What Jumia’s $50 million raise says about its path to profitability
Jumia has spent the past three years making its business leaner and cheaper to run, while chasing profitability. Now it has an additional $50 million that can help it reach that goal faster. But the capital alone will not make Jumia profitable. The e-commerce company has increasingly been building around cheaper and more relevant supply, higher monetisation, lower fulfilment costs, and tighter fixed costs in recent years. Jumia, founded in 2012, was burning about $200 million a year by late 2022, triggering a leadership overhaul and a renewed focus on profitability. It has aggressively cut costs while clarifying its identity, exited unprofitable verticals, stopped stocking categories such as groceries, pulled out of several countries, and reduced staff count. “A meaningfully stronger balance sheet will de-risk our path to profitability and reduce our financing risk in a volatile macro environment,” Francis Dufay, Jumia’s chief executive officer, said of the raise on the company’s earnings call on Wednesday. Jumia announced the $50 million raise, alongside its second-quarter results on Wednesday. It is anchored by a $25 million investment from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group’s private-sector investment arm, with existing leading shareholders and selected new investors participating. The investors have agreed to buy 9.1 million Jumia American Depositary Shares (ADSs) at $5.52 each, with the transaction expected to close in the second half of August. The $50 million equity raise gives Jumia room to gradually increase working capital, capture attractive supply opportunities, invest in fulfilment to lower unit costs, and drive platform usage as it continues to improve its economics. $50million as part runway, part growth capital Jumia ended June with $48.3 million in liquidity, down $14.3 million during the second quarter. It used $11.8 million in cash for operations, compared with $12.7 million a year earlier. Cash burn was $14.3 million in Q2, Dufay said on the company’s earnings call. The company says the Q2 cash outflow included a $3 million increase in working capital, and it plans to increase working capital gradually in Q3 to capture attractive supply opportunities. With an extra $50 million in the bank, Jumia says it will increase working capital during the third quarter to capture what it describes as attractive supply opportunities. Jumia can put more capital into the right parts of its business to reduce how much funding it needs later. One of Jumia’s biggest changes over the past two years has been its realisation that the African customer it needs to serve cannot be built around expensive international brands. “Our customers are the lower middle class of Africa… people making $150 to $400, $500 a month,” Dufay told investors in November 2025. “The fantasised middle class making $2,000 and driving to work does not exist.” Since then, the company has moved towards lower-priced, higher-volume merchandise, increasingly sourced from China. By September 2025, Jumia had about 24,000 China-based sellers and roughly 2.2 million China-sourced items in warehouses across Africa. Gross items sold from international sellers grew 96% year-over-year in Q2 2026, reflecting the continued scaling of its Chinese seller base and growing volumes from its supply base for affordable fashion in Turkey. Chinese suppliers provide Jumia with cheaper products, a wider assortment, and faster product iteration. They also tend to operate in categories such as fashion, accessories, and home & living, which Jumia says carry higher gross profit ratios and generate additional revenue from advertising and storage services. In Q2, supply disruption caused by memory chip and CPU price increases hurt phones and electronics, pushing customers towards lower-value categories such as fashion and beauty that the company is already betting on. While Jumia’s average physical-goods order value fell to about $34.6 from $36.3 in the previous year, gross profit per order increased to about $4.9 from $4.8. The company sold more goods within the cheaper basket; it didn’t make less money from each order. Deploying more capital towards securing more supply like this ultimately benefits the company’s bottom line. The Economics of a Jumia Order What happens to a $34.60 order when Jumia owns the product versus when a marketplace seller does? Who owns the inventory? Jumia (First-Party) Marketplace Seller (Third-Party) How is it delivered? Door Delivery Pickup Station Order value (GMV) $34.60 − Seller’s share (3P illustration) -$27.66 Illustrative Jumia revenue $34.60 Jumia records the merchandise sale. − Merchandise cost (1P illustration) -$28.00 − Fulfilment -$4.50 = Illustrative gross contribution $2.10 The takeaway: Third-party sellers let Jumia earn from a transaction without buying and holding the merchandise itself. That reduces the amount of capital tied up in inventory. Lower fulfilment costs then leave more of Jumia’s marketplace revenue after each order. *This is an illustration, not Jumia’s reported per-order profitability. Gross contribution = illustrative Jumia revenue minus merchandise/fulfilment costs shown above. The 3P scenario assumes a 20% take rate. Jumia reported average fulfilment costs of $2.04 in Q2. Why the $50m matters: The fresh capital gives Jumia more room to invest in supply, working capital and fulfilment as it tries to improve these economics at scale. More money from the same GMV In Q2, Jumia’s gross merchandise value (GMV), the total value of goods that the platform sold, increased 23%, and gross profit grew 28%. Gross profit reached $30.7 million, and gross profit as a percentage of GMV jumped to 14.2% over the year. “This improvement reflects a shift in the mix toward higher take rate revenue streams, and our disciplined strategy of prioritising attractive category economics and take rates rather than pursuing discount-driven volume growth,” the company said. Jumia is focusing on improving marketplace monetisation and is now earning more across its value chain. The company has been doing this through higher take rates, a shift towards better-margin categories and the expansion of marketplace-related revenue. Marketplace transactions are fundamentally different from first-party sales. When Jumia sells inventory itself, it records the full selling price as revenue and carries the economics of the merchandise. When a third-party seller makes the sale, Jumia earns a commission and can layer on
