Next Wave: Questioning Africa’s booming tech event circus
Cet article est aussi disponible en français <!– In partnership with –> <!— –> First published 24 June 2023 Everyone wants to host the definitive “African tech event”, but what is the true value of an African tech event? One of the most fascinating things to watch has been the increasing number of tech events organised in or targeting Africa’s technology “ecosystem”. As the numbers continue to grow, the impromptu small group “mixers”, large multi-day multi-track conferences, even bigger exhibitions, plus the staid business and policy affairs are all blurring into each other. The African tech media circus is on a roll, and while I am not complaining, I can’t help but wonder if the generic versions of the same event format are not a sign that the newborn sector needs an infusion of inventiveness. Partner Message Calling technologists and creatives across Africa! Are you working on an innovative product that helps address disinformation and extremism challenges? If so, we want you to apply to the U.S.-West Africa Tech Challenge! The U.S.-West Africa Tech Challenge funds promising technologies that offer innovative solutions to help expose, understand, or counter disinformation, propaganda, and violent extremism within Coastal West Africa. We invite technologists from across Africa to submit an application to present their solutions for a chance to receive funding totaling $250,000 USD. The event will take place on September 27-28 2023 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Eight finalists will have the opportunity to present their tech to a panel of judges and an audience of government, civil society, and private sector stakeholders. The deadline for submissions is July 16, 2023. To receive the full details of how to apply, click the button below: See application details The tech event “industry” is a significant several-billion-dollar market globally. In the days and weeks after COVID-19 was officially recognised as a global health emergency, tech event cancellations in the US alone reportedly caused losses of more than $1.1 billion. This was according to PredictHQ, a market intelligence firm focused on the business of events and adjacent industries. That a firm (and likely several others) could find a viable business model in predicting how events shape retail and B2B businesses is a testament to how much value events generate—at least in the United States. You could see the immediate result of the losses facing the events industry in how virtual event startups received massive bouts of venture and public funding as investors (both venture capitalists and in public markets) saw the billions of dollars events market as up for grabs. Zoom anyone? Unfortunately, it did not last even beyond the first year of the COVID-19 health emergency. Not all and randomly selected on a Sunday afternoon, please don’t be angry with us, if we missed something | Infographic: Ayomide Agbaje — TechCabal Insights. With digital technology penetrating all aspects of urban life, the idea of cities that are smart, where services and infrastructure are optimal for all residents, has taken hold. Especially when paired with technology solutions that are supposed to deliver this urban transformation. Slums have been reimagined in glowing utopian visions. Physical events are now on an upswing and Africa’s technology ecosystems, which received significant injections of capital in the three years following March 2020, are building their marketplaces of technology events. It is not new, it is just…a lot more and happening in more places than before. London, Paris, Dubai, Marrakech, Cape Town, Kigali, Lagos, Lusaka, Washington DC, heck I’ve seen African tech media being invited to Punjab (you may or may not see me rocking a dark green shalwar kameez in Lahore). The most recent events I have been part of were all first-time events and were excellent in their different ways. But for today’s Sunday essay, I would deeply appreciate responses from organisers (especially) and attendees. I happen to be on both sides. But I am one person and I don’t know it all and I have a responsibility to push the hard questions, no? So here are a few questions for you: Is there an actual events industry developing alongside or this is all just a sideshow? Let me explain. The business value of attending industry events, generally, is obvious. You get to meet people in person. That is often invaluable for a business and I understand that. But the more these events happen and are not differentiated, the more I question if the model (profit for organisers) is that valuable especially as more events resemble each other and are multiplying. Is there really a demand for and a deep-enough pocket for undifferentiated tech events happening throughout the year? If there is a growing demand for these events, that might be a proxy for learning how much business is generated by events. It sounds like data airlines and other types of travel/hospitality businesses will want to look into and use it to create custom packages. If there is not, the question is, how much do regionally disjointed events really help in fostering networking or connections? Or are the same set of people always seeing the same set of other people? If you’ve attended tech events (especially the conferences and exhibitions) in Africa, what were the top three things you looked forward to when deciding what event to be a part of? There is a school of thought that dismisses the overall value of attending events. I think it’s an incredibly short-sighted school of thought, especially when applied broadly and they got louder during the “focus on positive unit economics” era of venture capitalists, just a few months ago. And while there is merit to the argument that startup money is not supposed to fund tourism, one could just as easily dismiss the real chance to score new leads or even deals, find and nurture relationships. Or have the opportunity to do things as basic as increasing discoverability—especially for B2B firms. Partner Content: LiteUp Naija: Illuminating Nigeria with the power of the sun My point is not whether attending events can be
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👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily – Nigerian banks to use social media for KYC
