Stablecoins are hard to spend. This startup wants to make it easy.
In December 2023, Keji Pius was stranded in Lusaka, Zambia, with a crypto wallet full of USDT—a digital currency pegged to the US Dollar—and no way to spend it. Pius, a Nigerian founder who earns in both Naira and stablecoins, said she ran out of the Zambian Kwacha she exchanged at the airport. “I had a problem spending USDT because I couldn’t simply walk into a store, buy something, and pay with my stablecoin,” she recalled. Left with no choice, Pius had to convert her USDT into a currency that Zambian merchants would accept. She opened an app on her phone, combed through peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency exchange apps, searching for a buyer willing to trade fiat for stablecoins. She converted the stablecoins into Naira before finding a way to exchange the proceeds for Zambian Kwacha at a local currency booth. That process, she said in an April interview with TechCabal, became a founding story for Rach Finance. In January 2026, Pius and Martins Chigoziem, her former colleague and the startup’s chief technology officer (CTO), launched the startup to build crypto infrastructure that makes stablecoin spending as seamless as card payments. “There are already people holding USDT and USDC in their wallets,” Pius said. “But every time they want to spend money, they first have to convert those stablecoins into Naira before they can actually use them.” Building for a narrow but growing market Stablecoin adoption is accelerating in parts of Africa, driven partly by regulatory progress in several markets. In Sub-Saharan Africa, stablecoins accounted for 43% of all crypto transaction volume in 2024, with the region receiving over $205 billion in transactions sent on blockchains between July 2024 and June 2025, increasing by 52% year-over-year, according to data from Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics firm. Businesses and merchants—Rach Finance’s primary targets—are holding and moving stablecoins for everyday operations. In February 2026, McKinsey, a global consulting firm, and Artemis, a Web3 analytics company, jointly published a report estimating that business-to-business (B2B) stablecoin payments account for roughly $226 billion annually, representing 58% of monthly digital currency transaction value but just 0.01% of total B2B payments globally. The report cited use cases in supply chain payments and liquidity management, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. In Africa, that reality is already visible. Shiga Digital, a Nigerian stablecoin neobank, told TechCabal in September 2025 that it already serves corporate clients in oil and gas and fintech. Rach Finance operates in a similar space, positioning itself as a stablecoin liquidity provider for businesses that want to hedge against currency volatility. Yet, building crypto payment infrastructure in Africa has historically been difficult. Earlier startups struggled with weak merchant adoption, compliance hurdles, and the cost of maintaining payment rails. Nigerian crypto payment gateway Lazerpay shut down in 2023 after failing to secure funding. Pius said the startup is trying to learn from those failures, and is careful not to overstate the market it is chasing. Rach Finance is joining emerging startups like CoinCircuit in providing a way for crypto adopters to pay directly to merchants using crypto, while the merchant receives digital or local currency in their wallet. “It’s not for everybody,” she said. “There are businesses that don’t need it, and there are businesses that do. We are positioning it as an alternative payment option, not as the only option.” Part of the challenge has always been scale. The number of consumers who both hold crypto and actively want to spend it remains relatively small compared with the broader payments market. Volatility has also made many cryptocurrencies impractical as everyday money. Rach Finance is trying to avoid that problem by focusing entirely on stablecoins, specifically USD Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), stablecoins whose values are pegged to the US dollar. Pius said that demand already exists but remains invisible: merchants rarely advertise that they accept crypto, so customers who hold stablecoins never think to ask. Pius and Chigoziem said they have already seen this play out. At an estate in Lagos where Chigoziem lives, a local food vendor placed a Rach Finance sticker on the outside of his shop. Long-time customers of the food vendor immediately asked whether they could pay in USDT, said Chigoziem. “These were not new customers,” he added. “They’d already been buying from him but had no idea he accepted crypto until they saw the flyer. When they saw it, they asked, realised they could pay, and just opened their wallets.” The customers were already there. The payment option simply was not visible. Turning stablecoins into spendable money Rach Finance’s core product is a payment gateway that lets merchants accept stablecoins and receive settlement in local currency. Merchants generate a payment link or QR code. Customers pay using USDT or USDC across supported blockchain networks, including Tron, Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, and Binance Smart Chain. Rach Finance converts the payment and settles into local currencies, including Naira, Kenyan Shillings, Ghanaian Cedis, and Zambian Kwacha. Transactions confirm in seconds, said Chigoziem; bank settlement takes anywhere from instant to about 30 minutes, depending on the local banking system. Rach Finance’s payment gateway currently serves seven merchants and has processed about $250,000 in transactions, according to Pius. Its