pourcent de ces interactions se font sur WhatsApp. L’entreprise a été fondée par Rory Assandey, PDG, et Benjamin Sasu, directeur technique — deux cofondateurs qui ont bâti leur MVP ensemble pendant plus d’un an avant de se rencontrer en personne pour la première fois dans un couloir d’aéroport. Ce qu’ils ont construit depuis est l’un des produits de santé grand public les plus discrètement importants d’Afrique de l’Ouest francophone. 1. Un système bâti sur un vide Source de l’image : Getty Images via iStockphoto Le problème que résout La Ruche Health n’est pas subtil. En 2023, la Côte d’Ivoire comptait environ 0,2 médecin pour 1 000 habitants—bien en deçà du ratio recommandé par l’OMS—et près de 80 % de ces médecins sont concentrés à Abidjan. Pour le reste du pays, les soins spécialisés ne sont pas lents ni coûteux. Ils sont, en pratique, absents. Le tableau de la santé maternelle rend cela concret. Le ratio de mortalité maternelle de la Côte d’Ivoire s’élève à environ 480 décès pour 100 000 naissances vivantes — plus de trois fois la moyenne mondiale de 197. L’Afrique de l’Ouest et l’Afrique centrale représentent collectivement plus de la moitié de tous les décès maternels à l’échelle mondiale, selon le rapport régional 2025 de l’UNICEF. Dans l’ensemble de l’Afrique de l’Ouest francophone, le taux de prévalence contraceptive moderne reste compris entre 13 % et 27 %, avec un besoin non satisfait moyen en contraception de 27 % — encore plus élevé chez les femmes non mariées, selon une recherche publiée dans Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters. En Afrique de l’Ouest, environ quatre femmes enceintes sur dix n’effectuent toujours pas les quatre consultations prénatales recommandées, selon une analyse multipays des enquêtes démographiques et de santé menées entre 2015 et 2022. La situation de l’assurance maladie aggrave le tableau. La Côte d’Ivoire a introduit la Couverture Maladie Universelle (CMU) en 2014, mais son adoption est restée limitée. Les données de La Ruche sont sans appel : 96 % de leurs patients payants ne bénéficient d’aucune couverture d’assurance et règlent leurs factures entièrement de leur poche. Chaque consultation représente ainsi une dépense discrétionnaire dans un pays où, selon les estimations de la Banque mondiale, 36 % de la population vivait en dessous du seuil de pauvreté correspondant au revenu intermédiaire inférieur (4,2 dollars par jour) en 2025. C’est dans ce vide que Rory Assandey a construit la plateforme à laquelle il pensait depuis 2015 — forgée, dès le début, par ce qu’il a vu en grandissant. « Mon père conduisait lui-même les femmes à la maternité — parce que pour beaucoup de familles vivant à dix kilomètres de là, sans transport fiable ni route pour accéder aux soins, son camion faisait la différence entre un accouchement sûr et une tragédie. » — Rory Assandey, PDG Sa mère dirigeait une équipe de sages-femmes. Son père créait la prise de conscience et construisait le chemin pour l’atteindre. « Ensemble, ils formaient un système complet, » a dit Assandey. « Ma mère et son équipe sont le réseau de spécialistes de santé vérifiés — désormais disponibles en ligne. Mon père, c’est Kiko et notre plateforme de télémédecine — qui créent la prise de conscience, établissent la confiance et orientent les patients vers les professionnels qui peuvent les aider. On a juste construit l’infrastructure pour le faire à grande échelle. » Ce que les femmes demandent quand personne ne regarde L’intuition produit au cœur de La Ruche Health est d’une simplicité trompeuse : les gens parlent de leur corps d’une manière radicalement différente quand ils ne se sentent pas jugés. Les données de Kiko pour 2025 le montrent concrètement. Sur un échantillon de trois mois, 31 % des questions concernaient le cycle menstruel, 23 % la grossesse, 21 % la contraception et 21 % le soutien émotionnel — les moments de santé fondamentaux de la vie reproductive d’une femme, systématiquement mal desservis par les soins en présentiel dans des contextes marqués par la stigmatisation, le genre des soignants, le coût et la géographie. La première raison de consultation payée reflète cette réalité : 34 % concernent la grossesse et le post-partum, la gynécologie et la dermatologie représentant chacune 20 % de plus. La base d’utilisateurs est composée à 82,4 % de femmes, dont 45 % ont entre 25 et 34 ans. Pour que cela fonctionne, Sasu a dû faire un choix technique délibéré : Kiko ne pouvait pas
Read MoreEthiopia-based Dodai raises $13 million to expand battery-swapping EV network