In partnership with Share this newsletter: Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Happy salary day Congratulations to all 25 African startups who got into Google’s Black Founders Fund. Ten of the grantees were from Nigeria, five from Kenya, and three from South Africa. Ghana, Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda, and Senegal each have one grant recipient, completing the list. We got a chance to speak to some of the startups including Herconomy and Fez Delivery, and here’s how the founders plan to leverage the opportunity. In today’s edition Nigerian banks to use social media for KYC Flutterwave enters 5-year deal with Microsoft TC Insights: The impact of internet shutdowns on Africa’s economy The World Wide Web3 Event: The Moonshot Conference Job openings Economy Nigerian banks to use social media for KYC It’s not “just Twitter” anymore. At least not in Nigeria. Last week, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), released its Customer Due Diligence Regulations 2023 for all financial institutions under its regulatory purview. Under the new regulations, the apex bank has made it mandatory for all financial institutions to use social media handles for KYC operations. Side bar: KYC stands for know-your-customer and it’s the various processes all services use to verify the identities of their users. If you’ve ever had to verify your identity for an app by entering your national identity number, social security, phone number or email, then you’ve completed a KYC process. Now, Section 6(iv) of the CBN’s new regulations will make it so that banks have to ask users to confirm their identities using social media—platforms that already have poor and troubling KYC policies. The requirements cover both individuals and businesses, all of whom will need to provide social media handles moving forward. Business publication Nairametrics states that the new requirements come as the country recognises the growing importance of social media. A concerning move? Already, Nigeria has a slew of other options for KYC including its NIN and BVN services which many Nigerians still have trouble accessing. It’s questionable why social media handles would be necessary, given that only 31.6 million Nigerians—about 16% of the entire population—have access to social media. Image source: Zikoko Memes Another concern surfaces with Nigeria’s troubling history with social media. Since its 2020 #EndSARS campaign, led by the country’s youth, went viral on social media, the country has been trying to censor social media, even banning Twitter for seven months in 2021. The country has tried to enact a social media bill, a hate speech bill, and several amendments to different acts which censor social media. With several Nigerians imprisoned and targeted by government officials for their online presence, many Nigerians have tagged the move as yet another move by the government to curtail social media. You’ll be in good company Moniepoint has made it simple for your business to access payments while providing access to credit and other business tools. Open an account today on moniepoint.com/ng. Fintech Flutterwave enters 5-year deal with Microsoft Olugbenga Agboola, CEO of Flutterwave Fintech unicorn Flutterwave isn’t just racking up licences across Africa, it’s also entering big deals. Last week, the company announced that it had signed a 5-year deal with Microsoft. The partnership will see the fintech company build a new generation of payment services on Microsoft Azure, powering payments infrastructure across the African continent and beyond. This partnership, according to a statement forwarded to TechCabal, will enable the African payment firm to service multinational firms. Some of them include enabling payments of Uber, Netflix, and Microsoft, solidifying Azure’s role in facilitating a seamless, reliable, and secure payment experience. Flutterwave on Azure: Flutterwave will also onboard its products such as Flutterwave for Business, Send by Flutterwave, Flutterwave Store, and Flutterwave for Fintech Platform onto Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Platform. The goal is to offer payment services to-and-from Africa. An East African hub: Meanwhile, the payments company is also looking to make Kigali, Rwanda, its East African hub. Since it acquired electronic money and remittance licences in Rwanda earlier this year, the company has been planning to set up a financial operations centre for East Africa in the county’s capital. Flutterwave CEO Gbenga Agboola believes the country has ambitions of being a premier destination for foreign investment funds management into Africa. The big picture: Meanwhile, the company is moving ahead with its plan for an IPO. Agboola confirmed to TechCabal that the company isn’t looking to raise more funding, but will instead focus on deepening its market presence across regions where it has licences, including Egypt. TC Insights Student expulsion in Nigeria sparks digital rights debate With a 40% internet penetration rate as of 2022, sub-Saharan African remains the least connected region in the world. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) estimated that an investment of almost $97 billion is needed to bridge this connectivity gap on the continent. Depending on the level of connectivity achieved, Africa’s internet economy is projected to grow to $180 billion by 2025 and $712 billion by 2050. Despite the pressing need for improved internet access, there is a growing trend of government-directed internet shutdowns in various African countries, which have implications for the digital economy. Internet shutdowns have more than doubled in Africa between 2020 and 2022, from 12 to 25 respectively, making one in four Africans affected. A recent example is the Senegalese government’s decision to cut off internet access in response to violent protests and the spread of controversial messages on social media platforms during the first week of June. Image source: Ayomide Agbaje/TechCabal Insights According to Surfshark’s internet censorship annual recap, Africa ranks as the second in terms of internet shutdowns, with over 300 million Africans affected, trailing behind only Asia. The economic consequences of internet shutdowns are evident, as highlighted by the estimated combined loss of $2.4 billion suffered by African nations in 2022 due to internet restrictions. For instance, Sudan’s 185-day shutdown also cost the country approximately 7.3% of its 2020 GDP. Despite the potential for significant economic growth in the internet