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👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily – Too much spill ruins the goods
In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية TGIFTWBCBWST. Several companies in African tech are hiring this week: Moniepoint, Paystack, Stears, Wave, HoneyCoin, Duplo, Quidax, Tembo, Roofteller, and Impact Hub Lagos all have open roles. Visit our job board to apply. Become smarter about tech and commerce in Francophone Africa, and the policies shaping them. Read our newsletter here first or subscribe below. Subscribe Kenya goes easy on cyber cafes E-Finance eyes Egyptian expansion South Africa’s rocket-launch plans Who secured the bag? World Wide Web 3 Events policy Kenya’s regulator says cyber cafes don’t need to share customers’ browser history Image Source: Tenor Local cyber cafe operators in Kenya can breathe a small sigh of relief. After mandating them to collect and record customer data and usage sessions, the country’s communications regulator has clarified that those details do not include browser history. The rules, previously expected to take effect on August 14, could have put cyber cafe operators in a weird position, where they have to record how and when customers use Internet services; that would have caused a trust deficit, possibly leading operators to lose customers. What happened? On Thursday, the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) issued a clarification stating that the new rules for Public Communications Access Centres (PCACs), including cyber cafes, do not include tracking users’ browsing histories. Instead, operators only need to keep basic session logs—names, identity numbers, and terminal times—for at least three years. The updated rules will now take effect on September 7, in the latest regulatory effort to tackle cybercrime in the country without making business economics risky for cyber cafes. Between the lines: The CAK is walking a tightrope between national security and the constitutional right to privacy. By explicitly excluding browsing history, the regulator is likely trying to avoid a repeat of thelegal drama surrounding Huduma Namba, a controversial biometric ID scheme that the courts halted because it lacked a clear data protection framework. It is also dodging the shadow of arecent KES 900,000 ($6,900) privacy fine slapped on Safaricom after the High Court ruled that data controllers have a non-delegable duty to prevent third parties from accessing sensitive subscriber data. The message from the bench is clear: if you collect it, you are liable for it. It suggests the government has realised that while tracking who was in the chair is necessary for fraud audits, tracking what they were reading is a legal minefield it isn’t ready to cross. The maths of the mandate: The penalty for ignoring the new rule is steep. Non-compliant cafes face fines of at leastKES 500,000 ($3,864) or 0.2% of their annual turnover. In a market where many cafes are already pivoting to printing and scanning just to stay afloat, a single fine could be a death sentence. Zoom out: Kenya’s decision to dial back the surveillance aspect of the rules is a rare win for digital rights in the region. Until the identity gap in public Internet access is fully closed, the CAK has decided that a paper trail is enough of a deterrent. For now, local cyber cafes remain a place to get online—without the government looking over your shoulder every time you open a tab. Getting paid in cedis just got easier for African businesses operating in Ghana. Fincra now issues dedicated GHS virtual accounts to enable businesses to collect payments. See how Fincra GHS virtual accounts work. companies E-finance makes a $96 million bet on Egypt’s micro-lenders Image Source: Tenor Egyptian fintech giant E-finance is no longer content with just building the pipes for digital payments; it now wants to own the water flowing through them. The Egyptian-listed heavyweight isacquiring 100% of Tamweely Financial Services in a deal valued at up to EGP 4.8 billion ($96 million). What is Tamweely? Launched in 2017, Tamweely is a powerhouse in Egypt’s non-banking financial services (NBFS) sector. It specialises inmicrofinance and microinsurance for small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMEs). With over230 branches and 183,000 active borrowers, it has built a massive footprint in a country where millions of entrepreneurs still lack access to traditional bank loans. Between the lines: The acquisition is a strategic vertical integration. E-finance already powers much of Egypt’s digital government and payment infrastructure; buying Tamweely means it can now offer credit directly to the thousands of small businesses already using its platforms. It’s a move to capture the full value chain, from the moment a business pays its taxes to the moment it needs a loan to expand its shop. The maths of the move: With 183,000 borrowers, e-finance is paying about $522 per active customer, betting on the premium to deepen banking relationships in Egypt’s MSME economy. Zoom out: E-finance’s swoop for Tamweely highlights a broader trend in North Africa: the rise of the super-infrastructure player. As digital payments become commoditised, the real money is moving into credit and insurance. Until Egypt’s MSME sector is fully digitised, acquisitions like this will remain the fastest way for fintech giants to secure their dominance. E-finance didn’t just buy a lender; it bought a massive, ready-made customer base that is seeking working capital. Naira Life 2026 is here! The Naira Life Conference 2026 is bringing together Nigeria’s top finance minds, industry leaders, creators, and business strategists for a full-day of specialised sessions and masterclasses designed for ambitious Nigerians who want to make, keep, grow, and pass on real wealth. Happening on August 22 at the Jewel Aeida, Lekki, Lagos. Secure a seat in the room. countries South Africa wants to stop exporting its satellites for launch Image Source: Tenor South Africa has built satellites, supplied components for spacecraft, and developed a surprisingly capable space-technology ecosystem around Stellenbosch and the Western Cape. What it has never done is launch a satellite into orbit on a rocket built and launched from South African soil. That is, until it made a consequential decision on Thursday. What’s happening? The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Aerospace Systems Research Institute (ASRI) is targeting 2028 for a suborbital
