👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily – Botswana approves Starlink
In partnership with Share this newsletter: Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Good morning Here’s your weekly reminder to move TC Daily from your Promotions folder into your Main/Primary email inbox so you don’t miss any of our updates. Just drag and drop this email from Promotions to Primary/Main, if you’re on desktop, or click on the buttons in the top right-hand corner if you’re on mobile. In today’s edition African startups lead acquisition of Brass Botswana approves Starlink Safaricom Ethiopia strengthens network with 13 new towers Nine African startups selected for Spark Accelerator The World Wide Web3 Opportunities Acquisition Paystack-led consortium acquires Brass Brass is getting a second chance at life. The business banking startup, after rocking through bouts of challenges, is finally on a path to redemption. In October 2023, Brass, which offers business banking services to small business owners, began struggling to process customer withdrawals. Rumours of a shutdown spread after the delay in customer payments continued, raising concerns about the company’s financial health. In March, the startup raised a bridged fund round, which insiders estimate to be between $300,000 and $500,000, to help pay customers’ outstanding withdrawals. Yesterday, a consortium of fintech heavyweights and investor groups provided a fresh start to the embattled company. Yesterday, news broke that Brass had been acquired by a consortium of Paystack, Piggyvest, Ventures Platform, and P1 Ventures. Per reporting from TechCabal, VC firm, Ventures Platform, facilitated the conversations and believed the deal had to happen. The VC firm then looped in experienced operators like Paystack and Piggyvest to form an alliance, which facilitated the acquisition. Sola Akindolu, founder and CEO of Brass, and CTO Emmanuel Okeke will leave the business and will be replaced by a new leadership team that has not yet been disclosed. Why did Nigeria’s tech ecosystem giants rally behind brass? Short answer: Brass is a systemic business whose failure might cascade on other fintechs. People involved in the deal feared that the collapse of Brass, a deposit-taking fintech, could cause a bank run on other fintechs. Still, the new owners will assume Brass’s assets and liabilities, which include a ₦2 billion ($1.4 million) loss. What’s next? Brass’s product will remain the same, and there will be no significant changes for customers as well. All of Brass’s remaining employees will retain their jobs. Moniepoint is Africa’s fastest-growing fintech The Financial Times has ranked Moniepoint as Africa’s fastest-growing fintech based on its absolute and compound growth rate. Read more about it here. Internet Botswana approves Starlink GIF Source: Tenor With a joyous heart, we bring you news that peer pressure does work. Less than a week after the Zimbabwean government approved Starlink, Botswana has followed suit and licenced the satellite internet service provider! This news comes after a rocky few months for Starlink in Botswana. Back in October 2023, the country’s communications regulator (BOCRA) rejected Starlink’s initial application due to missing information. This rejection was followed by a ban on importing, selling, and using Starlink equipment in Botswana. However, the tide appears to have turned during a recent Africa-US Business Forum held in Dallas, Texas. Following a meeting between President Mokgweetsi Masisi and the SpaceX team, President Masisi reportedly made a swift decision. “After the meeting,” President Masisi said, “I immediately decided to agree to the licensing of Starlink in the country.” He further emphasised his commitment, instructing regulators to fast-track Starlink’s application within two weeks. This rapid turnaround suggests a high-level push for Starlink’s entry into Botswana. With the license secured, Starlink can now begin offering its services, potentially bringing much-needed internet access to underserved regions. Will South Africa bend? Probably not. South Africa’s stringent laws mandate that all foreign companies that want to operate in the country must give up 30% of their equity to historically disadvantaged people in South Africa. It’s unlikely that the SpaceX team, which reportedly made revenue north of $1.4 billion from Starlink in 2023, will agree to this condition. Collect payments anytime anywhere with Fincra Are you dealing with the complexities of collecting payments from your customers? Fincra’s payment gateway makes it easy to accept payments via cards, bank transfers, virtual accounts and