Read MoreHow founders plan to leverage the Google Black Founders Fund
Some beneficiaries of the Google Black Founders Fund share with TechCabal why they applied for the fund and how the funding will make a difference. On Tuesday, Google announced that it had selected 25 African startups that would receive up to $150,000 in cash without any equity requirements in the startups and up to $200,000 in Google Cloud credits as recipients of the Google Black Founders Fund (BFF). Already in its third year, the $4 million fund aims to address the funding gap that black and female founders experience globally. The startups would also receive ad support, mentoring by industry experts, and connections within Google’s network. Here are some of the startups and what they plan to do with the BFF: Fez Delivery With 72% of the startups being led or co-founded by women, the fund makes good on its promise to support female-led startups. One such female-led startup is Nigeria’s Fez Delivery, a last-mile logistics company for individuals and businesses. Seun Alley, its founder, told TechCabal that BFF would allow the startup to improve its product offering and its mission to deliver to Africa’s diaspora community. “Google’s community of industry experts and its tank load of resources will help give us the fuel to drive effective last mile operations in Nigeria. With what we can leverage from Google with features like Maps, we can even touch every nook and cranny easily with high-quality zoning operations,” she told TechCabal. Herconomy Another startup that would use the fund to improve its current operations is Herconomy, a Nigerian fintech that seeks to provide core banking solutions for women in Africa. “Herconomy will be able to secure a microfinance bank licence that will enable it to onboard more women, including underserved communities, and empower them with the financial services they need to succeed and thrive,” Ife Durosimi-Etti, the founder and CEO, told TechCabal. Google lists 25 African startups for its Black Founders Fund 2023 cohort Zydii Zydii is a Kenyan startup that provides African courses tailored for upskilling African employees via an online and offline platform. These courses are developed in partnership with local experts. Joyce Mbaya, the founder of Zydii, told TechCabal that the opportunity to work with Google, connect with founders across Africa, and receive funds made her apply for the BFF. She added that the funding would help Zydii expand its services and its market presence in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. “The funding enables us to collaborate with more local experts and organisations, ensuring that our training courses are tailored to meet the specific needs and challenges of the African workforce. We can continue to develop high-quality courses that address the skills gap and equip individuals with the competencies required for success in their respective industries,” she said. Raenest This year’s cohorts cut across eight African countries and industries like healthcare, construction, legal services, and fintech. For Victor Alade, the CEO and co-founder of Raenest, a fintech that allows startups and freelancers to receive global payments, the fund came at the right time as the company is looking to expand into another country. “This fund presents a valuable opportunity for us to not only reduce costs associated with our current services through the utilisation of Google credits but also gain access to essential resources and mentorship. These resources and mentorship will be instrumental in enabling us to scale our operations effectively. Google’s support will also play a pivotal role in our growth journey, providing us with the necessary tools and guidance to navigate new markets with efficiency and success,” Alade said. truQ As expected for what amounts to a sizable seed round, the Google BFF has a high cutoff mark. For Williams Fatayo, the founder of truQ, a logistics infrastructure provider, the third application did the trick. “We wanted it so bad, we wanted the resources, the community, and the validation that comes with it. [To see] “truQ is backed by Google” is huge.” truQ runs an AI-powered infrastructure for third-party logistics, using technology to connect businesses and individuals to logistics companies and vehicles. Fatayo told TechCabal that the funds, access to Googlers, and community of founders would be a “major catalyst for [truQ’s] journey and vision.” “Getting up to $150,000 in non-equity funding is a huge boost for our $1 million seed round fundraise, and up to $200,000 in Google Cloud credits [will] help our infrastructure costs,” he added.
Read MoreNigeria’s proposed electricity tariff hike means a fresh headache for small businesses
Electricity distributors in Nigeria are planning to increase tariffs by 40% from July. Fueled by the FX rate unification, this development will hurt small businesses. Jikka Bobo runs a small restaurant in Abuja and currently spends about ₦50,000 on electricity monthly with an average of six hours of power daily. According to him, he already struggles with running the business and the planned hike in electricity tariff will only make his business less profitable. “In the past month, the prices of ingredients have gone up by about 25%, not to mention the cost of transporting the ingredients down here. We have appliances like a freezer, a fridge, and other cooking equipment that require electricity to run,” he told TechCabal. From July 1, 2023, power distribution companies (DisCos) in Nigeria will increase electricity tariff by over 40% due to several reasons including the recent unification of the country’s foreign rate. For small businesses already grappling with existing problems including fuel hike and rising inflation, the proposed hike in electricity tariff will mean an increase in their energy costs which already form a significant portion of their running costs. According to the World Bank, businesses in Nigeria lose $29 billion yearly to poor electricity. Like many other small businesses, one of Bobo’s major frustrations is that he still has to buy fuel and diesel for his generators as the power supply is not stable enough to run his business. He spends an average of ₦30,000 weekly on diesel to supplement