current merchant base spans food delivery, healthcare, and entertainment. The startup charges roughly 0.06% per transaction, earning higher revenue as its payment volumes scale, according to Pius. The platform is also non-custodial: merchants retain control of their wallets and recovery phrases. “Centralised systems give you simplicity, but there’s always a trade-off,” Chigoziem said. “You don’t really control your funds anymore.” Making this work at low cost required building most of the infrastructure in-house rather than relying on third-party providers, a decision that keeps transaction fees down across multiple blockchain networks. “From the outside, it sounds simple,” Chigoziem said. “But once you start building it, you realise how complex it actually is.” The startup is also in discussions with merchant aggregators about white-label partnerships that would bundle crypto payments into existing checkout flows, Pius said. Beyond merchant payments
Read MoreAfrica risks losing billions to satellite internet operators, report says
Africa risks losing billions in telecom revenues, jobs, and infrastructure investment to offshore satellite operators expanding under lighter regulatory obligations than local telecoms companies, according to a report by the Africa CEO Forum and Askya Investment Partners, a venture firm focused on African technology and artificial intelligence. The report argues that offshore Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite operators are increasingly capturing high-value customers in African markets without bearing the same licencing, tax, infrastructure, and regulatory costs imposed on local telecom operators. The findings arrive as Elon Musk-owned Starlink has secured authorisation in at least 25 African countries. The service’s expansion has accelerated even as traditional operators grapple with rising costs, volatile currencies, costly infrastructure vandalism, and growing demand for affordable data. Based on research and interviews with more than 30 telecom executives, regulators, government officials, and industry experts, the report warned that the imbalance could weaken a sector that supports about 8 million formal jobs, contributes more than $30 billion in taxes annually, and is projected to invest $77 billion in network infrastructure between 2024 and 2030. Satellite internet providers like Starlink are expanding rapidly across the continent and targeting high-value urban and enterprise customers that have historically generated significant revenues for telecom operators. According to the report, Starlink had secured authorisation in at least 25 African countries as of early 2026, with around 66,000 users in Nigeria and more than 67,000 in Zimbabwe in Q4 2025, making Zimbabwe Starlink’s fastest-growing market in Africa. The report said the competitive imbalance stems largely from differences in regulatory obligations. While telecom operators pay substantial spectrum licencing fees, invest heavily in terrestrial infrastructure, and contribute to Universal Service Funds, satellite operators are entering many markets under far lighter requirements. In Senegal, for example, the report said traditional telecom operators paid more than $50 million for 5G licences, while Starlink obtained a licence for about $150,000. The report warned that as satellite operators erode revenues from high-value customers, traditional telecom companies may scale back infrastructure investments, particularly in rural and low-income areas where returns are already limited. Operators in Kenya and Nigeria, it said, are showing increasing reluctance to acquire new spectrum or commit to rural network expansion as profit margins tighten. Governments also risk losing a major source of public revenue if satellite operators continue expanding without clearer tax and licencing frameworks, according to the report. The telecom sector currently contributes more than $30 billion in taxes annually across Africa, equivalent to 9.8% of total public revenue, the report said, citing GSMA data. Operators including MTN, Airtel Africa, and Vodacom pay significant spectrum and operating licence fees in several markets. MTN alone paid $273.6 million for its 5G spectrum licence in Nigeria. Yet the report said subscription payments made by African households and businesses to satellite internet providers flow largely to offshore companies such as SpaceX, with limited local reinvestment or tax contributions, the report said. It warned that African governments could face growing “revenue leakage” as more digital traffic and economic value shift to operators outside their regulatory reach. Several African countries have responded differently to Starlink’s expansion. In Senegal, regulators formally recognised Starlink as an internet service provider in February 2026 after the company initially entered the market before receiving authorisation. Namibia rejected Starlink’s licence application in March 2026, while South Africa issued cease-and-desist orders against internet service providers facilitating access to the service. Despite those measures, the report noted that grey-market use of Starlink continues in both countries. The report also noted that the African Telecommunications Union has warned that fragmented licencing regimes across the continent weaken governments’ bargaining power with global satellite operators, whose infrastructure often falls outside national jurisdictions. It recommended that African governments adopt what it described as a hybrid connectivity model, positioning satellite operators primarily as wholesale providers supporting coverage and resilience in underserved areas rather than competing directly for premium retail customers.