mobile money. What’s more? You get to save money on fees when you use Fincra. Get started now. Telecoms Safaricom Ethiopia strengthens network with 13 new towers Safaricom Ethiopia has taken a step towards enhancing its network infrastructure. The telecoms joined forces with Woda Plc, Ethiopia’s first homegrown network tower manufacturer, for a supply of 68 high-quality towers at a total cost of 50 million birr ($875,656). On May 23, it announced it received its first batch of 13 locally manufactured telecom towers from Woda plc. This initiative aligns with Safaricom Ethiopia’s $1.5 billion plan to construct 5,000 new towers over the next three years, a project announced just a month prior. This development aims to provide high-quality, reliable telecommunications services across Ethiopia. Currently, Safaricom Ethiopia owns more than 2,800 towers, with two-thirds being self-built and the remainder leased. By partnering with Woda Plc, the company states it is not only expanding its network infrastructure nationwide but also getting high-quality, locally-made towers at a better price. This is more Ethiopian investment for Safaricom which recorded over KES21 billion ($154 million) in losses in FY23, partly due to its Ethiopian venture. So far, has invested over $400 million since its 2022 launch in the country, an investment that’s slow in paying off. In Ethiopia, it has 9 million subscribers and its mobile money M-Pesa service, which it piloted in Ethiopia last year, has just over 3.1 million users. The good news is that the telecom company also recently got a $257.4 million investment from the World Bank Group to improve mobile access for Ethiopians. What was the largest single transaction on Paystack in 2023? Find the answer here paystack.com/2023 Startups Nine Kenyan startups selected for Spark Accelerator Programme It is good news for nine Kenyan startups as they have been selected to benefit from the Spark Accelerator
Read MoreBreaking: Starlink gets licence to operate in Botswana after meeting President Masisi
Botswana has granted an operating licence to Starlink, the satellite internet service owned by SpaceX, three weeks after a government delegation met with the SpaceX team in the US. The licensing comes three months after the Botswana Communications and Regulatory Authority (BOCRA), rejected Starlink’s operating license application citing missing information. The importation, sale and use of Starlink was banned shortly after. This week’s turnaround to grant Starlink a licence follows a meeting between the SpaceX team and President Mokgweetsi in the US at the Africa-US Business Forum in Dallas,Texas. “After the meeting [with SpaceX], I immediately decided to agree to the licensing of Starlink in the country,” President Masisi said. President Masisi said that he had given the regulator two weeks to fast-track Starlink’s license application following the meeting. Botswana is the latest southern African nation to license Starlink following Zimbabwe which approved the service last week Friday. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa ordered the country’s regulator to fast-track the application process. By licensing Starlink, the country is looking to bridge the connectivity gap in the 2.6 million population nation. Currently, although the country has an internet penetration rate of 87%, it has one of the most expensive data prices in Africa.
Read MoreNew Lagos bill will domesticate the Nigeria Startup Act beyond startups
Lagos state, Nigeria, is developing its own version of the Nigeria Startup Act, titled the Lagos Innovation Bill. The bill will adapt the provisions of the Act to suit the realities of building tech startups in the southwestern state. “The Bill won’t only develop startups but also encourage large companies to drive innovation,” said Tubosun Alake, the state’s commissioner for science, innovation and technology at a stakeholders’ engagement on Friday. The Lagos Innovation Bill marks the state government’s attempt to grow its digital economy beyond startups. Lagos state is home to over 500 startups and attracts more than half of the startup investment coming to the country. The bill’s framework includes registration of research and innovation institutions, a research and innovation fund, tax and fiscal incentives, accelerators and incubators, capacity building, and talent development. When the bill is passed into law, Lagos hopes to use it to create an end-to-end pipeline that will cover all stakeholders in innovation: government, large corporates, startups, universities and research institutions, venture capitalists, angel investors, and private equity investors.