the electricity he gets. Bobo confesses that he’s not even sure how to navigate the proposed tariff hike. “We only raised our prices last week due to the fuel price hike, and customers have already started to complain about that. We’ll see how business goes before implementing another increase, just to see how much loss we’re incurring and if we can manage. We’re not a big restaurant yet and can’t charge as much as we’d like without losing some customers, or even making up for our loss in other areas,” he shared. Bala Zakka, an energy analyst, said small businesses can’t afford to incur additional costs considering the state of the Nigerian economy. “Before now, small businesses were already groaning in pain due to lack of electricity. With the increase in tariff, their operating cost will go up and what that means is an increase in the cost of goods and services,” he told TechCabal. For Anisa of Amica Salon, there just isn’t enough profit in sales to cover the jump in electricity. Anisa runs a female salon in the heart of Kaduna, and she cannot envision having to pay 40% more for electricity without increasing prices. “I did a quick calculation as soon as I heard the news and discovered that it just wasn’t possible.” Anisa is trying to build a salon that prioritizes quality and customer satisfaction but that just gets harder to achieve by the day. “I started out trying to build a high-standard salon and while this looks pretty straightforward, the policies in Nigeria just make that vision blurry. I import a lot of my products and materials, from wigs to hair products and appliances, and so the rising price of the dollar already makes it difficult for me to make a decent profit,” she told TechCabal. Businesses in major cities like Lagos and Abuja might be able to raise prices easily but not Anisa’s, as her business operates in Kaduna, where the cost of living is relatively lower to cities like Lagos and Abuja. “We currently don’t make a lot of profit, considering that I have to pay rent and my four staff. Unless we miraculously begin getting more clients, I’m going to have to increase my prices, which will probably discourage some of my already loyal clients.” Anisa boasts six electricity-guzzling bonnet hair dryers, electrical chairs, and some other appliances including water heaters and steamers. Nearly all of her services require electricity, and even when they don’t, she still has to turn on the air conditioning for her clients. “Some clients can’t sit in your shop without the AC being turned on. Sometimes we even try to conserve units by turning on the fan, and they insist on air conditioning,” she shared. Her salon gets a relatively steady power supply, but that also means that she spends a lot more on electricity units for their prepaid meter. While ₦10,000 could get her salon about 200 units, a 40% increase means that she’ll only be able to purchase just about 120 units with the same amount. Small businesses have little choice but to resign themselves to the current reality, and hang on as long as they can. However, Adeola Adenikinju, a professor of Energy Economics at the University of Ibadan, told TechCabal that the upward price review reflects the market but the consumers shouldn’t have to bear the burden alone. “There is a responsibility for the DisCos to improve the quality of service so people have adequate and stable electricity. It is high time we did away with estimated billing that places the burden of payments on the citizens,” he said.
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Samsung breaks the law in Kenya
Lire en français Read this email in French. Editor’s Note Week 25, 2023 Read time: 5 minutes Hello How are you doing? Read on for your weekly dose of relevant tech news from across the continent. Pamela Tetteh Editor, TechCabal. Editor’s Picks Glade loses $214,000 to hackers Glade has joined the list of Nigerian financial service providers that have had a not-so-merry encounter with hackers. This time, $214,000 was lost. What is the founder saying? Google to invest $4 million in black founders Google is granting equity-free funds, $4 million, to startups in Europe and Africa through its Black Founders Fund (BFF). Which startups? Samsung breaks the law in Kenya Toeing the steps of Apple, Samsung and other phone providers are defying the South Africa’s ICT regulator’s guidelines by selling phones without chargers in Kenya. What is Kenya doing about it?. Somalia launches QR code The Central Bank of Somalia has launched a Quick Response Code (QR code) standard—the SOMQR—to facilitate cashless payment across the country. Is this a big deal? Airtel Nigeria launches 5G Airtel Nigeria has joined the 5G gang. It launched its 5G network in four states in Nigeria—Lagos, Ogun, Abuja, and Rivers states. Learn more. Kenya gets contactless payment KCB and Visa have partnered to offer contactless payments powered by NFC. Telco Safaricom had tried to pull off something similar with M-PESA but failed more than five years ago. How will it work? A pricey data violation In this week’s episode of costly lessons, 100 banks and institutions in Nigeria paid over ₦200 million ($289,885) as penalties for violating the data privacy of Nigerian citizens. Learn more. Entering Tech Interested in getting tech career resources and insights?. Then sign up for Entering Tech to get started! A Safaricom CEO steps down Anwar Soussa is exiting his role as CEO of Safaricom Ethiopia. He was the first CEO of the telecom, which launched in the country in 2021. Learn more. Load-shedding bites another gaint South African retail giant Mr Price has blamed its multi-million dollar loss on load-shedding. Other publicly traded companies including MultiChoice, Vodacom, Telkom, and MTN have done the exact same thing too. Wondering how many millions of dollars the business lost? Find out. Heritage Bank denies fraud Last week, reports surfaced that ₦49 billion ($83 million) had been stolen from the Nigeria-based Heritage Bank’s accounts. This week the bank has denied all reports. Learn more. Who brought the money this week? South African solar energy company Yellow raised $14 million in Series B funding, in a round led by Convergence Partners. Nigerian electronics B2B marketplace Eze received $3.7 million in seed funding. Egypt’s fintech company Agel raised an undisclosed amount in an undisclosed funding round from Sand River Venture Capital. What else to read this weekend? Nigeria’s Gen X and baby boomers are finding joy and community while creating content on TikTok Flutterwave wants to make Kigali its settlement hub in East Africa UniAbuja student’s expulsion sparks a debate on digital rights Failure to launch: South Africa’s challenge in transforming technical talent into investable founders With SA experiencing a cybercrime epidemic, startups are coming to the rescue Can Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MNVOs) challenge Nigeria’s big telcos? Written by: Ngozi Chukwu Edited by: Pamela Tetteh 18, Nnobi Street, Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria Unsubscribe from TC Weekender