Read MoreAfricInvest partner George Odo on lessons African founders never receive
This article is based on a conversation from Voices & Visions, a podcast produced through a partnership between Tutto Passa Agency and TechCabal, which explores the people and ideas shaping Africa’s innovation economy. On some days, George Odo thinks about old people in restaurants struggling with phone flashlights to read menus. It is a small, almost funny observation. But for him, it says something larger about markets, behaviour, and how quickly systems evolve while people lag behind them. Odo, a senior partner at pan-African private equity firm AfricInvest, has spent close to two decades reading markets before they fully reveal themselves. Today, he works on capital, policy, and entrepreneurship in Africa and, increasingly, in classrooms like those at Columbia Business School. But the tension in his thinking is not between Africa and global capital. It is between what African universities teach and what African markets actually demand. “I guess so,” he says when asked if he considers himself a dealmaker in a recorded conversation on Voices & Visions, a podcast backed by Tutto Passa Agency and TechCabal. “I’ve been in deal making for some time, doing deals in private equity mainly, but working with colleagues who are involved in deal making in private credit and in venture capital.” It is a modest answer for someone who has helped deploy capital across a continent where the rules of investing rarely stay still. Before AfricInvest, Odo spent a decade at CARE International—a humanitarian organisation fighting global poverty—working across East and Southern Africa on microfinance and SME development. The shift from non-governmental organisation (NGO) finance to private equity, he says, was not just a career move; it was a philosophical break. “We realised handing out aid is not sustainable,” he says. “The big difference was using commercial capital instead of soft capital. Commercial capital, no second chance.” That sentence reads like a warning because in Odo’s world, capital is not patient. It is conditional and demands discipline, structure, and clarity from day one, something he believes many African founders still underestimate. And something, he suggests, that African universities rarely teach well enough. Imported thinking In Odo’s telling, one of the biggest distortions in African entrepreneurship is intellectual importation. “People come with term sheets that work elsewhere and try to copy-paste,” he says. “It doesn’t work like that. You have to think about context.” That word ‘context ‘ comes up often when speaking. It is his shorthand for everything that makes African markets structurally different: fragmented demand, uneven infrastructure, thin capital markets, political volatility, and a funding ecosystem still heavily dependent on foreign investors. Emerging markets now account for roughly 30% of global private equity and venture capital activity, he notes. But Africa remains a small slice of that. Capital, when it arrives, is selective. “We’ve seen flows come back, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, but it is still cautious,” he says. The risk, in his view, is not just financial, but also systemic. “You can’t have an election where someone claims to win by 98%,” he says. “Investors don’t like instability.” Infrastructure gaps compound the issue. Africa, he notes, still hosts just a fraction of global data centre capacity. Intra-African trade remains stuck below 20%, far behind other regions where it exceeds 50%. These shape how deals are structured, how startups scale, and how far capital can stretch. What universities are missing Odo’s critique extends to how African universities are still teaching entrepreneurship as an aspiration. Students in business schools across the continent learn business plans, pitching and market sizing frameworks. But they rarely learn how capital actually behaves in early-stage environments. Or how dilution works in practice, and why a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) note might be preferable to equity in certain seed deals. “I advised him not to take it as equity,” Odo says of a founder who had been offered $1 million in early capital. “Take it as a SAFE note or convertible bond to avoid dilution.” According to Odo, this is the kind of advice that usually circulates in investment committees, but not African lecture halls. And for him, that is precisely the problem. The gap in the market, therefore, is exposure, not enthusiasm. Kenyan universities, he suggests, still sit too far from the mechanics of deal-making in real markets, where capital is structured, risk is priced, and founders negotiate from unequal positions. Even succession planning, he notes, is rarely taught with urgency. He points to a pattern in which family-owned businesses struggle to transition from founder to professional management, or from first-generation wealth to institutional continuity. Without that transition, scale remains limited. Missed signals One of Odo’s sharper observations is that Africa’s formal economy misreads its own informal strength. “SMEs and MSMEs have much higher cash flows,” he says. “A micro business selling secondhand clothes gets cash flow all day.” Banks, he adds, were slow to recognise this reality until institutions like Kenya’s Equity Bank and NCBA began shifting toward cash-flow-based lending models. That same blindness, he argues, still exists in parts of the startup ecosystem, where attention is often skewed toward venture-scale technology rather than cash-generating businesses. So why is a man like Odo teaching or engaging with institutions like Columbia at all? In his framing, the answer is not that African universities lack talent; rather, they often lack proximity to capital at scale. At AfricInvest—which now counts Nairobi as its second-largest office after Tunis—he has watched how global capital behaves when it meets Africa’s complexity. In the end, Odo’s argument is not that African universities are failing. It is that they are incomplete. They teach entrepreneurship as inspiration when markets demand execution. They teach business models while investors price risk. And somewhere between those two worlds sits a generation of African founders trying to translate ambition into companies that survive contact with reality. “You must think about context,” Odo says again, almost as a refrain. Listen to the full podcast on Spotify.
Read MoreSouth Africa delays AI policy to 2027 after citation scandal forces rethink
South Africa’s long-awaited national artificial intelligence (AI) policy has been delayed to January 2027 after the government withdrew an earlier draft over fabricated academic references. The setback has triggered renewed scrutiny over how generative AI is being used in policymaking and exposed weaknesses in government oversight. A delegation from the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, led by Communications Minister Solly Malatsi, briefed parliament on Tuesday morning about new efforts to rebuild confidence in the country’s AI governance agenda after what officials described as a major credibility crisis. The delay reinforces the tension facing African governments racing to regulate AI while still building institutional capacity to understand and govern it. South Africa had hoped to position itself as a continental leader in AI regulation and innovation, but the collapse of its first draft policy has exposed risks around overreliance on generative AI, weak internal oversight, and the challenge of crafting credible rules for a fast-moving technology that is already reshaping business and public services. The original draft policy, approved by Cabinet in March and gazetted in April for public comment, was withdrawn weeks after reports revealed that several references cited in the document appeared to be fictitious or attributed to journals that had never published the work in question. Addressing MPs, Malatsi acknowledged that the department had failed to detect the problems before the media exposed the scandal. “The department had not picked up that there were issues with the references in the draft policy document before the events were exposed in news reports,” he said. The minister revealed that two officials had been suspended over the embarrassing dent on South Africa’s efforts to be a continental leader in policing AI. “It was then that we got the responses to protect the integrity of the policy development process and, obviously, the stain that it has caused not just on the department but also on the government’s overall process of formulating and finalising policy,” Malatsi added. The minister said the department would tighten internal controls and implement responsible AI-use measures to avoid a repeat of the incident. On May 14, the government appointed an independent AI review panel that will rebuild the withdrawn document and recommend revisions before it is resubmitted to Cabinet later this year. The panel will be chaired by Prof. Benjamin Rosman of the Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand. It includes experts in AI research, law, governance, and digital policy, among them Prof Vukosi Marivate, Prof Alison Gillwald, Bowman’s partner Heather Irvine, Dr Tshepo Feela, cybersecurity expert Jabu Mtsweni, and cyber lawyer Lufuno Tshikalange. With the revised framework only expected to be opened for public comment in January 2027, South Africa remains without a formal national AI policy even as businesses and government institutions rapidly adopt AI-powered systems. The delay now places mounting pressure on Malatsi to steer policymakers toward regulating a technology evolving far faster than government processes can keep pace with.
