Capitec’s $33.8 billion business joins A2X as it expands beyond banking
Capitec, South Africa’s largest digital bank, is about to get a second venue for investors to trade its shares, but the bigger story is what the company has become since it started as a lender 25 years ago. On Monday, September 7, Capitec’s shares will begin trading on A2X Markets, a tech-driven alternative stock exchange, after the company received approval for a secondary listing on the trading platform. Capitec says it will keep its primary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), Africa’s largest stock exchange. The move, the bank believes, gives investors another venue to trade the bank’s share. It also comes as Capitec evolves beyond traditional banking into a digital platform spanning payments, connectivity, devices, insurance and financial services. That expansion may help explain how the lender has grown into a R540 billion ($33.8 billion) business serving more than 26 million active clients. Capitec joins rival lenders Absa, Nedbank, Standard Bank and Investec, which already have secondary listings on A2X. The alternative trading venue has grown from three listings at launch in 2017 to more than 175 securities using technology and lower-cost market infrastructure. The secondary listing is expected to broaden investor access to Capitec’s ordinary shares by providing an additional regulated trading venue, enhancing shareholder choice and supporting liquidity. Grant Hardy, Chief Financial Officer (CEO) of Capitec, said the bank’s issued share capital will remain unchanged. “Our secondary listing on A2X supports our commitment to creating value for shareholders by providing access to an additional trading venue and enhanced liquidity,” he stated. Kevin Brady, A2X CEO, said the exchange’s technology is central to why a company like Capitec would add another listing. “A2X runs on the latest matching technology and passes the resulting efficiency gains on as lower fees,” Brady told TechCabal in an interview. “A2X’s fees are roughly 50% below the primary exchange.” Lower costs, he maintains, can attract more trading activity. Brady also points to trading tools such as Auction on Demand, which allows investors to initiate auctions when they need to trade, and Market at Close, which facilitates trading at the end of the session. But the listing comes at a more interesting point in Capitec’s evolution. Value-added services and Capitec Connect grew 38% to R6.1 billion ($377 million) in the year ended February 2026, while fintech contributed 26% of group headline earnings, according to the company’s latest results Capitec Connect, its mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), has grown to 1.5 million active clients. The company also gave customers 3 petabytes of free data worth R78 million ($4.8 million) and began selling smartphones through its app, including Samsung and Apple devices. That digital scale matters because it gives Capitec something many technology companies spend years trying to build: a large, active user base that can be introduced to new products without starting customer acquisition from scratch. 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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With Uber gone, Bolt says Nigeria “remains an important market”
Bolt, the Estonian ride-hailing company, says it will stay in Nigeria and continue investing after rival Uber’s suprising exit. In a statement shared with TechCabal on Wednesday night, Bolt described Nigeria as an important market for its growth. Uber’s departure leaves Bolt as the other major international ride-hailing platform serving Nigeria, putting the company in a position to potentially capture drivers and riders who previously relied on its rival. The statement came hours after Uber told its riders and drivers on Wednesday afternoon that it would wind down operations in Nigeria following a review of its business priorities and investment focus. Uber also exited Uganda, part of a global restructuring of its operations with plans to cut over 3,000 jobs globally. “Nigeria remains an important market for Bolt, and we remain firmly committed to the country,” said Teddy Appa-Dankyi, senior general manager, Bolt West Africa. “We have built a strong community of riders and driver partners over the years, and our focus is on continuing to serve them while strengthening our operations and creating more opportunities across the market.” Bolt, which entered Nigeria in 2016, has faced pressure from rising fuel prices and currency volatility, all of which have raised operating costs for drivers and ride-hailing platforms. Those pressures have fuelled tensions between the platforms and their drivers over fares and commissions. In March, ride-hailing drivers began a three-day strike in Lagos, protesting what they described as unsustainable fares, high commissions and rising fuel and vehicle maintenance costs. Like Uber and other ride-hailing companies, its operations at local airports were also disrupted by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria’s (FAAN) efforts to introduce a new framework for airport pickups. Bolt later reached an agreement with the agency and was cleared to resume operations at FAAN-managed airports in August. Bolt is now one of the largest remaining players in Nigeria’s ride-hailing market, alongside inDrive, LagRide and other operators, and across 33 cities in the country, including Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, Kaduna, and Owerri. “We recognise that there is understandably some uncertainty following recent developments in the industry,” Teddy Appa-Dankyi said. “However, our focus remains firmly on the long term. We will continue working closely with our drivers, riders, regulators and other partners to contribute to a reliable, accessible and sustainable mobility ecosystem in Nigeria.” In July, Bolt integrated its ride-hailing service with ChatGPT, allowing users to search for rides, see fare estimates and driver arrival times before completing their booking in the Bolt app. 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 – Uber goes bye-bye