Read MoreFlutterwave eyes Egypt’s cross-border payments market as it plans IPO
As Flutterwave moves to capture a share of Egypt’s cross-border remittances, the payment company hopes expanding and deepening its market coverage will also be a boost for its IPO appeal. Flutterwave’s acquisition of a licence to payment services in Egypt may be linked to IPO plans which involve expanding its presence in major African economies. It already facilitates payment collection for an array of merchants in Egypt including Uber, but the company hopes it can tap into Egypt’s massive remittance market to deepen its market reach in the north African country. At the time it announced its Egyptian licence, Aalaa Gamal, regional manager of Flutterwave’s North Africa expansion and partnerships team in Egypt said the licensing represented the beginning of “other strategic wins in the North Africa and Middle East regions.” Recall that in August 2022, Bloomberg reported that Flutterwave was moving ahead with its IPO plans in spite of the furore generated over accusations of financial impropriety in Kenya. Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola confirmed to TechCabal that his company is still planning its Nasdaq listing. “Obviously we have a plan to do that [IPO], Agboola said, “But currently, our goal is to deepen market penetration, get our customers where they want to be across the continent [and] scale the business. But we’re getting IPO ready as a company,” he added “The market has been slumping for a while, so it is a wrong time to IPO,” Agboola acknowledged, but he added that he “saw that CAVA IPOed recently and their numbers went up, which is a good sign that the market is coming back. So it’s going back to where it should be,” Agboola said. CAVA, a Mediterranean “fast-casual” restaurant chain was founded 13 years ago in Washington DC. It announced an initial public offering on June 15, sending the company’s valuation to $4.7 billion on its stock market debut—twice the initial target of the IPO promoters. It was widely viewed as a sign that the IPO window may not be so closed off after a series of failed stock market debuts (especially from SPACed companies) in the last two years. As Flutterwave prepares to IPO, Agboola says his company will not seek to raise additional capital at this time. This is broadly in line with expectations for the company which has raised $474.5 million in funding over 11 rounds, with the latest being a $250 million series that put its valuation at $3 billion in early 2022. In an exclusive with TechCabal and Semafor, the Flutterwave co-founder and CEO downplayed the suggestion that the decision to not seek additional funding has anything to do with the current state of the fundraising landscape. “We’ve run a thrifty business, compared to our size, so we’re in a good place, balance-sheet-wise,” Agboola said. “We don’t need to raise capital.” Flutterwave has been on a hiring spree, snapping talent for its executive team from Visa, American Express and Mastercard as it prepares for an eventual IPO. Agboola proudly reeled off a list of executive hires that the payment company made, including its new CFO, Oneal Bhambani, a former American Express executive. Part of buttering up Flutterwave’s IPO appeal involves deepening its market penetration by looking north of the Sahara to Egypt, Africa’s third-largest economy. Eyes on Egypt’s cross-border payment market “There is a massive remittance corridor between Europe, the Middle East and Egypt,” Agboola pointed out. “We want to capture that corridor.” Beyond remittances, though, Flutterwave’s CEO noted that Egypt has “many different sectors [for payments], and it’s such a big market that we can’t afford not to play in that market.” Remittances make up a huge percentage of Egypt’s foreign currency receipts. In 2021, earnings sent from abroad far outstripped what came into Egypt as FDI combined with income from the Suez Canal. 2022 recorded a slight decline in remittance-inflow into Egypt. The World Bank says it expects a recovery that will surpass 2021’s record remittance inflow. The bulk of these remittances come from Gulf Cooperation Countries and Western Europe. Egypt’s government is counting on an increase in remittance inflow to help it tide over a growing foreign exchange crisis that has tanked the country’s reserves and forced it to sell state assets as part of an economic overhaul and negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Egypt’s payments landscape is still dominated by banks which also process most of what is received from remittances. But it is conceivable that the informal (Hawala) system still plays a significant role in transferring foreign currency in the country. Both the government and private financial institutions are paying a lot more attention to the remittance economy. Earlier this month, Emirates NBD – Egypt, a leading banking group with operations in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey announced a partnership with the Arab payment system Buna to facilitate payments and transfers within the Arab region. Buna is operated by the Arab Regional Payments, Clearing and Settlement Organisation (ARPCSO), a subsidiary of the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF). Since Egypt is predominantly on the receiving side of remittances, to effectively capture a share of the market might mean that Flutterwave laterally expands into the Middle or at least partners with a company that has visibility on the send side. That is the approach of Egypt’s homegrown Fawry, which has partnered with UAE-based voice-calling app Botim to allow Egyptian workers residing in the UAE to pay bills and send home remittances.