Read MoreiOS 26.5 is out: Everything iPhone users need to know
Table of contents What is new in iOS 26.5 What is not in iOS 26.5 Which iPhones are getting iOS 26.5 Apple Intelligence: A separate gate Where it is available How to update to iOS 26.5 Apple released iOS 26.5 on May 11, 2026, exactly 48 days after iOS 26.4 debuted. The update is not a massive overhaul, but it brings three things Apple officially highlighted: end-to-end encrypted RCS messaging (in beta), a new Suggested Places section in Apple Maps, and a customisable Pride Luminance wallpaper. Alongside those, there are more than 50 security fixes and a handful of smaller quality-of-life changes across the system. This guide covers everything: what’s new, which iPhones support it, and which features are available across different regions. What is new in iOS 26.5 1. End-to-End Encrypted RCS Messaging (Beta) This is the biggest change in iOS 26.5. When you send a message to someone on Android, it usually goes as an RCS message (if both carriers support it) or plain SMS. Either way, the conversation has not been encrypted end-to-end until now. With iOS 26.5, Apple has added end-to-end encryption to RCS conversations. The feature is built on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, developed with Google and the GSMA. When it is active, you will see a lock icon and the word “Encrypted” at the top of the conversation thread. A few things to keep in mind: It is still labelled as beta. Both your carrier and the Android user’s carrier must support it. If only one side has a supported carrier, the conversation falls back to unencrypted RCS or plain SMS, with no warning beyond the absence of that lock icon. The Android user needs the latest version of Google Messages. The toggle is on by default once you update. You can check yours under Settings > Apps > Messages > RCS Messaging. Carrier support is patchy right now. Here is where things stand: United States: 23 carriers are supported, including AT&T, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless, Boost Mobile, Cricket, Mint Mobile, and Xfinity Mobile. Canada: 12 carriers, including Bell, Rogers, Telus, Fido, Freedom Mobile, and Koodo. United Kingdom: Three, BT, and EE. O2 and Vodafone UK are not on the list. Continental Europe: Around 15 carriers across 9 countries, covering parts of Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, and Spain. No French, Italian, or Dutch carrier is listed. Vodafone does not appear anywhere in Europe on this list. Asia-Pacific: Only three carriers are listed so far: au and SoftBank in Japan, and Singtel in Singapore. NTT DOCOMO and Rakuten Mobile are absent. Australia, South Korea, India, China, and Southeast Asia are not included. Africa: Zero. No African carrier appears on Apple’s encrypted RCS support page. MTN, Airtel, Globacom, 9mobile, Safaricom, Vodacom, Orange Africa, and other African operators are absent from the list. Apple’s Africa carrier page was last updated April 1, 2026, about six weeks before iOS 26.5 launched, and the other regional pages were refreshed on launch day. That gap is worth noting. The absence is solid as a snapshot of what Apple is publicly committing to today, but it may not reflect what carriers are quietly testing in the background. The practical takeaway for most users outside the US and Canada: the encrypted RCS toggle will appear in your settings, but the feature will not actually activate unless your carrier is on the list. For private cross-platform messaging, Signal and WhatsApp remain reliable options. 2. Suggested places in Apple Maps When you tap the search bar in Apple Maps, you will now see two recommended locations appear above your recent searches. These are pulled from what is trending nearby and your own recent search activity. The recommendations refresh over time and shift to reflect wherever you have been searching. This feature is available globally. There is no opt-out for the location-based personalisation that drives these suggestions. One important distinction: Suggested Places and Apple Maps ads are two separate things. Apple has confirmed that ads will eventually appear within Maps search results, clearly labelled as “Ad,” with placement auctioned by keyword. But those ads are not live yet. Apple announced in its March 24, 2026, Newsroom post that Maps ads would be “available to businesses in the United States and Canada starting this summer.” As of now, the ads have not appeared. The Suggested Places feature itself is the live, global addition in iOS 26.5. 3. Pride Luminance Wallpaper iOS 26.5 ships with a new animated wallpaper called Pride Luminance. It dynamically refracts a spectrum of colours as you tilt, lock, or unlock your iPhone. It is part of Apple’s 2026 Pride collection and comes with 11 preset colour combinations inspired by Pride flag variants, including the Progress flag (light and rich versions), Transgender, and Lesbian, among others, labelled with Roman numerals I through XI. There is also a 12th option called “Custom” that lets you build your own palette of up to 12 colours. A matching Pride Luminance watch face was added to watchOS 26.5 at the same time. To get it: Settings > Wallpaper > Add New Wallpaper > Pride collection > Pride Luminance. 