In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Happy pre-TGIF. Final call to get your Moonshot 2026 ticket at 20% off. This October, Moonshot brings founders, investors, operators, creators and talent together at the National Theatre in Lagos for two days of conversations, connections and opportunities. The Early Bird offer allows you and your network to get 20% off Moonshot tickets. Prices return to normal after it closes. Get your Moonshot ticket at 20% off → Become smarter about tech and commerce in Francophone Africa, and the policies shaping them. Read previous editions here first and subscribe below. Subscribe Uber ends operations in Nigeria and Uganda Win for Uber and Bolt in Kenya Pick n Pay’s grocery app had a bad delivery day FNB experiences outages World Wide Web 3 Opportunities mobility Uber, the ride-hailing giant, ends operations in Nigeria and Uganda Image Source: Tenor If you opened your Uber app in Nigeria or Uganda on Wednesday, hoping to get a ride somewhere, you may have been greeted by a “No trips available” message. For some users, the breakup message arrived straight in their inbox. What happened? The ride-hailing giant has wound down operations in Nigeria and Uganda. Nigerian drivers were told they would no longer receive rider requests through the app, but it would provide a one-off goodwill payment to help them through the transition. The exits arrived the same day Uber announced plans to cut about 3,300 jobs, roughly 10% of its global workforce, to focus on ride-sharing, delivery and autonomous vehicles. Explain like I’m new here: Uber arrived in Lagos in 2014 and launched in Kampala in 2016, as part of its African expansion. However, growing a ride-hailing market and making money from one are two different things. In Nigeria, Uber faced tension over fares and commissions. Drivers protested in March 2026, complaining about earnings and the economics of working on the platform. Rising fuel prices, vehicle maintenance costs, competition, and regulation have also made the balancing act harder. In August, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) tightened control over commercial ride-hailing operations at airports, restricting operators from picking up passengers. What is Uber saying? Uber has not pointed to competition, driver disputes or FAAN’s restrictions as its reason for leaving. It said the decision followed a review of its business priorities and investment focus across Africa. Is Uber low-key telling Africa goodbye? Uber left Côte d’Ivoire in September 2025, exited Tanzania in January, and has now left Nigeria and Uganda. This week, it also discontinued its budget UberX service in South Africa. Uber still operates in several African markets, including Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, and Egypt. Even though the whole of Africa has not received a “it’s not you, it’s me” email from Uber yet, four market exits in roughly a year suggest Uber is becoming much more selective about which African rides it wants to keep taking. Every business owner needs to watch this. The business questions you Google, answered by experts. Watch for free. mobility Kenya blocks 18% ride-hailing commission cap in win for Uber and Bolt Image Source: Tenor Uber may be packing its bags in Nigeria and Uganda and cutting jobs along the way, but Kenya’s ride-hailing companies have something to celebrate. What happened? The High Court has declared parts of Kenya’s National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) Regulations, 2022, unconstitutional. One of the rules capped the commission ride-hailing platforms could charge at 18% of a trip’s earnings. The court also blocked the NTSA from requiring platforms to keep detailed passenger and driver records, including trip locations, times, and payment details, for three years and hand them over to the authority when requested. Explain like I’m new here: In 2022, Kenya decided the ride-hailing market needed some adult supervision. Drivers had complained that platforms were taking commissions of 25% to 30%, leaving them with less money after fuel, vehicle costs, and other expenses. If a passenger paid $2 for a ride, the platform would take its agreed percentage as commission before the rest goes to the driver. So, the government responded with regulations covering licensing, vehicle standards, driver verification, and passenger safety. The new rules said commissions could not exceed 18%. Ride-hailing platforms, like Bolt (which filed a petition in 2025), were not so happy about that. Now the court is on their side: The court ruled that the government failed to follow the proper constitutional and regulatory process when creating some of those rules. For the commission cap, the court said the government had not shown enough evidence to justify restricting how platforms price their services. For the data rules, it found that forcing platforms to store and surrender detailed information about riders and drivers created an overly intrusive surveillance system. What happens now? The court has given the government 12 months to go back, do the required public participation and impact assessment, and fix the regulations. Until then, the disputed provisions cannot be enforced. That means the 18% legal ceiling is off the road for now, giving platforms more freedom to set commissions with drivers. Could rates eventually creep back towards the 25%–30% that triggered the regulations in the first place? Possibly, but that is left to be seen. A survey for Nigeria’s health logistics buyers. If you’re a Health Logistics Buyer in Nigeria, participate in our report by filling out the survey by 4 September. It takes less than 10 minutes. companies Pick n Pay’s grocery app had a bad delivery day Image Source: Tenor Pick n Pay’s asap! grocery-delivery service suffered a technical glitch on Tuesday that prevented stores from assigning orders to drivers. Some morning orders were still undelivered by the end of the day, while other customers were pushed into delivery slots the next morning. Pick n Pay said the issue affected its logistics partner, which it did not name, and advised customers to use Mr D, an alternate food and grocery delivery platform, in the meantime. It later said the problem
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“Things will become even tougher for us,” Uber drivers say after Nigeria exit
For drivers who built their livelihoods around Uber, Wednesday’s announcement that the ride-hailing company would leave Nigeria landed as a personal shock. Mezie, a driver who has worked with the platform for several years, said he was surprised when the company’s email announcing its exit arrived. “I have been with Uber for many years,” he told TechCabal. “It is sad they have to go, and it will affect my line of business because they are one of the major apps I use.” Mezie said Uber’s reputation among customers, particularly Nigerians and other users living abroad, had made it an important source of business for him. Uber’s exit, after a 12-year run, will leave Nigerian ride-hailing drivers facing the loss of a major source of demand, with some now questioning how they will replace the income. The company said it will discontinue operations in Nigeria and Uganda from September 2, as part of a shift in its business priorities and investment focus across Africa. “After a thorough review, we have taken the difficult decision to wind down operations in Nigeria and Uganda, effective September 2, 2026,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement shared with TechCabal. “Our immediate priority is supporting drivers, riders, and local