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Paystack-led consortium acquires Brass, replaces CEO
Two months after it raised bridge financing to solve challenges with working capital, the Nigerian business banking startup Brass has been acquired by a consortium of investors led by payment giant Paystack, culminating talks that likely began in early 2024. Other investors include PiggyVest, Ventures Platform, and P1 Ventures. Investors like Ventures Platform facilitated the conversations and believed the deal had to happen, they also understood the need for operators to also be involved. That pragmatism drove the strategic alliance between the VC firms and the startups in the consortium. “We’re excited to act as new stewards for Brass’ mission: to enable entrepreneurship for Africans, making it more frictionless, and successful,” the investors told TechCabal in an email. Sola Akindolu, a co-founder and CEO of Brass, Emmanuel Okeke, a co-founder and CTO, and Tolulope Saba, the head of product design, will leave the business. They will be replaced by a new leadership team that has not yet been disclosed. All other Brass employees will keep their jobs, one person with direct knowledge of the matter said. Brass cofounders Emmanuel Okeke (L) and Sola Akindolu (R) will leave the business There will be no change for customers either, with the product remaining largely the same and investors committing to “further investment in product and service improvements.” The acquisition ends months of uncertainty over the future of Brass after delays in processing customer withdrawals began in October 2023. Those delays continued for months, sparking liquidity concerns and prompting rumours of a shutdown. Several ecosystem heavyweights rallied around the company, worried that the shuttering of a deposit-taking fintech could cause a bank run on other fintechs. An acquisition by well-trusted and bigger fintechs would calm those fears, so chatter about an acquisition started gathering steam. Moniepoint, Paystack, and Flutterwave were linked to those early talks. As acquisition talks continued, Brass went to investors to arrange debt financing to allow it remain operational. One early investor who declined to participate in the bridge round claimed Brass was looking to raise $300,000 to $500,000 in convertible debt. The same investor said the business banking startup withheld financial information from investors during that fundraising effort. It is unclear how much Brass eventually raised. Nevertheless, the new owners will assume Brass’s assets and liabilities, some of which still have significant question marks. Two people familiar with the company’s finances claim there was a ₦2 billion hole in Brass’s balance sheet. The same people said the company’s leadership could not account for how the money was spent. “Like many businesses, Brass faced headwinds within the last few months given the difficult business environment,” the investors said in response to questions about those liabilities. “With a healthy investment of new capital, Brass is in an incredible position to deliver a world-class financial operations stack for businesses in Africa.”
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👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily – A $6 billion funding round
In partnership with Share this newsletter: Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Good morning YouTube Music is working on a feature that could make Shazam redundant. Over the weekend, it announced a new feature that will allow Android users find the elusive tunes stuck inside their head by humming to search. Yup, if you can hum or whistle the tune, YouTube Music will find it for you. The feature is still in its early stages but users are testing it out across the globe. We’ll bring you more updates as soon as we have them. In today’s edition Eritrea stops cyberattack on Independence Day Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6 billion MTN Uganda sells leftover shares from 2021 IPO Caantin expands to America as an AI solution provider The World Wide Web3 Opportunities Cybersecurity Eritrea stops cyberattack on Independence Day On Eritrea’s Independence Day, May 24, cyber hacktivists attempted to disrupt the nation’s internet networks in a challenge to the authoritarian regime. Officials claim that the Eritrean government swiftly stopped the attack with no internet disruptions. While the government claims to know the attackers’ identities, it holds their identities under lock and key. Eritrea’s contested independence and ongoing struggles: This incident highlights the ongoing tension between Eritrea’s celebrated independence and its current political climate. After gaining independence from Ethiopia in 1993, Eritrea has been under the rule of President Isaias Afwerki’s People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), the only legal political party in the community. Eritrean communities worldwide held protests on Independence Day, condemning the one-party system and mandatory military service. Eritrea’s struggle for self-determination began in 1961 with the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) opposing Ethiopian rule. Despite achieving independence, many Eritreans feel the promised freedom remains elusive. The lack of a free press, a constitution that is not implemented and basic rights have led some to label Eritrea “Africa’s North Korea.” Cybersecurity concerns in Africa: While large-scale