Dodai, an Ethiopia-based electric mobility company that focuses on electric two-wheelers, has closed its $13 million Series A funding round to expand its electric motorbike and battery-swapping network across Addis Ababa. The round includes $8 million in equity and $5 million in debt, with participation from Value Chain Innovation Fund, UTokyo Innovation Platform Co., Nagase, Persistent Energy, For Seasons, CBC Co., Ltd, Inclusion Japan (ICJ), and debt financing from British International Investment (BII). The funding comes as Ethiopia positions itself as one of Africa’s most aggressive electric vehicle markets. In 2024, the government banned the import of private internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and expanded that ban to include gasoline and diesel trucks in 2025. That policy has accelerated adoption, with the country now recording around 100,000 electric vehicles on its roads, according to its Ministry of Transport and Logistics. “Ethiopia is emerging as one of Africa’s most compelling frontier markets for the clean mobility transition, where the right capital can unlock outsized impact and long-term value,” said Leslie Maasdorp, CEO of British International Investment (BII). “BII’s investment will support Dodai to scale critical e-mobility and battery-swapping infrastructure, and accelerate the development of a commercial market for electric motorbikes.” Founded in 2023 by Sasaki, Dodai locally assembles electric motorbikes and batteries, and operates a battery-swapping infrastructure that allows drivers to replace depleted batteries. The company, which raised $7 million in 2024, is building a model in a market attracting competition from local and Chinese manufacturers like the Belayneh Kinde Group (BKG) and Yadea. Dodai is betting on its integrated model of combining local assembly with battery-swapping infrastructure to reduce charging friction for riders. Since its launch, the company said it has locally assembled and deployed over 2,000 electric motorbikes. Dodai’s new funding will be used to scale its battery-swapping and e-bike network, as the company aims to set up 30 battery-swapping stations across Addis Ababa and reach 3,000 users over the next 12 months. “This funding will help take us from early traction to real scale,” said Yuma Sasaki, CEO and Founder of Dodai. “We’ve proven the model in Addis Ababa—now we’re building the network and infrastructure needed to make electric mobility the default.” Over the next three years, the company plans to scale to 30,000 users and 1,000 battery-swapping stations across Addis Ababa, before expanding into cities like Abidjan, Kinshasa, Accra, Dar es Salaam, and Cairo from 2028, exporting its model to other high-growth urban markets across the continent. “We chose Ethiopia because that’s where the opportunity to build from first principles really exists,” said Sasaki. “This raise allows us to double down on that bet—and show what the future of mobility in African cities can look like.”
Read MoreKenya’s Central Bank is hiring for crypto compliance roles as landmark regulation nears
The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) is hiring for senior and managerial roles to oversee licencing and compliance for virtual asset service providers (VASPs), even as the regulations governing the sector are still being finalised. On Monday, the regulator posted four positions within its Digital Payment Services Division on its careers portal, all closing May 18. The roles span licencing, product approval, and compliance oversight of virtual asset service providers. It is the first time the regulator has advertised roles specifically dedicated to VASPs, a sign that it is assembling capacity ahead of what could be an imminent regulatory rollout. A manager-level hire would lead the licencing function, reviewing applications, recommending approvals or rejections, and developing standard operating procedures for the new VASP regime. Two deputy manager positions would respectively handle licencing and product approval, and oversight and compliance, the latter focused on risk-based supervision of licenced VASPs, including anti-money laundering (AML) checks, cybersecurity assessments, and enforcement of licencing conditions. A senior business analyst role rounds out the team, focused on application review and regulatory guidance for incoming VASP applicants. The hiring comes seven months after Kenya’s parliament passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Act in October 2025, which for the first time created a legal framework for the country’s crypto sector. Under that law, the CBK will oversee virtual assets used for payments, carving out a market where crypto-linked remittances and mobile money integrations have grown steadily. Yet, the subordinate regulations needed to actually operationalise that law are still not in place. The National Treasury drafted the VASP Regulations in March and opened them for public comment until April 10. They have yet to be gazetted. The regulations, as drafted, propose a 13-member inter-agency Coordination Committee on which the CBK sits alongside other state agencies—including the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), the Financial Reporting Centre (FRC), and the National Computer and Cybercrimes Coordination Committee (NC4)—a structure meant to manage oversight across the various use cases of virtual assets. With the comment period closed and the regulations still pending, the hiring suggests the CBK is building internal capacity ahead of implementation. All four roles require backgrounds spanning payments, banking operations, financial services, or law, with the more senior positions demanding familiarity with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing frameworks and international VASP standards. Kenya joins a growing list of African countries, including Rwanda and Ghana, moving to bring crypto under formal oversight, but the gap between legislating and regulating remains a challenge across the continent. For now, the CBK is hiring, with or without the rulebook fully written.