team members throughout this transition.” The company said the decision is limited to Nigeria and Uganda and does not affect its operations in other African markets. For drivers, however, the immediate concern is what the exit means for their earnings. Another driver, who identified himself only as David, said he had spent about a decade working with Uber and had invested in a car specifically for the platform. “The reason I bought this car was to use it as an Uber ride. I am a foundation member. This exit will really affect my income,” he said. David’s concern reflects the financial commitment some drivers make to ride-hailing. For those who bought or financed vehicles with platforms such as Uber in mind, losing one of the major apps they rely on could mean finding new ways to keep those vehicles earning. Abdul-azeez Sule, another driver, said he was still processing the news when he spoke. He had used the app to drop a passenger at a hotel in Ikeja, Lagos’ capital, on Tuesday afternoon, just a day before Uber’s announcement. He said the prospect of losing the platform had left him worried about what would happen to his income. “Is there nothing the Federal Government can do? If it’s about the money, something can be done? This will really affect us who are ride-hailing drivers. Things will become even tougher for us.” Another driver, *Peggy Oyibo, who is based in Port Harcourt, a major oil-producing city in southern Nigeria, said Uber was the only ride-hailing platform she used because of what she described as its “generous” rates. For Oyibo, the company’s exit is not simply the loss of another app on her phone. It threatens a source of income that she relies on to support her family. She said she was unaware of Uber’s decision until contacted by TechCabal, after which she checked her email and confirmed that the company was indeed leaving Nigeria. “This is all I do to put food on my table,” she said. “I didn’t even know of the shutdown until you brought it to my notice and I checked my mail and saw that it was true.” Oyibo said she and her husband rely on their incomes to provide for their four children. With one of their children, a two-year-old, due to start school in September, she said the timing of the announcement had made the news particularly difficult to absorb. “My husband and I use this to fend for our four kids. And I have a two-year-old who is to resume school this September,” she said. “I am saddened by this news, and I wish there was something we could do.” Peggy’s husband, Oyibo, told TechCabal that he refused to believe the news, despite the evidence of an email from Uber. “I cannot accept it. What do they expect me and my family to do? How do they expect us to feed?” he queried. Uber said it has been in touch with active drivers and will provide them with a one-off discretionary “goodwill payment” as they transition away from the platform. According to the terms shown to drivers and seen by TechCabal, the payment will be made into the bank account registered on their Uber account and processed within a few days of the closure date. Uber said the payment is separate from drivers’ earnings and does not include or replace any incentives, fare adjustments, or service fees. The company also clarified that receiving the payment does not change the drivers’ status as independent contractors. The terms state that details of the goodwill payment are confidential and should not be shared with others. The company did not disclose the value of the payment in its statement. The exit comes weeks after the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) temporarily restricted Uber and Bolt from operating at airports under its management while it worked with the platforms on new licence agreements. FAAN later clarified that it had not imposed a blanket ban on e-hailing services, and Bolt was subsequently cleared to resume airport operations. Uber said its decision to leave Nigeria was unrelated to the FAAN directive concerning e-hailing operations at Nigerian airports. “Uber’s decision to discontinue operations in Nigeria was made following a review of its evolving business priorities and investment focus across Africa,” the company said. The drivers’ concerns come as Uber’s exit threatens to reshape a market in which thousands of drivers and passengers have become accustomed to using the platform. For drivers, the immediate question is not simply which app will replace Uber, but whether alternative platforms can provide comparable demand, earnings and access to customers. The impact will also depend on how quickly drivers can move their businesses elsewhere and whether passengers follow them to competing
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Kenya’s new phone number rules will make recycling costlier for telcos
Kenya’s telecom operators will have to change how they deactivate and recycle inactive phone numbers from September 19, when new rules from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) take effect. The rules will give subscribers more time to recover dormant numbers and require operators to remove data and services associated with previous owners before assigning those numbers to new owners. The framework, published by the CA and seen by TechCabal, addresses a problem created by the growing role of phone numbers in everyday financial and digital life. While operators treat an unused number as a scarce telecom resource that needs to be returned to circulation, banks, lenders, government services, and online platforms can continue to treat the same number as a way to identify its previous owner. The new rules shift more responsibility for resolving that conflict onto telecom operators. Kenya’s six-month recycling window sits between South Africa’s 90-day timeline and Nigeria’s one-year horizon. South Africa, however, exempts postpaid lines from its deactivation rules. Kenya takes a more targeted approach to protecting vulnerable subscribers, allowing formal whitelisting for inmates and remandees through prison authorities, as well as a renewable one-year exemption for caregivers of medically indisposed people. Kenya is also taking a stricter approach to unsolicited marketing. Unlike the largely opt-out systems used in South Africa and Nigeria, Kenya’s rules require consumers to actively opt in to business-to-consumer messages on new and recycled numbers through a business-specific USSD code. The CA’s rationale goes beyond telecom management. It argues that mobile numbers now serve as gateways to financial services, digital authentication, and digital identity, so recycling them can pose risks spanning banking, government services, privacy, and fraud. “Management of numbering resources, therefore, impacts the country’s financial integrity, social stability, and security,” the regulator says, pointing specifically to risks including SIM swap activity and identity theft. The guidelines also stem from a March 2026 High Court judgment on the privacy risks of recycling mobile numbers. Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, Olukoye Micheal, told TechCabal on Wednesday that the CA’s move followed the court’s finding that a mobile number is a digital identifier linked to a subscriber’s identity. “When a digital identifier is lost through reallocation or recycling without interrogating the reasons behind the long period of non-use or inactivity, it creates an avenue for unauthorised disclosure of delicate information,” Olukoye said. The framework does not prevent operators from recycling numbers, which remains necessary because numbered resources are finite and unused numbers must eventually return to circulation. Instead, it creates a longer process before a dormant number can reach another subscriber, requiring operators to establish that the number has genuinely been abandoned rather than simply assuming that three months of silence means the owner has walked away. A longer road back to the market Under the new framework, a phone number can only be deactivated after three consecutive months without revenue-generating activity, such as calls, SMS, data usage, airtime top-ups, or value-added services. The operator must then spend another three months trying to reach the subscriber through SMS and other contact details provided during KYC registration. Clauses 4.3 and 4.6 require operators to continue these notifications for three months and, 30 days before the deadline, to publish lists of numbers still at risk of being deactivated and recycled. The lists must appear in national newspapers, broadcast media and on the operators’ websites. For operators with millions of subscribers, that could become a high recurring cost. A quarter- to half-page advert in newspapers such as Daily Nation or The Standard can cost KES 400,000–800,000 ($3,000–$6,000) per placement, meaning quarterly publication of large lists could add a substantial compliance bill. The rules also require operators to keep records of their notification efforts and subscribers’ USSD marketing consents for as long as the number remains active. Clauses 4.11 and 6.4 require that these records be maintained in accordance with Kenya’s Data Protection Act, 2019. For operators processing millions of numbers and potentially huge volumes of opt-in and opt-out requests, this means investing in storage, indexing, and secure archiving systems that can preserve and retrieve records when needed for regulatory audits or consumer disputes. The number is only part of the problem The bigger change is that the CA no longer treats the phone number itself as the end of the operator’s responsibility. Before a recycled number is assigned to a new subscriber, operators must “de-link and securely archive the personal data, cached data, and services associated with the previous owner.” The aim is to ensure the new user does not inherit access to accounts or services linked to the previous owner. That matters because a number can be inactive on a telecom network while remaining tied to a bank account, loan, government service, or online platform. Simply assigning the number to someone else does not automatically remove those connections, creating a risk that the new owner could receive sensitive messages or gain access to services meant for the previous subscriber. To reduce that risk, the CA plans to establish a centralised database of deactivated and recycled numbers. Operators will submit updated lists every quarter, allowing banks, lenders, government agencies and other third parties to update their records before contacting customers. The database will not be operational when the new rules take effect on September 19; the CA says those requirements will apply once the system is established. Safaricom, Airtel Kenya and other operators will need systems that track inactivity, trigger attempts to contact subscribers and keep records of those efforts. The operators must also ensure old data and services do not follow a number to its new owner. The CA has also made room for people whose numbers may remain unused for reasons other than abandonment, including prisoners serving more than six months and people who are indisposed and unable to use their numbers for an extended period. Caregivers can request that such numbers be whitelisted for one year at a time, with renewals possible as long as the conditions remain in place.
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Cascador selects 10 Nigerian businesses for growth-stage accelerator
Cascador, a Nigeria-focused platform for growth-stage entrepreneurs, has selected 10 Nigerian companies for its 2026 ScaleUp Program, a 12-week accelerator focused on helping businesses sharpen their strategy and prepare for their next stage of growth. The selected companies operate across sectors, including proptech, clean energy, agriculture, healthcare, beauty and wellness, tourism, minerals and food production, and were chosen from more than 1,000 applicants, according to the company. This marks Cascador’s latest effort to build a pipeline of Nigerian businesses ready to scale but still require capital and leadership support. It comes two weeks after Cascador partnered with Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Youth Development (FMYD) through the Nigerian Youth Academy (NiYA) to launch a program to help youth entrepreneurs build stronger businesses. “The next chapter of Nigeria’s entrepreneurial story will be about what happens when proven businesses get the support they need to scale,” said David DeLucia, Co-Founder of Cascador. “That is the opportunity this cohort brings, where visionaries, innovators and impact-driven leaders can grow their businesses sustainably with lasting economic value.” The selected businesses include Venco, a digital platform for managing payments, utilities, communications and operations in multi-tenanted communities; SunFi, a clean energy financing platform; ColdHubs, which operates solar-powered cold storage to help farmers, traders and food businesses reduce post-harvest losses; EHA Clinics, a healthcare company providing integrated primary care, digital, pharmacy and home-care services; and Beauty Hut Africa, a technology-enabled beauty retail and distribution company. Others are BEYOND Fitness, a wellness company; Ziba Beach Resort, an experience-led leisure and tourism business; Tulay Africa, which connects global industrial buyers with African producers of export-grade critical minerals; Maanj Agric, which connects smallholder farmers to financing; and Finger Chops, a bakery producing and distributing bread to households across Nigeria. The 10 companies selected for the 2026 ScaleUp Program will go through a 12-week hybrid programme that combines two weeks of in-person sessions with 10 weeks of virtual sessions for founders and their