4. Magic accessories auto-pair over USB-C If you own a Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse, or Magic Trackpad, iOS 26.5 makes pairing much less annoying. Plug the accessory into your iPhone or iPad using a USB-C cable, and the device will establish a persistent Bluetooth pairing that stays active after you unplug the cable. You will not need to manually pair it through Settings every time. This mirrors how the same accessories have always worked with a Mac. 5. App Store: Monthly billing with a 12-month commitment Apple has added a new subscription billing option for developers. It lets them offer a plan where you pay monthly but commit to 12 months upfront, similar to how mobile phone contracts work. The monthly price must fall between the standard annual price and 1.5 times that annual price. You can cancel at any time, but you
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Airtel, Globacom resume airtime lending after court blocks FCCPC rules
Airtel and Globacom, two of Nigeria’s leading telcos, have resumed airtime lending after the country’s consumer protection regulator suspended enforcement of controversial digital lending rules that had temporarily disrupted the market. The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) said in a public notice on May 22 that it had suspended enforcement of its Digital, Electronic, Online or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending Regulations (DEON Regulations) 2025, following an interim order issued by the Federal High Court in Lagos. The court order, issued by Justice A.L. Allagoa on April 15, restrained the FCCPC from implementing the rules after a lawsuit filed by Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Nigeria (WASPAN). The restoration reopens access to services such as “Borrow Me Credit” by Globacom and airtime advances that millions of subscribers rely on for emergency communication needs. “As we speak, the services in question are already active on Airtel and Glo,” Ayo Stuffman, chairman of WASPAN, told TechCabal on Monday. “On MTN, I can speak that we are confident of the resumption of services given the recent developments from the FCCPC.” TechCabal independently confirmed that Globacom and Airtel have relisted airtime lending services on their platforms. Airtime credit listed on both Globacom and Airtel. Image source: TechCabal. The dispute over the new lending rules began after the FCCPC broadened the scope of its DEON Regulations to include telecom airtime and data credit services, classifying them as digital lending. Under the rules, telecom operators offering deferred-payment airtime or data services would be treated as lenders and required to comply with registration, disclosure, and consumer protection obligations. The move triggered a standoff between telecom operators, regulators, and value-added service providers. WASPAN argued in court that airtime credit should not be classified as a conventional loan because it operates as a telecom value-added service already regulated under the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) framework. “What WASPAN has advocated for through the courts is that the DEON Regulations shouldn’t apply to airtime credit, which can’t really be classified as a loan in the actual sense,” Stuffman said. The regulatory clash forced operators, including MTN, Airtel, and Globacom, to suspend airtime credit services in April to avoid potential sanctions under the FCCPC framework. The disruption froze a market estimated to process hundreds of billions of naira annually and affected millions of low-income users who depend on small airtime advances, according to WASPAN. The DEON Regulations were first introduced in July 2025 to curb abusive practices by digital loan apps, including harassment, public shaming of debtors, and opaque lending terms. However, the regulations adopted a broad definition of lending that extended beyond cash loans to include airtime credit, deferred-payment data bundles, and buy-now-pay-later services. Under the rules, companies offering digital credit services could face penalties of up to ₦100 million ($72,886) or 1% of annual turnover for non-compliance. Industry stakeholders argued that applying the same framework designed for loan apps to telecom services risks creating unnecessary regulatory overlap and operational disruption. At a press briefing in April, the NCC executive vice chairman, Aminu Maida, maintained that airtime credit falls under telecom value-added services governed by the Communications Act, not consumer lending. Despite the temporary suspension, uncertainty remains over the long-term regulatory treatment of airtime credit services. The FCCPC said it plans to challenge the court order, while operators are expected to push for a harmonised framework between the consumer protection and telecom regulators. “The Commission has also given its solicitors firm instructions to challenge the Order and the competence of the suit,” FCCPC said in its notice. For now, however, the restoration of the services will come as relief to millions of Nigerians who rely on airtime advances during emergencies or temporary cash shortages. “Our members trust that the rule of law supersedes at the end of the day despite the revenue loss over six weeks,” Stuffman said.