Read MoreRack Centre to train engineers as Nigeria’s data centre talent shortage grows
Rack Centre, a Lagos-based Tier III carrier and cloud-neutral data centre facility, is launching a structured training programme for university students and engineering graduates to expand Nigeria’s technical workforce. The programme will kick off on Wednesday. The move comes as demand for data infrastructure grows alongside cloud adoption and AI workloads. While new facilities are being built—bringing the number of operational data centres in Africa to 249 as of February 2026—operators say the supply of engineers needed to manage critical systems, particularly power and cooling, has not kept pace. “There’s a lot of recycling of the same people across companies,” Adebola Adefarati, Rack Centre’s head of marketing and communications, told TechCabal on Monday. “People move from one data centre or telco to another, and it becomes a closed loop. The industry has to start creating new talent.” A survey by the Africa Data Centre Association suggests that 67% of data centre operators in Nigeria identify talent retention as a major challenge. In comparison, more than 60% rely on informal, in-house training to keep operations running. Globally, the workforce deficit is even more pronounced, with projections from Uptime Institute intelligence pointing to a need for 2.5 million additional data centre professionals by 2025. In Africa, the issue is compounded by a mix of limited specialised training, aggressive local hiring, and international poaching. Engineers trained to operate in high-stress environments like Lagos—where unreliable grid power and high ambient temperatures are the norm—are particularly attractive to global employers. “Once people gain experience running reliable systems in Nigeria, they become prime targets,” Adefarati said. “We’ve seen a number of our own people leave for opportunities abroad.” Rack Centre’s response is to build a broader pipeline rather than compete for the same limited pool. Data centres require relatively small teams, but with highly specialised expertise. Much of the infrastructure is automated, so staffing needs are low—typically 30 to 100+ people for a 100MW facility. For a 13.5MW site like Rack Centre’s, the workforce is even smaller at about 65 full-time staff, including technicians, engineers, and management, meaning the company cannot absorb all the talent it trains and expects graduates to be distributed across the industry. The programme will train between 15 and 20 engineers in its first cohort, with only a fraction expected to be absorbed internally. The rest will be absorbed by other operators within the data centre ecosystem and telecom operators. Participants will undergo two certification tracks, including one delivered in partnership with Schneider Electric’s training platform, followed by an advanced course and a one-month internship inside a live facility. The full programme runs for four to five months. Training costs, estimated at $2,500 per participant, are fully subsidised, reflecting a broader industry consensus that individuals cannot shoulder the financial burden of specialised certification, according to Adefarati. “The issue is not that people aren’t studying engineering,” he said. “It’s that they’re not trained to work on systems that must run 100% of the time. Data centres are different. You’re dealing with redundant power, precision cooling, and real-time fault detection in a highly sensitive environment.” That complexity is especially pronounced in Nigeria, where maintaining uptime requires adapting global standards to local realities, like hot environments. Cooling systems, for instance, must operate efficiently in temperatures that can exceed 40°C, while power infrastructure must compensate for an inconsistent grid supply. Rack Centre’s programme is being developed in collaboration with the Africa Data Centres Association, which is working toward a broader goal of training up to 1,000 data centre professionals over the next two years. The effort aligns with a wider industry push toward a “source-train-place” model, designed to create a continuous pipeline of talent rather than episodic hiring. The programme also targets structural imbalances within the workforce. Women remain significantly underrepresented in core operational roles, accounting for as little as 5% of technical staff in some facilities. Rack Centre says it aims to ensure that at least one-third of participants in each cohort are female. “Data centres are often seen as hardware,” Adefarati said. “But their success is fundamentally about people.”
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