leadership teams. The in-person component will include the programme kickoff and pitch week, while participants will receive one-on-one support from investors, African and international experts, and strategic partners. “The founders in our 2026 ScaleUp program reflect the ambition, resilience and entrepreneurial talent driving Nigeria’s economy forward,” said Trish Thomas, chief executive officer of Cascador. “Their businesses are already creating jobs, generating value and spurring growth across some of the country’s most important sectors. Our focus now is helping them scale further and unlock their full potential, giving them the training, mentorship, networks and leadership skills needed to power their next phase of growth.” In an interview with TechCabal in April, the company noted that founders will undergo detailed assessments of their businesses across areas including finance, operations, legal and technology over the 12 weeks, allowing Cascador to identify gaps that could limit their growth. Cascador said that this support is tailored to each company rather than being generic. The programme is also designed to give founders access to Cascador’s network of advisors, venture capital firms, strategic partners and banking relationships. By the end of the program, founders are expected to have a clearer customer focus and stronger business operation models, the company noted. Selected businesses will also be eligible for follow-on funding through Cascador’s Catalytic Fund, which deploys up to $5 million annually in growth capital through local-currency debt, equity and guarantees. The programme will end with a live Pitch Day, where participants will compete for $50,000 in awards. Since launching operations in 2019, Cascador said it has supported over 70 ventures that have collectively raised $125 million in capital. Cascador’s past cohorts include digital lending platform Sycamore, energy company Koolboks, mobility and logistics solutions Fex Delivery and Drive45 Mobility, and payments infrastructure provider Lenco. Cascador plans to run another ScaleUp cohort in spring 2027, with applications expected to open in November 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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Alan acquires Senegal’s Tanel in rare Francophone healthtech exit
Alan, the French health insurance company, has acquired Tanel, a Dakar-based digital health startup operating in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, for an undisclosed amount that marks its first move into Africa. The transaction closed in June and gives Ventures Platform, AAIC Investment, and a group of angel investors a full exit and breaks almost every pattern the African exit market has recently shown. The deal reinforces that African startups can be built for global acquisition: Tanel sold to an investor it had spent two years reporting to, from a market missing entirely from Africa’s exit data. “The plan was to raise the Series A earlier this year, and then Alan reached out, and we ran a dual process,” Mouhamed Ndoye, Tanel’s CEO, said in an interview with TechCabal. “At some point we realised that going through the acquisition with Alan was more interesting for us, given the opportunity to expand across Africa.” The big four markets—Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, and Kenya—accounted for 81% of disclosed African exits between 2011 and 2026, according to research from Ventures Platform and Stears that tracked 181 verified venture-backed exits. A third of those exits came from financial services. As a healthtech startup in Francophone West Africa, Tanel does not fit the usual pattern, and an European acquirer bought it at a time when foreign buyers have been pulling back. International acquirers made up 56% of disclosed exits in 2020. By 2025, that share had fallen to 33%. Tanel was founded in 2021 by Mouhamed Ndoye and Makhtar Diop to fix how Senegalese employers manage health coverage, which was still largely paper-based. It started with pharmacy management software and expanded across the patient journey. The founders had tried to fix Senegalese healthcare through in-home primary care and prescription delivery but hit a brick wall each time. They concluded the infrastructure they needed did not exist, so they built it, starting with pharmacies and expanding across the patient journey. The startup is a licenced insurer and carries the risk itself, which sets it apart from startups that simply administer another underwriter’s cover. Tanel sells mainly to employers and designs health plans for their staff. It built its own contracted network of pharmacies, hospitals, and clinics in both markets so patients get care directly instead of paying upfront and claiming back. Tanel now covers about 70,000 lives across more than 400 companies and connects users to more than 1,200 pharmacies and healthcare providers, Ndoye said. About 30,000 of those covered are paying customers, with each policy extending to a spouse and children. Ndoye said Tanel was profitable in 2025 but declined to give revenue figures, and at the time of the acquisition, Senegal accounted for 90% of revenue and Côte d’Ivoire for 10%. Tanel raised $2.45 million across two rounds before the acquisition: $350,000 in a pre-seed and $2.1 million in a 2024 seed round. Ndoye and Diop are staying on as general managers, both reporting directly to Alan’s chief executive. Ndoye said the arrangement has been autonomous so far and that the whole Tanel team is moving into equivalent roles at Alan. How an investment became an acquisition Alan backed Tanel in that 2024 seed round, and Ndoye said he stayed close to Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve, Alan’s chief executive, afterwards, with monthly calls and monthly investor updates. That gave the French company two years of visibility into the business before it moved. Alan made the first approach, asking whether Tanel’s founders would consider a sale. “There was a lot of alignment over the last few years,” Ndoye said. “We realised they are very similar in culture and similar in mission, so we said, why not go down this route?” The sequence resembles the one that produced one of Africa’s biggest exits. Stripe led Paystack’s $8 million Series A in 2018, watched the company scale for two years, then acquired it outright in October 2020 in a deal worth $200 million. Ndoye called the comparison “a bit similar”, noting that Alan came in earlier, at seed stage, and at a far smaller company. Neither company disclosed the price, and Ndoye declined to give a range or to say how much was cash and how much was Alan stock. He described the outcome as “meaningful” for the investors involved. “We are in the health insurance space, so there were some regulatory clearances, but they went through very quickly,” Ndoye said about the acquistion’s regulatory process. Tanel