Read MoreThis SA startup plans to eliminate digital payments failure in Africa. Here is how
Revio is a South African fintech startup looking to address digital payments failure on the continent. The startup has raised $1.1 million to expand its market presence. According to recent data, three out of every 10 digital payments in Africa fail. Causes of failure range from a fragmented payments landscape and invalid cards to dormant accounts and high dispute rates. These failures contribute to a $14 billion loss in recurring revenue for digital businesses across the continent annually. Revio is a South African fintech startup trying to address this pain point. It was founded in 2020 by Ruaan Botha after seeing how much time and manual effort businesses spend in engaging customers on outstanding and failed payments. The startup raised $1.1 million in November which it has used to drive its presence in other African markets including Nigeria. TechCabal caught up with Nicole Dunn, Revio’s Chief Commercial Operating Officer, to discuss the startup’s payments solution, its expansion ambitions, raising funding in a downturn, and the state of payments on the continent. Please tell us more about Revio and the problem the company is trying to address. Nicole Dunn: When we look at the African continent, we’ve had really rapid digitisation of historically cash economies in the last 10 years or so with pioneers like Flutterwave and Paystack really laying the groundwork for digital payments. But with that, and with some of the national sort of focus on financial inclusion, there’s been huge fragmentation that has resulted. We’ve got 54 markets, very different markets and 42 different currencies. But a stat you might not know is that we’ve got more than 280 different registered payment service providers, and that number is growing every month, if not every week. And so as a business looking to do the single most core thing I need to do as any company, which is collect revenue from my customers, I’m confronted with huge complexity on multiple levels. I not only need to incur the search cost of which are the most locally relevant and reliable payment methods in each market, I also have to negotiate with each of those gateways. And that’s not a one-off project. It’s an ongoing operational burden or headache I need to incur because APIs change, there are unique settlement flows, there are unique settlement structures and fee structures. And even if I get all that right, what we see is in African markets, payments fail more often than anywhere else in the world. We’re seeing on average a failure rate of 30% on recurring payments. In some markets that’s even higher, reaching 50%-60%. And there are also other payments that are specifically risky. For businesses, like insurance businesses, a first premium payment often has a success rate of less than 30%. And so really, what we are tackling at Revio is this fragmentation and failure problem where businesses are unable to collect revenue from their customers. Failures can be for a host of reasons including technical failures and connectivity issues. It can also be customer related, where it’s a cash flow issue on the consumer side, or you’re trying to debit from their bank account, but they’re predominantly cash or mobile money based. So, we’re really bridging that gap to help businesses localise their payments stack and collect revenue at scale. What challenges have you faced in trying to address these challenges and how have you been trying to address those challenges? ND: I think it’s been interesting for us to just discover how unique each market is in terms of the payment cultures, and the payment preferences. So even within a market, you can have high fragmentation where a different payment method is preferred for a higher-value payment versus a lower-value payment. So in South Africa, you have debit order as the most popular payment method for recurring payments, but then we see the card and instant EFT growing in popularity for one-off e-commerce payments. And so there’s just a kind of infinite complexity that exists here. So the way we have tackled this is through partnerships and leveraging what the gateways do very well, which is payment acceptance capabilities. So our platform has a single API that is pre-integrated with the best gateways and each of the markets that we’re currently operating in and where our clients want us to operate. We aggregate those payment gateways so that we’re not reinventing the processing infrastructure that is already there. But we are also abstracting the complexity that’s around that. So for technical failures, building optimisation, like smart transaction routing to route transactions to the gateway, where they’re likely to have the highest success rate, or being able to dynamically fail over, set up different business rules for transactions, and really understanding the root causes of the failure. If it is a customer-related issue, it’s about being able to trigger an engagement with that customer to prompt them to do something that remedies the problem. So that’s really our approach in brief. In November, you raised $1.1 million. What was your experience raising funds in a downturn? So we announced the round in November but we actually closed the transaction a little bit closer to July. So we really went out into the market as the downturn started and it was really, really bad. And it was particularly painful for me because a year prior, I had been on the venture capital side and saw deals happen at hugely inflated valuations. And now I had to give away a piece of our company for much less than I knew companies with much poorer fundamentals had gotten away with the year before. So personally, that was really difficult to make peace with. But there is some positive change from that downturn in that companies now have to focus on unit economics and shift away from growth at all cost. And so if you can demonstrate an understanding of your business model, and how that will ultimately scale into profitability, there
Read MoreNigeria’s Gen X and baby boomers are finding joy and community while creating content on TikTok