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Mr Eazi’s Choplife is the latest startup to move to digital free zone Itana
Choplife, the entertainment, media, technology, gaming and intellectual property company founded by Nigerian musician Mr Eazi, has moved its operations into Itana, the country’s first digital special economic zone. The move primarily changes Choplife’s corporate and regulatory base, with the company citing Itana’s regulatory environment and its promise of simpler cross-border operations as key reasons for the decision. Choplife is the latest company to move into Itana, which now hosts roughly 50 companies since becoming operational in September 2023. The growing interest reflects Itana’s pitch to businesses looking to operate globally from Africa, offering multicurrency accounts, access to international markets and a regulatory framework designed to reduce the friction of running cross-border operations from Nigeria. “We’re excited to welcome Mr Eazi and the team at Choplife. Their expansion reflects a growing wave of innovative companies choosing to build from Itana for a global audience,” said Chinyere Inya, Itana’s chief executive officer. “At Itana, we’re creating the infrastructure that allows companies like Choplife to scale seamlessly. This milestone reinforces our vision of making it easier than ever to start and grow a business serving Africa from anywhere in the world.” Mr Eazi, whose real name is Oluwatosin Ajibade, described Itana as the logical step for Choplife, which generates the majority of its content on the continent, even as it is consumed globally. Choplife joins companies such as Reliance Infosystems, Circular Energy, and AI platforms MasteryHive, Udu Technologies and Yamify in Itana. “When I look at what Itana is building, the founders that are part of Itana and the spirit behind it is, it is an opportunity for us to leverage and centralise our operations,” Ajibade told TechCabal in an interview on Wednesday. “It is very important to us that it is on the continent.” Navigating a fragmented system Ajibade traced Choplife’s origins to emPawa Africa, the music company he founded in 2019, and then expanded into events intellectual property (IP) with ‘Detty Rave’ and sports with 1v1 Africa. In 2020, Choplife itself launched as a brand, bringing those ventures together. The company now describes itself as operating at the intersection of entertainment, media, technology, gaming and intellectual property, with a portfolio spanning music, film, sports and gaming IP. Choplife operates across Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Botswana, Sierra Leone, Mali and Liberia. Like the fragmentation in cross-border payments, Ajibade pointed to the fragmentation of running a pan-African business as a problem Itana helps to solve. “In setting up businesses across the world, one of the things that always attracts you to a jurisdiction is like the amount of administrative friction it takes to even start your business,” he said. He explained that scaling a business across countries meant collecting payment from customers across markets while navigating different licencing, banking, foreign exchange and corporate rules. That fragmentation comes with a cost. Africa’s cross-border payments market is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2035, but businesses moving money across the continent still pay an average of 7.4% to 8.3% per transaction. Incorporating a business can also take weeks: a Norebase report found that timelines vary widely across African markets, reaching up to 20 weeks in countries such as Angola. For Ajibade, that administrative and financial friction can become a bottleneck to growth. “I can count how many times with some of the businesses I’m involved in, that we had to go through the same process from scratch every time,” he said. “If I want to do my tech business in both countries, it’s an entirely different process, and I have to do it every time. Sometimes you’re not able to take advantage of an opportunity because by that time, maybe it takes two years, the opportunity you saw is gone.” This made Choplife’s decision to anchor itself in an African digital jurisdiction more consequential. Ajibade noted the Itana move is part of Choplife’s focus on staying close to what he calls its founding ethos. “The ethos is to build an African company, just like those who have gone before me have done, or to build a pan-African company that, in its operation, in its registration, in its composition, is truly African from top to bottom, but is world-class,” he said. What Choplife gets from Itana According to Ajibade, in response to that fragmentation, Choplife sought a jurisdiction that could reduce know-your-customer (KYC) and know-your-business (KYB) frictions, banking, foreign exchange, and corporate rules. Itana’s digital-first structure offered a way to handle these requirements through a single regulatory hub rather than navigating different systems in each market. Companies operating in the zone can operate multicurrency accounts, receive and hold revenue in foreign currencies, and move capital across borders. Itana also offers tax incentives and exemptions designed to lower the cost of operating from the zone, including waivers on the standard 30% Companies Income Tax (CIT), the 7.5% Value Added Tax (VAT) on goods and services, withholding tax (WHT) of about 2.5–10% on payments such as services, rent, interest, and dividends, and the 10% Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on asset disposals and federal stamp duties. Inya noted that Itana works with other jurisdictions and organisations on cross-border capital movement, including discussions with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Companies can incorporate remotely and, according to Itana, complete the process in as little as two weeks. Itana is also building a physical district around the digital zone in Alaro City within Lagos State’s Lekki Free Zone corridor. The idea is to create a concentration of companies and talent that can work alongside the digital regulatory infrastructure. “We want to be able to show proof that this is possible,” Inya said. “That companies that belong to that creative sector can actually build, grow, and scale even from Nigeria.” Choplife has begun putting that proposition into practice. Ajibade noted that operations within the zone have begun, with local engineers working out of Nigeria. He also floated plans for a shared physical campus at Itana where Choplife’s team could work alongside other tenants, adding