never set up an employee share scheme and had planned to do so at Series A but sold before it got there. Ndoye said Alan gives shares to every employee as company policy, so Tanel’s staff will now get Alan stock. What changes for Tanel The most immediate operational change is reinsurance. Tanel had been underwriting and carrying its own risk on a balance sheet built from $2.45 million in total funding. Reinsurance lets an insurer pass part of its exposure to a larger balance sheet, freeing up capital and allowing it to write bigger books. “We take on the risk. That is something we have managed ourselves,” Ndoye said. “One of the good things about Alan is that we now benefit from reinsurance, because Alan works with global reinsurers able to take that on.” The second change is product. Ndoye described Alan as a company that has moved from paying claims after the fact toward flagging health risks before they escalate and said Tanel’s customers will get access to that. Alan raised €480 million in June and said it would spend part of it on acquisitions, AI, and healthcare services. The company said at the time that it would also use the money to expand into new countries and pursue acquisitions. Tanel is the first of those in Africa. “It is the story of moving from just paying for health insurance, which is reactive, to being proactive, looking at your health and telling you what might happen so you stay healthier in the long run,” Ndoye said. Alan sells health insurance
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👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily – Shoprite, pay right
In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Good morning. Editor’s note: Yesterday’s TC Daily subject line, “Paystack cuts the Allawee,” was intended as a pun but may have suggested that Allawee had shut down. To clarify, Allawee, the Nigerian card-issuing fintech startup, has been integrated into Paystack following its acquisition by the payments company. In the latest episode of Headlines by TechCabal, hosts Eme Agbor and Muktar Oladunmade and guest Noah Banjo, our Analysis and Special Reports Editor, discussed some of the biggest stories shaping business, tech, and security across Africa. They break down Meta’s new $0.0101 fee for WhatsApp Business and what it could mean for businesses. They also look at the new regulations affecting drivers on ride-hailing platforms such as Uber and Bolt in Johannesburg, South Africa. And finally, the hosts discussed AI and its use in creating presentation slides and content, and why digital safety is becoming important as more people adopt online tools. Watch the episode on YouTube. Become smarter about tech and commerce in Francophone Africa, and the policies shaping them. Read previous editions here first and subscribe below. Subscribe MTN Nigeria has a new growth problem WIOCC raised $300 million Shoprite finalises R&A Cellular acquisition Kenya merges eTIMS with government payments World Wide Web 3 Opportunities Telecoms MTN Nigeria has a new growth problem Image Source: MTN MTN Nigeria has more customers and is making more money than ever, but each customer is bringing in less money. What happened? The telecom operator added 7.5 million subscribers in H1 2026, taking its customer base to 92.2 million. Service revenue rose 25.9% to ₦2.99 trillion ($2.25 billion), but the average amount MTN made from each customer fell 1.67% in naira terms and 8.82% in dollar terms. State of play: In 2025, MTN’s biggest growth lever was pricing. Its 50% tariff increase helped drive a sharp rise in revenue. But that boost is now largely annualised, and revenue growth is slowing. Between the lines: MTN now needs to grow without relying on another major price increase—something that may not happen again for years. Data is its clearest opportunity. Average data usage per subscriber rose 15.2% in H1 2026, while data revenue grew 38.4%. MTN is also looking beyond mobile data, with home broadband and fintech offering new ways to earn more from its customers. Zoom out: For now, adding subscribers can make up for falling revenue per customer. But that gets harder as subscriber growth slows. MTN’s challenge is becoming less about getting more customers and more about getting existing customers to spend more. Our senior reporter Temitayo Jaiyeola wrote a deep dive on this; read it on our website. Every business owner needs to watch this. The business questions you Google, answered by experts. Watch for free. Funding WIOCC, the Africa-focused data centre company, raises $300 million from Saudi investor and AFC Image Source: Tenor The West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) Group, an Africa-focused digital infrastructure provider, has raised $300 million, its biggest fundraising haul yet. The company wants to expand its data centres, fibre networks, and subsea cables. What happened? On Tuesday, WIOCC signed an agreement with Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), a development finance institution, and Vision Invest, a Saudi Arabian investment company, to raise a combined $300 million from both investors. WIOCC is swapping an undisclosed amount of shares in its business for that capital. The money will fund new data centres, expand the company’s terrestrial fibre network, and investments in new subsea cable assets. Explain like I’m new here: WIOCC sells connectivity and infrastructure to telecom operators, cloud companies, Internet service providers (ISPs), and other businesses, and operates across more than 30 African countries. In 2021, WIOCC raised $200 million in mixed debt and equity funding. According to Serrari, a Kenyan financial data publisher, the company raised over $400 million across three separate rounds in 2025, including a $65 million sustainability-linked debt from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Proparco, and other investors. It’s a factor of the industry WIOCC operates in: Teraco, South Africa’s largest data centre operator, has close to 190 megawatts (MW) and about $877 million in committed investment. Vantage Data Centers, a global hyperscale data centre developer, is building out its Johannesburg campus in Waterfall City with investment of up to $1 billion. Cavaleros Group, a property developer, is developing large data centre campuses in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. Why should you care about the big numbers? Data centre infrastructure operators are becoming aggressive about providing local capacity, and they are raising big money to do so. With more local data centres, we can reduce reliance on foreign infrastructure and keep more of Africa’s data closer to home. A survey for Nigeria’s health logistics buyers. If you’re a Health Logistics Buyer in Nigeria, participate in our report by filling out the survey by 4 September. It takes less than 10 minutes. M&A Shoprite, the South African