Read MoreLaunch Africa’s playbook for managing one of Africa’s biggest VC portfolios
At large venture capital firms, staff are typically split between two functions: the investment team and the platform team. While both teams interact often, they work separately, and only rarely do employees switch teams. The investment team sources and selects the startups the firm backs, then manages those stakes over time, while the platform team helps the portfolio companies hire staff and introduce them to customers and partners, among other things. That difference makes a switch rare for smaller firms, but for a VC firm like Launch Africa, which has built a portfolio of over 170 companies across 20 African countries in six years, that scale creates a problem most funds never face: how do you manage 170 companies across different sectors and countries? One of its answers was to split the work into two: a platform and operations team that drives value across the whole portfolio at scale, and a portfolio management team that goes company by company into the numbers, the projections, and the runway. Another was to transfer Jeffery Akemu, an associate for almost two years, from the platform team to the investment management team earlier this year. His switch comes as Launch Africa seeks to cash in on bets made through its 2020 first fund by securing startup exits and returning capital to investors, while simultaneously deploying its second fund and raising a third. The firm’s first fund, which invested in 133 companies, makes it one of the highest-volume seed investors Africa has produced. In our conversation, Akemu explains how Launch Africa’s model assigns each team member startups to manage by geography and sector expertise and how it classifies its portfolio companies, and what separates platform support from portfolio management at a fund this size. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Launch Africa describes its model as high-volume but still hands-on. How do you actually support founders in depth, and where does the model force you to make trade-offs? The backbone of our portfolio management at Launch Africa Ventures is the coverage model. Each team member is allocated as the asset manager for 10 to 15 companies most of the time. Those team members are the go-to for those companies in terms of reporting, value-added support, and strategic insights. The coverage model ties to a couple of things: your geography, where you are based, what you have done before, and whether you have expertise in that sector. For example, if you used to work in insurance, you will find that more insurance companies are assigned to you. I am based in Nigeria, so I get more Nigerian companies within our portfolio as part of my coverage. That is the micro level. On the macro level, it works through the platform and operations team in collaboration with portfolio management. We look at, on a portfolio scale, what partnerships exist and what gaps the portfolio companies need filled. Over time, we have been able to build a suite of credits that we offer to our portfolio companies, amounting to about $1.5 million. No single company can use all of those credits, because some of them compete. If you are building on AWS, you cannot simultaneously build on Azure. What we try to do is get the broad base of partnerships available to our companies, cutting across sales and marketing, design, cloud computing, how to adopt AI, and internal operations. We also host workshops for our portfolio companies twice a month on different topics, based on the needs of our portfolio. In the past two weeks, we held one around the benchmarks investors are looking at in 2026 and how our companies can best position themselves for that. We have one coming up next week on startup legal essentials, basically what to look out for in your contracting and how to ensure your intellectual property is more defensible. Companies can come to us and tell us they want to upskill in a particular area, and we put together a workshop for them and the rest of the portfolio. Primarily, we try to add value through four pillars: access to networks, access to partnerships, access to talent, and access to upskilling. Under the network pillar, we help our companies access enterprise relationships. We have built relationships with some of the leading banks and telcos on the continent, and we try to match portfolio companies to be either suppliers to them or customers of them. One we have been working on is a tier-one bank out of Southern Africa, where we are in the early stages of two companies working with them. We have done something similar in East Africa, and we have banking relationships in Nigeria, though, in transparency, a commercial one has not yet been unlocked there through us. We have also worked with MTN in the past. We also look for areas of synergy within our own portfolio. As part of our approach to late-stage secondary transactions, we have relationships with the Flutterwaves, the Andelas, and the Mooves, and we see how our earlier-stage companies can collaborate with those later-stage companies in ways that are significant for both sides. You recently switched from platform and support to portfolio management. Why did it happen, how did it happen, and how has it been? Some of it is an evolution in how I see the next steps of my career, and some of it is based on the expertise I bring to the firm. By training, I am an economics and finance major, and somewhere along the journey, I started becoming a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder. I am still taking my second-stage exams. I have always been interested in the inner workings of companies. Platform and operations are mostly focused on driving value at scale—getting companies the right partnerships, advisors, onward investments, and suppliers. Portfolio management is more intricate, working one-on-one with companies on their strategy, their projections, and how it all makes sense. Given my background, I found myself drawn more to the numbers.