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Kenya says cyber cafés won’t need to monitor users’ browsing history
Kenya’s Communications Authority (CA) has clarified new licencing rules for cyber cafés, saying operators will be required to keep basic customer and session records but will not have to track users’ browsing histories. The clarification, issued by the agency on Thursday, follows public discussion and media reports about the new requirements for Public Communications Access Centres (PCACs), which provide internet access to people who may not have personal computers, reliable connectivity, or other digital resources. It comes amid longstanding concerns in Kenya about how personal data is collected, stored, and accessed. The Huduma Namba case, which involved legal challenges to the government’s National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS) between 2019 and 2021, raised questions about the protection of sensitive identity data and the risk of personal information being used beyond its original purpose. The new licence conditions were published in the Kenya Gazette Notice Vol. CXXVIII No. 135 on August 7 and will take effect on September 7, after the statutory 30-day period. Under the rules, cyber café operators must verify customers before granting access, record the terminal used and the start and end times of each session, display applicable charges, and issue receipts for paid services. Customer registration and session records must also be securely retained for at least three years. The CA said the records are intended to provide an audit trail when a public internet facility is linked to unlawful activity, including cyber-enabled fraud, identity theft, online scams, and other offences. “The requirement for PCACs to maintain basic user logs does not extend to a customer’s browsing history,” the Authority said. The rules also do not mandate a specific customer identification system or CCTV solution. Operators can introduce additional Know Your Customer (KYC) measures where necessary, provided they comply with applicable laws. Cyber cafés will, however, be expected to implement approved network filtering and security measures to block illegal or harmful content. They must also source internet capacity from licensed providers and comply with the CA’s requirements for regulatory inspections and data protection. Recent scrutiny by regulators, courts, and civil rights groups over access to telecom records has kept data privacy in the spotlight. In a landmark May 13 ruling, the High Court of Kenya, presided over by Justice Bahati Mwamuye, awarded general damages to petitioners who sued Safaricom and M-Pesa and held that Article 31, which guarantees the right to privacy, imposes a non-delegable duty on data controllers. The CA’s decision to explicitly exclude browsing history from the required records is significant. Cyber cafés can now be required to establish who used a computer and when, without having to record which websites that person visited. Non-compliance with the new requirements could attract regulatory sanctions, including fines of at least KSh500,000 ($3,863.99) or 0.2% of annual turnover, whichever is higher, as well as suspension or closure. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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SASSA September 2026 payment dates: Full schedule
Table of contents The confirmed September 2026 payment dates Why SASSA pays on these dates SASSA grant amounts for September 2026 What about Grant-in-Aid? When does the SRD R370 grant pay in September? What is the fourth payment day for? A few reminders before payday Switch your Postbank Gold Card before September SASSA’s review crackdown continues South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) has confirmed its September 2026 payment dates, following its usual three-day staggered schedule, with an additional date for beneficiaries flagged for review. The confirmed September 2026 payment dates Older Persons Grant: Wednesday, September 2 Disability Grant and War Veterans Grant: Thursday, September 3 Children’s Grants (Child Support, Foster Child, and Care Dependency): Friday, September 4 Review and eLife Certification payments: Monday, September 7 These dates come from the Department of Social Development’s 2026/27 payment schedule, approved by the National Treasury. Why SASSA pays on these dates SASSA sticks to a few simple rules when setting payment dates. Grants go out as early in the month as possible. Payments are staggered over three days to ease pressure on the National Payment System and pay points. SASSA also avoids paying on the first of the month, on a Monday, over a weekend, or the day right after a public holiday. September fits neatly into this pattern. There is no need to shift any dates around a weekend or holiday this month, so the schedule falls exactly on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. SASSA grant amounts for September 2026 Grant amounts for September stay the same as the rates that took effect in April 2026: Older Persons, Disability, and Care Dependency Grant: R2,400 War Veterans Grant: R2,420 Child Support Grant and Grant-in-Aid: R580 Foster Child Grant: R1,290 (this rises to R1,300 in October) SRD Grant: R370, unchanged, and extended through March 31, 2027 What about Grant-in-Aid? Grant-in-Aid rides along with the main grant it is attached to, so it lands in your account on the same day as your Older Persons, Disability, War Veterans, or Care Dependency payment. You do not need to look out for a separate date. When does the SRD R370 grant pay in September? The R370 SRD grant follows its own schedule, separate from the three-day system above. SASSA pays SRD grants in batches later in the month, usually from around the 24th through month-end, after checking your details against SARS, UIF, Home Affairs, and your bank. SASSA has not published an exact September window