retailer, is taking its financial services to spaza shops Image Source: Zikoko Memes Shoprite, the South African retailer, is already one of the most recognisable chain markets for weekend and last-minute shopping runs. What happens when it owns the payment rails that process transactions at local tills and spaza shops—smaller provision stores—in South Africa? After aggressively scaling back, exiting markets such as Ghana and Malawi in 2025, and prioritising its home market, the retailer just bought a point-of-sale (PoS) business. Yes, your guess is as good as ours. What happened? In its financial results released on Tuesday, the South African retailer reported that it has bought a 51% majority stake in R&A Cellular, which makes PoS devices from South Africa’s busy province of Mpumalanga. The value of the deal, which finalised on August 14, was not disclosed. Why does this matter? Owning a critical payments infrastructure business could enable Shoprite to expand deeper into payments. Small businesses, an estimated 15,000, use R&A Cellular’s PoS devices in South Africa, where it is a prominent niche provider. Between the
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MTN Nigeria is making more money but earning less from each customer
MTN Nigeria is making more money than ever. But its average customer is contributing less to that growth. The telecom operator increased service revenue by 25.9% in the first half of 2026 to ₦2.99 trillion ($2.25 billion), and its subscriber base grew 8.9% to 92.2 million, according to its financial results for H1 2026. Yet MTN’s average revenue per user (ARPU) fell 8.82% to $3.41 in the second quarter of 2026, its first decline since the second quarter of 2025, when ARPU was $3.02, according to MTN Group’s results fact sheet. Local-currency ARPU fell 1.67% to ₦5,101 ($3.81). While the decline in dollar ARPU might reflect currency movements, the fall in naira ARPU suggests that the pressure is not purely an exchange-rate effect. The naira ended March at ₦1,383.58/$ and June at ₦1,379.68/$. But MTN added 7.5 million subscribers in the first half of the year, and the influx of new, potentially lower-spending customers grappling with double-digit inflation of 15.91% as of June may also be weighing on the average. “From quarter to quarter, our operational strategy may vary depending on market conditions,” Ayham Moussa, MTN’s chief operating officer, said on the company’s July 31 earnings call. “In some periods, particularly during high consumption seasons, we may focus more on yield. In other periods, especially when affordability is more constrained, we may place greater emphasis on acquisition and use CVM initiatives to drive growth in the number of users. So, the balance between yield and acquisition can vary by season.” While the company does not disclose ARPU by subscriber cohort, the numbers suggest that MTN Nigeria’s post-tariff growth cycle is beginning to normalise. After a year in which higher prices did much of the work, the company now has to rely on a harder form of growth, which is getting millions of mostly price-sensitive customers to spend more on data without triggering resistance. In 2025, pricing was MTN Nigeria’s biggest commercial lever. Early that year, it increased tariffs by 50%, and by Q2 2025, service revenue had grown 67.9% year-on-year. A year later, revenue growth fell to 13.3% year-on-year in Q2 2026. The tariff increase enabled MTN Nigeria to earn substantially more from its existing customers. But with the effects of those price adjustments now waning, the company needs more customers and higher consumption among them to sustain revenue growth. “Growth moderated in Q2, primarily reflecting the full annualisation of prior price adjustments,” Karl Toriola, MTN Nigeria’s chief executive officer, said in the company’s H1 earnings release. Airtel Nigeria’s ARPU, meanwhile, increased by 33.33% in Q2 2026, while its overall revenue increased by 50%. Airtel said the revenue growth reflects the full effect of the tariff adjustments, which it said were fully implemented in the fourth quarter of 2025. MTN, which implemented its tariff increase earlier in 2025, has already experienced the full effect of those adjustments in Q2 2025. Airtel is therefore still benefiting from a price-led growth cycle that has largely run its course for MTN. Results from subsequent quarters will provide a clearer picture of whether Airtel’s ARPU growth is being driven by the delayed effect of its tariff adjustment or a more sustained improvement in revenue per customer. More Subscribers, Lower ARPU: See How the Mix Changes Track how MTN’s H1 2026 subscriber surge and FX pressures impact its average revenue. Blended USD ARPU Movement $3.74 → $3.41 -8.8% FX-Adjusted Base: 84.7M × $3.56 New Cohort: 7.5M × $1.71 Blended Average: 92.2M × $3.41 New Subscribers Added (Millions) H1 2026 actual: +7.5M 7.5 M Avg. Spend of New Subscribers ($) Dilution threshold: $3.56 $1.71 Insight: Revenue grows due to subscriber volume, but because the new cohort spends less than the FX-adjusted base, the overall USD average continues to fall. Data is the biggest opportunity MTN Nigeria added 7.5 million subscribers in the first half of 2026. At the same time, average data usage per subscriber increased 15.2%, total data traffic rose 25.8%, and smartphone penetration stood at 66.4%. “Data remains our largest structural growth opportunity,” Toriola said. Data revenue increased 38.4% in H1 2026, supported by growth in active data users, while Nigeria’s data consumption grew 46.75% year-on-year in June 2026. MTN Nigeria is trying to get more value from a growing customer base, not simply by charging more, but by getting customers to consume more. “What you will see is a market-wide push towards offering more value to customers, particularly in data. That is the pricing and value dynamic we are seeing in the market today,” Moussa said on the company’s July 31 earnings call. “Our strategy is to continue optimising our pricing while also offering more value to our customers. We aim to strike the right balance between maintaining the best possible economics for the business and ensuring that customers continue to receive strong value from our offers.” This strategy is important because Nigeria remains a relatively low-ARPU market for MTN, despite its large subscriber base. MTN Ghana, with a subscriber base of 32.8 million, had an ARPU of $6.66 in Q2 2026, the highest in the group. MTN South Africa, with 39.49 million subscribers, had an ARPU of $5.26. Nigeria vs. Other MTN Markets Nigeria wins on scale. Ghana wins on value. #1 in Subscribers | #8 in ARPU 2.8× Nigeria has 2.8× Ghana’s subscribers 2.0× Ghana’s ARPU is 2.0× Nigeria’s Subscriber Scale Nigeria 92.2M South Africa 39.5M Ghana 32.8M ARPU (USD) Ghana $6.66 2.0× South Africa $5.26 1.5× Nigeria $3.41 1.0× Nigeria’s scale still matters: The market contributed 30.64% of MTN Group’s $7.15 billion H1 2026 revenue. See how all 13 MTN operating markets rank By Subscriber Scale Nigeria (92.2M) South Africa (39.5M) Ghana (32.8M) Uganda (25.4M) Côte d’Ivoire (16.0M) Cameroon (13.4M) Rwanda (8.7M) Zambia (7.5M) Benin (6.8M) South Sudan (4.5M) Congo-Brazzaville (3.8M) Sudan (3.4M) Liberia (2.3M) By ARPU (USD) Ghana ($6.66) Congo-Brazzaville ($5.78) South Africa ($5.26) Cameroon ($5.01) Liberia ($4.42) Benin ($4.30) Sudan ($3.90) Nigeria ($3.41) Côte d’Ivoire ($3.30) Uganda ($3.26) Zambia ($3.19) South Sudan ($2.85) Rwanda ($2.14) Source: MTN