As video social media apps such as TikTok become more popular, older adults are challenging the notion that these platforms are reserved for younger people. They are using the platforms to learn, find community and foster connections. Like most parents, Hajia Jarumai, a restaurant owner in Abuja, frowns at how much time her daughter spends on social media apps. She is especially worried that her daughter, Sarah, spends all day watching TikTok videos. But all that is changing now that Hajia is on TikTok, joining a small group of Gen X and baby boomers on the video-sharing platform. The numbers say that 14% of TikTok users are between the ages of 40 and 49, and only 7% are over the age of 50. Today, Hajia, like her daughter now spends time watching and swiping videos on TikTok—but it wasn’t love at first swipe. Hajia told TechCabal, “I first joined in March 2022, but I hardly went on there because I didn’t like the kind of videos they were showing me.” At the time, the app often showed her dancing videos but soon, the algorithm learned that she preferred cooking videos and comedy skits. Hajia estimates that she spends about four hours a day on TikTok. “Before TikTok, I used to watch cooking videos on YouTube to improve my business. But I prefer TikTok because the videos are shorter and more interesting.” Hajia also shares some of the videos she finds useful to her staff as a way to encourage them to join the app and learn new recipes.” Bimbo, a fifty-three-year-old woman who lives in Kaduna admits she’s addicted to TikTok. “You think you’re only going to watch one video and next thing you know, it has been over four hours. I once watched the entire season of a show on TikTok!” But it’s not only about fun for Bimbo. In TikTok, she has found a community that helped her through a difficult period. “When I was going through a hard time in my marriage and the death of my baby, TikTok really helped me. I found videos of mature people like me—even older—sharing their experiences and also sharing advice for people going through similar situations.” Despite spending a lot of time on the app, Bimbo hasn’t created any videos. “I don’t have the skill or the confidence to do that. Recording videos for these apps look like they take a lot of time and effort, and I’m not sure that I can do that,” she said. Unlike Bimbo, Aanu, a 50-year-old certified menopause well-being practitioner and content creator has about 360 videos on TikTok and 16,400 followers. She says that content creation can be challenging and time-consuming, especially for older people who are not as tech-savvy as the younger generation. “We weren’t born in the computer age and so navigating these devices and platforms takes a lot of effort and practice.” Aanu began creating content on TikTok and other platforms in 2022. Having taken the jump to create content, she’s passionate about reaching more people and growing her community. “I started out creating content on perimenopause for younger women, but I received an overwhelming amount of feedback from older women sharing their stories. Now, I also create content for older women going through menopause and content to help older women in their 50s stay fit and healthy.” Research suggests that adults in their 40s and 50s can benefit from interactions on social media apps. According to this report, adults experience a peak in loneliness as they approach their late-40s to mid-50s and psychiatrist Philip Jestes says this loneliness is sometimes caused by a decline in social interactions. Cole, a 63-year-old professor in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is no stranger to loneliness. He has three children, all of whom are in universities abroad. Two of his three children are content creators. Since retirement, Cole takes care of his guinea pigs and visits friends occasionally. TikTok and Instagram help him stave off boredom and lets him stay in touch with family. “I watch a lot of videos of people travelling to new places and doing new things. My family and friends are all on TikTok and Instagram as well, and I go there to catch up with them and see what fun things they’re up to. They’re not here with me so these forums show me what they’re up to and I do not get to feel left out of their lives. I enjoy seeing the interesting videos about what they’re eating, where they’re going, what they’re doing.” But it’s impossible to talk about TikTok without highlighting the many privacy concerns that policy analysts have with the app. Robert Potter, the CEO of Internet 2.0, claims TikTok has significantly more permission than it needs when the app is launched on a device. This makes the app a good place for scam artists who target vulnerable older people. Cole’s daughter Kayla, who’s also a content creator, isn’t worried about her father being on TikTok. She teaches him about staying safe online and emphasises the need to not share his location or other personal details. If anything, having her dad follow her on TikTok makes her “hyper-aware” of the kind of content she posts and shares. Ultimately, while TikTok has been linked to mental health problems like anxiety and depression in younger adults, an analysis claims that older people don’t have the need for validation younger people experience on the app, making it easier for the platform to provide for them a stronger sense of community and self-discovery.
Read MoreTechCabal will host its flagship tech conference, Moonshot, in October
For the past 10 years, TechCabal has been committed to the African tech ecosystem through consistent reporting and relevant industry events. This year, TechCabal will bring together all of the relevant stakeholders in the African tech space in what will be its biggest conference ever. TechCabal will host Moonshot, an event that will convene the most audacious players in Africa’s tech scene, from founders to business leaders; startups to enterprise companies; venture capitalists and government officials. In this completely physical two-day event, attendees will network, collaborate, share ideas, and celebrate innovation on the continent. There will be a host of activities, including exhibitions, product and investor-pitch showcases, and the opportunity to interact with key stakeholders in the African tech ecosystem. In the span of two days, Moonshot will feature five content tracks (mini-conferences) namely: Future of Commerce: Our flagship conference, which debuted in 2021, will now be part of our bigger conference, Moonshot. It will feature themes such as financial inclusion, fintech, logistics, and e-commerce. Emerging Tech Fest: This will be a mini-conference focused on exciting topics such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, Web3, crypto, the metaverse, and other future tech. Startup Festival: This track will focus on all things startups, including workshops and founder-consumer interactions. It will feature a startup clinic, as well as activities around venture capital and talent discovery. Big Tech & Enterprise Conference – This track is dedicated to themes in big tech like telecoms, broadband, and energy, etc. Entering Tech Festival – This is a mini-conference targeted at students and entry-level professionals. There will be conversations around exciting trends for young people, including content and gaming, among others. Moonshot is a conference for everyone—tech enthusiasts, founders, investors, and policymakers. You can join the waitlist here. We’re open to sponsorship and content partnership opportunities for the various activities that will take place during the Moonshot conference. For more information on partnership opportunities, please send an email to ads@bigcabal.com.