yet, so check your own status through these channels: SASSA’s SRD website: srd.sassa.gov.za WhatsApp: 082 046 8553 USSD: *134*7737# Toll-free line: 0800 60 10 11 What is the fourth payment day for? If SASSA flags your grant for a review or eLife Certification, you may get paid on Monday, September 7 instead of the usual dates. SASSA sends a bulk SMS to let you know if this applies to you. If you get flagged, here is what to do: Visit your nearest SASSA office with your ID and any documents listed in the SMS Complete your review or eLife Certification Keep your personal, banking, and contact details updated Respond quickly if SASSA calls or texts you asking for more information If you ignore the review request, SASSA can suspend your grant in the next cycle and cancel it if the issue stays unresolved. A few reminders before payday Your money stays in your account once it is paid. You do not have to withdraw it on the exact date. Use ATMs or retail stores like Shoprite, Checkers, Pick n Pay, Boxer, and Usave to avoid long queues at SASSA pay points. Keep your banking and contact details current so your payment does not get delayed. Contact SASSA directly if your payment does not arrive when you expect it. Switch your Postbank Gold Card before September If you still use a Postbank Gold Card, switch to the new Black Card before August 31, 2026. Postbank has said this deadline is final. The switch is free and only needs your South African ID or temporary ID. You do not need any forms. You can make the switch at Postbank points inside Shoprite, Checkers, Usave, Pick n Pay, Boxer, and Spar. Dial *120*355# to find a site near you. As of early August, about 250,000 to 280,000 beneficiaries still needed to switch. Social Development Minister Dina Pule has assured beneficiaries that the card transition will not affect their grant payments. SASSA’s review crackdown continues SASSA is still tightening its checks on who qualifies for a grant. By the end of 2025, SASSA had flagged 291,581 beneficiaries for review and cancelled 34,661 grants, saving over R170 million ($10,539,320). The agency cross-checks applicants against South African Revenue Service(SARS), Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), correctional services, and banking and credit bureau records. If you’re applying for the Older Persons Grant, you’ll also need to meet SASSA’s income and asset thresholds. Your monthly income must be below R9,350 if you’re single or R18,700 if you’re married. Your assets must also be worth less than R1,584,000 if you’re single or R3,168,000 if you’re married. Bookmark this page as your go-to guide for SASSA payment dates and grant updates every month. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily – Jumia bags $50 million
In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Happy pre-TGIF. If someone told you in 2024 that South Africans would soon be paying for coffee with a ring that never needs charging, you would probably have assumed they had spent too much time watching fantasy fiction. Two years later, South Africans might start to do exactly that. VezoPay, the wearable payments startup behind the battery-free tap-to-pay ring, has gone live with Investec and Absa, taking its banking partnerships to four and putting it on track to add a fifth major retail bank before the end of 2026, as it tries to build network effects. Interesting times ahead for contactless payments in South Africa. Let’s dive in. Become smarter about tech and commerce in Francophone Africa, and the policies shaping them. Read our newsletter here first or subscribe below. Subscribe Virtual asset firms to join CBN’s sandbox Jumia secures $50 million equity funding Shoprite’s Sixty60 is having a moment Vodacom taps ex-Airtel CEO to join board World Wide Web 3 Opportunities Cryptocurrency Nigeria’s Central Bank expands sandbox to virtual asset companies Image Source: Tenor Nigeria has decided to bring virtual asset companies into the group chat. If the intention to regulate virtual assets was ever in doubt, the central bank’s decision to expand its regulatory sandbox to operators in the sector has now put any confusion to bed. What happened? The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has opened a dedicated Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) track inside its regulatory sandbox for companies building stablecoins, wallets, custody platforms, payment processors, and settlement infrastructure. Applications are open from August 12 to August 31, and the programme now sits alongside the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) own digital asset incubation framework. Explain like I’m new here: A regulatory sandbox is a supervised test environment where startups can try new financial products with real users under close regulatory oversight before receiving a full licence. It is a controlled proving ground for financial innovation. Between the lines: Nigeria launched a fintech sandbox in 2022, but the first cohort disappeared into a fog of silence with very little public information about admissions, testing results, or outcomes. However, the new version is launching with a broader institutional reset. President Bola Tinubu’s Virtual Asset Council now brings together the CBN, the SEC, the country’s tax authority, intelligence, and national security agencies, suggesting that coordination is replacing the old agency-by-agency approach. Stablecoins are the real signal here. Nigeria is no longer focusing only on crypto exchanges; it is preparing to supervise the infrastructure that moves digital currencies, settles cross-border payments, and could eventually compete with traditional banking rails. Zoom out: If this sandbox produces clear rules and predictable supervision, Nigeria could become one of Africa’s most important testing grounds for regulated stablecoin payments. The bigger question is whether the CBN can do what many regulators struggle to do: move from publishing frameworks to publishing results. Getting paid in cedis just got easier for African businesses operating in Ghana. Fincra now issues dedicated GHS virtual accounts to enable businesses to collect payments. See how Fincra GHS virtual accounts work. Ecommerce E-commerce giant Jumia raises $50 million from IFC, AXIAN Telecom Image Source: Tenor In Q2 2026, Jumia, the e-commerce company, narrowed its quarterly loss from $16.6 million to $11.7 million year-on-year. After years of bleeding cash, its profitability push is beginning to look more convincing. Chief executive officer Francis Dufay has suggested it could come sooner than many expected. What happened? Jumia, the New York-listed African e-commerce company operating in Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and other markets, has secured $50 million in fresh equity funding. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private-sector investment arm, led the round with participation from Axian Telecom, one of Jumia’s largest shareholders—which acquired an 8% stake in the e-commerce company in May 2025—and other investors. Dufay told Bloomberg that the company received more investor interest than it anticipated. Raising $50 million from one of its largest shareholders is a vote of confidence that the company may finally be on the right track after years of losses and leadership shake-ups.. Explain like I’m new here: Jumia spent years trying to grow as fast as possible across the continent. The new strategy is almost the opposite: fewer distractions, tighter spending, and a much stronger focus on markets that can actually make money, especially Nigeria. Between the lines: The numbers in Jumia’s Q2 2026 report tell a more important story than the fundraising headline. The company’s orders rose 28% year-on-year, active customers increased 24%, and gross profit jumped 28%, while the adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) loss narrowed by 36% to $8.7 million. Nigeria was Jumia’s standout market, with gross merchandise value (GMV) up 36% and orders up 34%. One fascinating detail: sales from Chinese and Turkish international sellers grew 96%, suggesting Jumia has fully embraced its identity as a marketplace for affordable imported goods rather than a traditional online retailer with large inventory. Zoom out: The IFC’s involvement matters because development finance institutions rarely write equity cheques into businesses they think are spiralling toward irrelevance. Jumia’s cash position was only $48.3 million at the end of June, so this raise buys time. More importantly, it buys credibility for a company now claiming it can reach breakeven in Q4 2026 and profitability in 2027—or even profitability by Q4 2026, as Dufay told Bloomberg. If Jumia pulls that off, it would mark one of the most significant turnaround stories in African tech in years. Download PalmPay. Bank smarter. With PalmPay, you can bank with confidence. Enjoy seamless everyday banking with security features designed to help protect your money. Send money, pay bills, and manage your finances all in one app. Learn more. Ecommerce Shoprite’s Sixty60 quietly becomes a $1.6 billion digital behemoth Image Source: Zikoko Memes While many traditional retailers struggle to make online delivery profitable, Shoprite, the South African retail giant, has turned its grocery app into a
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Shoprite’s Sixty60 is now a $1.6 billion digital commerce business
Shoprite’s Sixty60 generated R25.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in sales in the year ended June 2026, as the retailer’s on-demand digital platform grew 34.5% during the 12 months. Sixty60 is growing nearly five times faster than Shoprite’s core South African supermarket business, which grew 7.1% over the same period, the Group noted in its operational update on Wednesday. The numbers show how the retailer is turning its vast physical store network into infrastructure for a rapidly expanding digital commerce business. The broader Shoprite Group has almost 3,000 stores across South Africa, giving Sixty60 a vast physical network from which to fulfil online orders. Shoprite reported R270.8 billion ($16.8 billion) in sales from continuing operations, up from R252.7 billion ($15.7 billion) in 2025, adding R18.1 billion ($1.1 billion) in sales. But the standout growth came from its digital commerce platform, which the group said is included in the reported sales of the supermarket’s brands, including Shoprite, Usave and Checkers, during the year. The R25.5 billion ($1.6 billion) generated by Sixty60 represents sales flowing through the digital platform and already captured within the results of the retail brands. “Sales from the segment’s on-demand digital commerce platform Sixty60, included within the reported sales of the underlying retail brands, increased by 34.5%, measuring R25.5 billion ($1.6 billion,” Shoprite said in its operational update. The growth gives Sixty60 a key role in Shoprite’s retail ecosystem. Its R25.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in sales is equivalent to almost 9.4% of the group’s total reported sales, although the company does not report Sixty60 as a separate revenue segment. According to the update, the platform’s rapid growth is happening alongside an aggressive expansion of Shoprite’s physical footprint. Its Supermarkets South Africa (Supermarkets RSA) business, which contributes 84.5% of group sales, opened a net 262 stores during the year, taking its corporate-owned and operated store base to 2,839. That physical network gives Shoprite an advantage in a digital grocery market where delivery speed and proximity to customers are critical. Rather than replacing its stores with an online operation, the retailer is using its existing infrastructure to support digital orders. The contrast in growth rates is stark. Supermarkets South Africa sales grew 7.1%, while Sixty60 sales rose 34.5%. Shoprite’s broader group sales increased 7.2%. Shoprite’s digital growth comes as it keeps prices competitive. In South Africa, the company said its internal selling price inflation was just 0.8% for the year, below the 3.9% inflation recorded for food and non-alcoholic beverages by Statistics South Africa. “Like-for-like sales increased by 2.0%, reflecting the Group’s continued efforts to support customer affordability,” the company stated. At the same time, the supermarket chains’ other brands, Checkers and Checkers Hyper and Checkers LiquorShop, grew sales by 10%, compared with 4.3% for Shoprite and Usave, including Shoprite LiquorShop. The results suggest Shoprite is not replacing physical retail with digital commerce. Instead, it is connecting its store network to digital demand, giving Sixty60 a ready-made fulfillment footprint for its R25.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in sales. Shoprite expects its headline earnings per share from continuing operations to rise between 9.7% and 14.7% for the year. The company will release its full 2026 results on September 1, 2026. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Vodacom taps former Airtel Africa CEO onto its board