Read MoreSpotify wants more Nigerians paying for music, not higher subscription prices
Spotify, the global music streaming giant, said Nigerian artists’ streaming earnings will grow not because subscription prices rise, but because more Nigerians pay for music. Subscription prices in Nigeria remain significantly lower than in other African markets. Spotify Premium currently costs about ₦1,600 ($1.16) in Nigeria, compared to $4.29 in South Africa, $2.07 in Ghana, and $3.23 in Kenya. “We cannot just say, let us try to meet our benchmark and multiply and increase unreasonably,” Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy, Spotify Sub-Saharan Africa Managing Director, told TechCabal in an interview on April 14. “We need to take into consideration people’s reality.” Streaming accounted for 69.6% of global recorded music revenues in 2025, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the global body for the recording industry. In 2025, Nigerian artists earned roughly ₦1.98 for every stream on Spotify, according to figures from the global streaming platform’s annual Loud & Clear report. “That is the reality now, but it will evolve with volume, with the growth of the market,” Muhutu-Remy said. “If the revenue per user is at that level, then it is going to be less,” Spotify Africa’s lead said. “For us, that is the most important thing, really building that habit and making it a daily thing for Nigerians and Africans to stream music. To use platforms like ours.” Spotify currently operates in 184 markets with 761 million active users and nearly 300 million subscribers. While Spotify does not disclose country-specific figures, it said subscriptions on the continent are growing. “You can infer how they are growing through the loud and clear numbers. That revenue comes from our subscription revenue, or from our revenue overall, but largely subscription,” she said. Nigerian artists’ earnings grew by 140% between 2023 and 2025, according to Spotify. In South Africa, it grew by 28% year-on-year. Currently, local listeners remain commercially important beyond raw subscription prices, as they help drive the global success of Nigerian music. “Just because Spotify costs less in Nigeria does not mean a Nigerian fan is less valuable,” Muhutu-Remy said. “Because it takes a Nigerian to take Nigerian music out of Nigeria. So that person streaming in Nigeria may only be paying a dollar, but they have got ten family members in Canada, in the US, who are paying double digits.” Nearly 74% of the R504 million ($30.69 million) generated by South African artists on Spotify in 2025 came from listeners outside the country, making the rest of the world South African music’s biggest market on the streaming platform. In Nigeria, local consumption of artists on Spotify is up by 170%. This impacted artists’ payout in 2025. While artist payout grew by 140% in three years, it rose by 3.45% between 2024 and 2025. Rather than raising prices in markets facing economic pressure, the company said it is investing in local pricing, telco partnerships, payment integrations, and alternative payment methods to increase paid subscriptions across Africa. In 2023, Spotify partnered with telco giant Orange to offer music for free on its platform when they subscribe to an Orange mobile offer in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, and Mali. “By diversifying the partners we work with, by making payment accessible, by being sensitive to affordability, and by putting forward a product that really brings value in people’s lives, this is what will build the business and the ecosystem as a whole,” she said. According to Muhutu-Remy, the assumption that African consumers are unwilling to pay for digital subscriptions despite rising economic pressure is flawed. “You will be glad to know that generally, in Africa, the willingness to pay is there,” she said. “It is a cliché to say the opposite.” For Spotify, Nigeria represents one of the company’s biggest long-term bets on the continent: a market where cultural influence is already established, but where subscription economics are still developing. “Nigeria is a superpower from a cultural perspective,” Muhutu-Remy said. “It has the foundation to be a commercial superpower because the right conditions are there.”
Read MoreSouth Africa’s bPOWERd expands into Nigeria with solar battery rental hubs
bPOWERd, a South African clean energy startup, has expanded into Nigeria, launching a solar battery rental service in Lagos, targeting homes and small businesses hit by rising fuel and electricity costs. The startup is launching the service across seven sites in Lagos in partnership with Mobil service stations, which will serve as battery swapping and charging hubs at their fuel and vehicle services retail outlets. bPOWERd’s entry comes as Nigeria’s solar energy market expands amid unstable electricity supply and rising energy costs. According to the Africa Solar Outlook 2026 report, solar accounts for 1.5% of Nigeria’s overall energy mix. bPOWERd positions itself in this growing market by offering portable solar-charged batteries that users can rent daily. “Small businesses sit at the centre of everyday economic activity, yet many continue to operate against the backdrop of unstable and expensive power,” said Jonathan Lule, Managing Director at bPOWERd. “At a time of continued grid instability, bPOWERd is helping households and small and medium-sized enterprises access dependable pay-per-use power they can rely on.” To access the service, the company noted that users complete a know-your-customer (KYC) verification process, which requires submitting their National Identification Number (NIN) and then pay a refundable ₦15,000 ($10.96) deposit before receiving a battery. Speaking at the launch event in Lagos on Thursday, May 21, Lule said the refundable deposit system was designed to encourage responsible usage and ensure batteries are returned in good condition. The startup noted that it offers two battery options. A 300- and 1000-watt-hour (Wh) battery, which it said rents for ₦1,500 ($1.10) and ₦3,000 ($2.19) respectively. bPOWERd said the batteries can power LED lights, fans, televisions and charge devices. The batteries have socket ports where users can plug in extension boxes. Once drained, users can return the batteries to charging stations where they are recharged before being rented out again. “Our focus is on delivering diversified energy solutions that are affordable, resilient, and adaptable to how people live and work,” said Oluwole Ogidan, Head of bp Global West Africa. “Beyond expanding access to reliable power, this rollout also supports the growth of a local green workforce through on-site sales roles and partnerships with Nigerian solar technicians.” Originally launched in South Africa in 2025, bPOWERd said it facilitated 125,000 rentals within its first 12 months of operation.s.