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Flutterwave wants to make Kigali its settlement hub in East Africa
Kigali wants to establish itself as a leading technology centre for African companies. Flutterwave, like several of Africa’s biggest fintechs, is turning to the ambitious East African country to give their operations a surer footing. Flutterwave has been operating in Rwanda since 2020. But now the company wants to deepen its roots in the landlocked East African country by making it a settlement hub for payment operations in the region. In April 2023, several media outlets quoted Oluwabankole Falade, Fluterwave’s chief regulatory and government relations officer as saying that Flutterwave was committed to opening a Kenya office and making it the company’s regional hub. But the fintech has struggled to get a payment provider licence in Kenya amidst a spate of lawsuits and allegations of money laundering. Flutterwave has refuted the allegations and while some of the lawsuits have been withdrawn, other existing lawsuits which continue to make their way through Kenya’s legal system. Kigali scores a win with Flutterwave In March, Flutterwave announced that it had acquired Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) and Remittance licences in Rwanda. Both licences allow Flutterwave to hold money in wallets (like mobile money providers) and also process cross-border transactions. Flutterwave’s history with Rwanda dates back to 2019 when the company acquired a payment service provider licence in 2019. It was the first African country where Flutterwave got a payments provider licence after Nigeria. “Rwanda is big for us because it is one of the only markets where we have every licence you can think of,” the Flutterwave chief executive enthused. “We’ve got plans to have a financial operations centre set up in Rwanda, where all our settlement across the region goes from here. Everyone has supported us to make that happen. So it makes sense to put something in this market and scale it from here,” Agboola told TechCabal. “It’s not about the size of the market, it’s about market readiness. They’re ready here,” he added. While Agboola admits that “Rwanda is a small market,” he acknowledges that the East African country has ambitions of being a premier destination for foreign investment funds management into Africa. African fintechs are turning to Kigali ChipperCash which announced its entry into Rwanda is one of the fintechs attracted by the landlocked country’s fintech support system. Like Flutterwave, other African fintech companies are turning to Kigali as they expand across Africa. Unlike Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, Rwanda has neither the population nor the economic prowess to make acquiring licences in Rwanda a priority. A GDP of $11 billion caters to 13 million Rwandans. Namibia with a comparable GDP has only 2.5 million people. Namibia has an extensive South Atlantic coastline, a strong mining industry and two ports. Rwanda relies on imports through Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. But a series of strong regulatory reforms and an ambitious push to become an international financial centre catering especially to financial technology firms has won the appeal of fintech firms in Africa. “In the last 3 years, Rwanda’s government approved 19 laws designed to ease business and make the country an attractive destination for firms that want firm legal and governance frameworks for their African operations,” said Jean-Marie Kananura, acting chief investment officer for KIFC. KIFC’s parent body, Rwanda Finance Limited, is headed by Tidjane Thiam, former chief executive officer of Swiss bank Credit Suisse. MFS Africa, NALA and ChipperCash (which launched operations in Rwanda this week) are among some of the fintech companies that have recently created Rwandan operations. At the just-concluded Inclusive Fintech Forum in Kigali, which had in attendance, the presidents of Rwanda and Zambia, MFS Africa founder and CEO, Dare Okoudjou asked both presidents to create bilateral agreements that would allow fintech licence “passporting”. This would at least in theory mean that a fintech licenced in Zambia could use the same licence in Rwanda because their regulatory regimes have been harmonised. Kigali has found support for its ambition in the middle east and Southeast Asia. It is deepening its relationship with the Qatar Financial Centre, Britain’s Jersey Finance, and Singapore’s Monetary Authority (the body in charge of Singapore’s International Finance Centre). At the forum this week, it signed an MOU with the Africa Business Angel Network (ABAN). The MOU TechCabal learned, means the angel investment network will be able to structure its special purpose investment vehicles (SPVs) in Rwanda. Kigali’s International Financial Centre is only 3 years old (it was launched in early 2020). But it has moved at a rapid pace to reform or create new laws and build partnerships and people are taking notice. In the latest Global Financial Centre Index published by Z/Yen, a City of London commercial think tank, Kigali ranks above Kuwait City in the middle east, Nairobi and Lagos only behind Mauritius, Cape Town and Johannesburg.
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