Vodacom is bringing the former chief executive of one of its biggest rivals onto its board, as the telecom group prepares to execute the next phase of its Vision 2030 strategy. Segun Ogunsanya, who led Airtel Africa until his retirement in July 2024, will join Vodacom as an independent non-executive director from October 9, 2026. His appointment gives the South African telecom group an executive who spent more than a decade running a major pan-African telecoms business across 14 countries, as Vodacom expands beyond connectivity into financial services and digital businesses. Vodacom announced the appointment on Wednesday alongside a wider reshuffle of its board, including the departure of two prominent directors and a planned change in its chairmanship. The company said Ogunsanya has more than 35 years of leadership experience across finance, banking, telecommunications and corporate governance. Before joining Airtel Africa in 2012, he held senior roles at Coca-Cola operations in Africa and Ecobank Transnational. “Until his retirement in June 2024, Segun served as the Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Airtel Africa PLC, a FTSE 100-listed multinational providing mobile telecommunications and financial services in 14 African countries,” Vodacom said in its statement. The appointment comes as Vodacom positions itself as an African technology company rather than simply a mobile network operator. The group’s latest financial results show the scale of its operations beyond South Africa, with international markets, Safaricom and financial services forming significant parts of the business. The board changes also mark the beginning of the end of Saki Macozoma’s tenure as Vodacom chairman. Macozoma, who joined the board in July 2017, will retire at the company’s annual general meeting on July 20, 2027, after reaching the company’s self-imposed 10-year tenure for board members. Khumo Shuenyane, currently the lead independent director, will succeed him as chairman from July 21, 2027. Vodacom credited Macozoma with overseeing the implementation of its Vision 2025 strategy and the beginning of its Vision 2030 strategy. “Both have heralded a transformational era for the business,” the company said. The board is also losing Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa, the Naspers CEO, who will retire on October 8, 2026, after joining the board in January 2019. She served as chairperson of the Remuneration Committee and as a member of the Nomination Committee. Vodacom said it would announce further changes to its board committees in due course. Clive Thomson, a former Barloworld CEO, will take over as chairman of the Remuneration Committee while retaining his role as chairman of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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How to watch Made by Google 2026: Time, channel, and what to expect
Table of contents What time does Made by Google 2026 start Where to watch Made by Google 2026 Who is hosting Made by Google 2026? What Google is expected to announce Why this year’s show looks different What about the Pixel 11 Pro Fold? Catch up if you miss it Made by Google 2026 goes live today, and you can catch the whole event from wherever you are. Here is everything you need: the exact time in your part of the world, where to stream it, and what Google is expected to show off. What time does Made by Google 2026 start Made by Google 2026 kicks off on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, at 6:00 PM ET / 3:00 PM PT. Here is what that looks like in other time zones: US Eastern: 6:00 PM, Wednesday, August 12 US Pacific: 3:00 PM, Wednesday, August 12 UK: 11:00 PM, Wednesday, August 12 Continental Europe: midnight, Thursday, August 13 Nigeria (WAT): 11:00 PM, Wednesday, August 12 Ghana (GMT): 10:00 PM, Wednesday, August 12 South Africa (SAST): midnight, Thursday, August 13 Kenya (EAT): 1:00 AM, Thursday, August 13 India (IST): 3:30 AM, Thursday, August 13 If you are in Nigeria, South Africa, or Kenya, plan to stay up late or set an alarm. Ghana runs an hour behind Nigeria, so keep that in mind if you are watching from Accra. Where to watch Made by Google 2026 You have a couple of solid options for watching the event live: The official Made by Google YouTube channel, which carries the main livestream The Google Store website, which mirrors the same feed Your smart TV, laptop, or game console, since the YouTube stream works on all of them Google’s Keyword blog, which will post updates and announcements as the show goes on Who is hosting Made by Google 2026? Comedian Trevor Noah hosts this year’s show, taking over from Jimmy Fallon, who hosted in 2025. Google’s teaser video also named a long list of guests, including Alex Cooper, Shubman Gill, Stephen Curry, Peggy Gou, JuJu Watkins, PinkPantheress, Chari Hawkins, Steven Gerrard, Daniel Durant, Ayami Nakajo, and Jesser. Being named in the teaser does not guarantee a guest will show up on stage. Last year, Stephen Curry only appeared in a video, so treat the list as a sign of who is involved rather than a confirmed lineup of live appearances. What Google is expected to announce Google already teased two of its new phones in its own videos: the Pixel 11 Pro and the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. It also teased the Pixel Watch 5 in a short clip that pokes fun at other smartwatch designs. You should also expect the standard Pixel 11 and the Pixel 11 Pro XL to round out the phone lineup, even though Google has not teased either one individually yet. A few accessories could show up too, based on leaks rather than anything Google has confirmed: A Pixel Tag, a small tracker similar to Apple’s AirTag, reportedly priced around €34.90 in Europe A new dark green colorway for the Pixel Buds Pro 2 A possible early look at Googlebook, Google’s laptop project A possible teaser for Android XR glasses Specs like the Tensor G6 chip, a new modem, and higher storage numbers have circulated widely, but none of it comes from Google directly, so treat those details as rumors until the event confirms them. Why this year’s show looks different Made by Google 2026 starts later in the day and lands a week earlier on the calendar than the 2025 event did. It also swaps last year’s talk-show-style format, hosted inside Jimmy Fallon’s show, for a standalone, celebrity-driven production hosted by Trevor Noah. What about the Pixel 11 Pro Fold? The Pixel 11 Pro Fold is expected to appear on stage today, but it likely will not go on sale until October, following the same pattern as last year’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Google has not confirmed a release date yet, so this is worth watching once the event ends. Catch up if you miss it A recording of the show will land on YouTube shortly after the event ends, so you can catch every announcement even if the time zone does not work for you. TechCabal will also cover every device Google announces once the event wraps up. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Nigeria’s central bank opens regulatory sandbox to virtual asset firms
Nigeria has launched a regulatory sandbox for virtual asset operators, fintechs, financial institutions, and technology companies, marking the latest step in the country’s push to coordinate oversight of the country’s fast-growing digital finance ecosystem. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said on Tuesday that applications for Cohort 2 of its Regulatory Sandbox Programme will open on August 12 and close on August 31. The new programme includes a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) track for companies offering stablecoins, payment and settlement services, custody, wallets, and related financial infrastructure solutions. It also includes a second Data-Enabled Financial Services (Non-VASP) track for firms using secure digital infrastructure and permission-based data sharing to improve payments, credit, risk management, operational efficiency, and financial inclusion. The sandbox marks Nigeria’s latest move to regulate the virtual asset industry. The CBN will now oversee virtual assets used for payments, including stablecoins, payment, settlement, custody, wallet management, and other transaction-based infrastructure services. The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will oversee digital assets that behave like securities. The CBN began testing its supervisory approach in March with a pilot involving selected fintechs, including Flutterwave, Paystack, and Juicyway, to assess the stability of payment and cross-border transaction infrastructure linked to stablecoins under closer regulatory monitoring. With the new sandbox, the CBN now has a complementary testing framework alongside the SEC’s Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme (ARIP), which admitted nine digital asset-based investment companies in July. The CBN regulatory sandbox is expected to focus on stablecoin providers, on- and off-ramp companies, payment processors, settlement infrastructure operators, custody platforms, wallet-service providers, and other financial infrastructure firms that support the movement, storage, and conversion of digital assets. “The CBN Regulatory Sandbox provides a controlled environment in which eligible participants may test innovative financial products, services, business models, and enabling technologies under the supervision of the Central Bank,” Sidi-Ali Hakama, CBN’s Acting Director of Corporate Communications, said in a statement seen by TechCabal. “The programme enables the CBN and innovators to engage constructively throughout the testing process, supporting regulatory learning while encouraging responsible innovation that benefits consumers and the wider financial system.” The move follows President Bola Tinubu’s July 18 Executive Order to establish a harmonised regulatory authority under the Virtual Asset Council, which the CBN now chairs. As part of that committee, the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS)—which released a tax framework for virtual assets on August 3—and the SEC serve as vice-chairs. Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) serve as the other members of the council. The council evolved from a virtual assets white paper in February that proposed a coordinated oversight framework led by the CBN, SEC, and NRS, with the July executive order formalising and modifying that structure. The order was created to harmonise regulation across agencies, close supervisory gaps, strengthen anti-money laundering controls, improve consumer protection, and reduce fraud in a market that has grown rapidly with limited coordinated oversight. Following the establishment of the council, an inaugural meeting was held at the CBN headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria, on July 29, signalling that implementation has moved beyond policy design into active institutional coordination. Nigeria remains one of the world’s most active cryptocurrency markets. According to Chainalysis, Nigerians transacted about $92.1 billion in cryptocurrencies between July 2024 and June 2025, making it Africa’s largest virtual assets market by transaction volume. Stablecoins are becoming a bigger part of payments and remittances, as fintechs build infrastructure around stablecoin-based payment rails. The CBN said participation in the sandbox does not amount to a licence or authorisation to operate beyond approved testing parameters. Successful applicants will be required to comply with safeguards covering consumer protection, operational resilience, cybersecurity, and regulatory reporting. “The launch of Cohort 2 reflects the CBN’s continued commitment to developing a transparent, proportionate, and risk-based regulatory environment that fosters innovation while preserving monetary and financial stability,” Hakama said in the statement. “Insights from supervised testing will help deepen regulatory understanding of emerging technologies and inform the ongoing development of regulatory and supervisory frameworks for Nigeria’s evolving digital financial ecosystem.” For crypto operators, the immediate milestone is the application window. It will provide eligible virtual asset companies their first opportunity to enter the CBN’s supervised testing environment under Nigeria’s newly coordinated virtual assets regime. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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