Read MoreHere are the phones getting the Android 17 update
Table of contents What is Android 17, and when is it coming? When is the stable release? All the phones getting the Android 17 update What you should do now Things to keep in mind about Android 17 Android 17, codenamed Cinnamon Bun, has reached platform stability. Google Pixel devices are getting it first, with a stable release expected this summer. Samsung’s One UI 9 beta is already live for the Galaxy S26 series, and Motorola, OnePlus, Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo, and Honor are all running early Android 17 builds on at least one flagship device. Only Google, Samsung, Motorola, OnePlus, OPPO, Xiaomi, and Honor have officially confirmed devices so far. This article breaks down what each brand has confirmed, what is expected, and which phones will not get the update. What is Android 17, and when is it coming? Android 17 is Google’s new major annual Android release. It comes with a range of new platform features that will benefit all Android phones once their manufacturers roll them out. Key features confirmed for Android 17 include: App Bubbles: You can open any app in a floating window on top of whatever you are already doing Lock-screen widgets in a new Hub mode Redesigned Desktop Mode with better window snapping Material 3 Expressive design system rolling out across the platform Live Updates, a new notification template for real-time events like food delivery or ride tracking Session-based precise location button, giving you more control over when apps access your exact location System-level Contacts Picker with field-level consent, so you control exactly which contact details an app can see APK Signature Scheme v3.2 with quantum-resistant encryption RAW14 image format and Photo Picker grid customisation for camera apps Memory limits to shut down apps that are leaking RAM in the background The headline AI features, including Gemini Intelligence, Rambler, Create My Widget, Pause Point, and intelligent Autofill, require at least 12 GB of RAM and Gemini Nano v3. This limits the full AI experience to the Pixel 10 series, the upcoming Pixel 11, and flagships like the Galaxy S26. Older phones or mid-range devices that get Android 17 will receive the platform, but not these AI features. When is the stable release? Google has not named a specific date. The only official statement from Google, from a May 12, 2026, blog post by Patrick Shehane, the Director of Engineering for Android Camera, Video & Audio at Google, is that Android 17 will roll out to Pixel devices first this summer. Android 17 reached Platform Stability with Beta 3 on March 26, 2026, and Beta 4, the last scheduled beta, shipped April 16, 2026. Based on the Android 16 cadence, which went stable on June 10, 2025, Android Authority, BGR, and 9to5Google expect the stable Android 17 release in June 2026. That is a press projection, not a Google commitment. Google is also running a quarterly release (QPR) model alongside the main release. QPR1 Beta 1 shipped on April 23, 2026, QPR1 Beta 2 on May 6, 2026, and QPR1 Beta 3 during Google I/O on May 19, 2026. QPR1 stable is expected around September 2026, with QPR2 in Q4 2026 and QPR3 in early 2027. Here are the phones getting the Android 17 update 1. Google Pixel Google has officially confirmed Android 17 for every Tensor-powered Pixel device. The Android 17 beta has been available for Pixel phones since February 14, 2026. The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro get Android 17 as their final major OS update, with support ending in October 2026. The Pixel 8 and later devices are on Google’s 7-year support window. One important caveat: Gemini Intelligence requires at least 12 GB of RAM and Gemini Nano v3. This means every eligible Pixel, except the Pixel 10 series, will get the base Android 17 platform but will miss the headline AI features. 2. Samsung Galaxy (One UI 9) Samsung officially launched the One UI 9 beta on May 13, 2026, for the Galaxy S26 series in the US, UK, Germany, South Korea, India (from May 26), and Poland. Samsung’s own newsroom states: “the full experience of One UI 9 will be introduced with upcoming Galaxy flagship devices later this year.” The Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Z Flip 8 are widely reported to launch with stable One UI 9 at Galaxy Unpacked in London on July 22, 2026. If your Galaxy is on the “Will NOT get Android 17″ row, One UI 8.5 is your final major update. 3. OnePlus (OxygenOS 17) OnePlus opened Android 17 Beta 2 for the OnePlus 15 on March 25, 2026, with Beta 3 following in April. These early builds still show “OxygenOS 16″ in About phone because they are developer-targeted Android 17 ports, not a finished OxygenOS 17 release. The full OxygenOS 17 stable is widely expected to launch in early Q4 2026, starting with the OnePlus 15. 4. Xiaomi / Redmi / POCO (HyperOS 3.3 / HyperOS 4) Xiaomi officially launched the Android 17 Developer Preview on HyperOS 3.3 on April 30, 2026, but only for the Xiaomi 17, Xiaomi 17 Ultra, the Leica Leitzphone, and the Xiaomi 15T Pro in global variants. Then, Xiaomi skipped HyperOS 3.2 entirely. The bulk of Android 17 for Xiaomi, Redmi, and POCO devices will come later as HyperOS 4, expected from late Q4 2026 into 2027. 5. Motorola (Hello UI / Android 17) Motorola was the first non-Google brand to open an Android 17 beta, launching on February 25, 2026, eleven days after Google’s Beta 1 was released on February 14. The beta now covers mid-range and flagship Motorola devices across the US, India, Europe, Latin America, and Brazil. The stable Android 17 rollout from Motorola is expected in Q3 2026. 6. OPPO (ColorOS 17) OPPO officially launched Android 17 Beta 2 for the OPPO Find X9 Pro on March 25, 2026, the same day OnePlus launched it for the OnePlus 15. The two brands share engineering under the parent company BBK/Oplus. Stable ColorOS 17 is
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