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Tim Cook leaves a $4 trillion Apple with unfinished business in Africa
Table of contents How Tim Cook grew Apple into a $4 trillion company How big is Apple’s business in Africa? Why Apple has no store in Africa How limited is Apple Pay’s reach in Africa? How Africans actually buy Apple products What Apple left unfinished in Africa When Tim Cook took over Apple in 2011, the company was worth about $350 billion. When the tech giant announced his transition to executive chairman in April, its market value had climbed to roughly $4 trillion, while annual revenue had nearly quadrupled. Apple now has more than 2.5 billion active devices and operates more than 500 stores globally. None of those stores are in Africa. That is the oddity confronting John Ternus as he took over as Apple’s chief executive on Tuesday. He inherits a company that grew faster than almost any business in history and a continent where Apple’s presence shows up in your pocket but barely shows up in Apple’s own numbers. How Tim Cook grew Apple into a $4 trillion company Cook did not build this growth on the iPhone alone, though the iPhone still drives half of Apple’s revenue. In fiscal 2025, iPhone sales brought in $209.59 billion, more than 50% of total revenue. Four things changed under Cook: Services became a major earner. Apple made $109.16 billion from Services in fiscal 2025, and this business runs at a 75.4% profit margin, twice the margin on hardware. New product lines arrived. Apple Watch, AirPods, and Vision Pro all launched during his time, and Mac moved to Apple’s own chips. The installed base grew past 2.5 billion devices, and each one can bring in ongoing income through subscriptions, app purchases, and ads. Apple bought back $89.3 billion of its own shares in fiscal 2025, which raises the value of every share left. How big is Apple’s business in Africa? Apple does not break out its African business in its financial reports. The company groups Africa with Europe, India and the Middle East, a region that generated $111.03 billion in revenue in fiscal 2025. Other data offers clues, though not a complete picture. Statcounter estimates that Apple devices accounted for 18.57% of mobile web usage across Africa in August 2026. The share varies sharply by market: 31.97% in Ghana, 24.82% in South Africa, 17.92% in Nigeria, and about 6.8% in Kenya. Those numbers measure web usage rather than sales, but they reveal how deeply Apple devices have penetrated some African markets. The picture looks different when you examine new smartphone shipments. Apple did not rank among Omdia’s five largest smartphone vendors in Africa in the first quarter of 2026. Transsion, the Chinese company behind Tecno, Infinix and itel, accounted for 47% of shipments, reflecting the dominance of cheaper devices in a market where most consumers buy phones below $150. Apple has a sizeable installed base in parts of Africa, but relatively little of that presence comes from selling new phones through an Apple-controlled distribution network. Many iPhones change hands through resellers, imports and the continent’s large secondhand market. In Africa, then, Apple’s footprint is bigger than its sales disclosures suggest, but much harder to measure. Why Apple has no store in Africa Apple has opened hundreds of stores globally during Tim Cook’s tenure, more than doubling the number of countries where it operates physical retail locations. Not a single one of Apple’s more than 500 stores is on the continent. If you buy Apple products in Nigeria, Kenya, or South Africa, you are buying from an authorised reseller, not from Apple directly. Companies like iStore in South Africa, or Salute iWorld in Kenya, handle sales, pricing, financing, and support on Apple’s behalf. That arrangement lets Apple reach African customers without paying for the buildings, staff, and inventory that a company-owned store needs. But it also leaves much of the customer relationship in the hands of other companies: Stock and release timing can vary by reseller and country. Local prices carry extra costs from shipping, tax, and currency changes. Financing and trade-in deals differ from one partner to another. Repairs and support depend on which reseller you use. South Africa has perhaps the closest thing to an Apple retail ecosystem on the continent. iStore has built out a network that covers much of what consumers would expect from an Apple-owned operation, including trade-ins and certified pre-owned products. In 2023, TechCabal asked why Apple had not built a stronger African retail presence. That question still has no clear answer more than a decade later. How limited is Apple Pay’s reach in Africa? As of August 2026, Apple Pay works in just four African countries: Egypt, Mauritius, Morocco, and South Africa South Africa was first, launching in March 2021. Morocco followed in 2023, Egypt in December 2024, and Mauritius in May 2026. That is a slow rollout for a payment service that has existed globally since 2014. Apple also launched Tap to Pay on iPhone in South Africa in May 2026, working with the local fintech Yoco. This lets merchants accept contactless payments through their iPhone without buying a separate card machine. It is the strongest example so far of Apple building something specifically for an African market. Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana, three of the continent’s biggest smartphone markets, still have no Apple Pay. In most African countries, Apple Account payments also run mainly through cards, even though many people prefer mobile money or direct bank transfers. How Africans actually buy Apple products For many African consumers, buying an iPhone does not mean buying directly from Apple. The devices reach them through authorised resellers, independent phone dealers, online marketplaces, imports and a large secondhand market. Price is the biggest driver. Omdia says Africa’s most common smartphone price band sits below $150. The base iPhone 17, in comparison, launched globally at $799. In September 2025, TechCabal calculated that a Nigerian minimum-wage earner would need about 17 months of full wages to afford that phone. That price gap has created a market for older iPhones.
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