cyberattacks in Africa often target specific systems, like the 2021 South African ports ransomware attack, this incident raises concerns about cyber security in Africa. Security experts like Kaspersky urge African governments and businesses to invest in cybersecurity measures to combat these costly attacks. Lagos state government has taken action against the growing threat of cyberattacks in the state. As a proactive step, the Lagos State government in Nigeria launched a new cybersecurity project to protect its digital infrastructure and identify cyber threats. Moniepoint is Africa’s fastest-growing fintech The Financial Times has ranked Moniepoint as Africa’s fastest-growing fintech based on its absolute and compound growth rate. Read more about it here. AI Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6 billion GIF Source: Tenor The AI race is getting steeper! AI, like other high-tech industries, requires heavy funding that runs into billions of dollars. High computing costs and the acquisition of rare talents mark up the cost of running and competing as an AI startup. To get by, AI startups raise huge amounts of investor dollars. In April 2023 Microsoft invested $13 billion in OpenAI after it first invested $1 billion in the ChatGPT maker in 2019. Earlier in March, Amazon completed its $4 billion investment in Antrophic. And now, Elon Musk-owned xAI has raised about $6 billion—more than the total amount raised by African startups in 2023. The latest investment came from heavyweights including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Saudi Arabian Prince Al Waleed bin Talal. xAi whose only product is the Grok chatbot says it will use the funding to help bring “first products to market, build advanced infrastructure, and accelerate the research and development of future technologies.” Why raise so much money? Well, if you can’t beat them, join them get your money up! Hardware costs for powering AI are a bit pricey. AI chip maker, Nvidia, will release its Blackwell B200 AI graphics cards which cost $30,000 to $40,000. Per The Information, xAI would need at least 100,000 of those cards to power an upgraded version of the GrokAI chatbot. Per TheVerge, xAi will launch a new data centre housing these chips by the fall of 2025z xAI initially planned to raise $1 billion, according to SEC fillings. xAI’s $6 billion raise adds to a list of big tech companies that are pouring billion-dollar investments to see that they emerge winners of the AI race. Collect payments anytime anywhere with Fincra Are you dealing with the complexities of collecting payments from your customers? Fincra’s payment gateway makes it easy to accept payments via cards, bank transfers, virtual accounts and mobile money. What’s more? You get to save money on fees when you use Fincra. Get started now. Telecoms MTN Uganda sells leftover shares from 2021 IPO In 2021, MTN Uganda listed its shares on the country’s stock exchange. The public listing meant that anybody in the country could own a slice of the telecom. MTN, however, fell short of a major Ugandan regulation that mandated it to sell 20% of its shares to local investors—both retail and professional. The telecom is now looking to mend its ways. Yesterday, MTN Uganda announced the sale of its remaining shares from the 2021 listing. The telecom, which is offering up to 1,574,807,373 ordinary shares, will sell the shares, on the Uganda Securities Exchange’s (USE) secondary market through the USE Easy Portal. Willing investors can also purchase the shares, which currently trade at UGX 170.00 ($0.05), through licensed stockbrokers and trading members. The telecom will sell the shares between May 27 and June 10. So hurry to get a slice of the pie. Investors must also buy at least 1,400 shares. Why does this matter? Previously, MTN, which has the largest market share in Uganda, with 15 million users, fell short of a key Ugandan regulation that mandated selling 20% of its shares to domestic investors. The telecom only sold about a 12.97% stake Now, by offering these remaining shares, MTN demonstrates its commitment to operating within Ugandan regulations. MTN Uganda’s rival Airtel Uganda also made a similar move in its IPO offerings last
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Next Wave: What will “smart cities” mean for Africa
<!– In partnership with –> First Published 30 April 2023 Cet article est aussi disponible en français So do smart cities have a place in Africa? African cities are one of the planet’s examples of dynamic human organisation happening in the middle of a digital revolution which we do not fully understand. Travel across the continent, you’ll find storied towns that offer a rich mix of culture, colonial reorganisation or roots, political intrigue and boomtown–style growth fuelled by people pouring in from the surrounding countryside. Urban planners, politicians and even tech entrepreneurs want to remake these dynamic metropolises or create new ones that are smart. But what will this mean? By the end of this century, the UN projects that Africa will be home to to 3.9 billion people, or 40% of humanity. By mid-century, 400 million of these people will reside along a 600 km stretch on the Atlantic coast in West Africa. Where will they live? Alongside this growing urban population, African cities often lack the trappings of what we have come to see as basic necessities for modern city life. Where they exist these infrastructures and services are unequally distributed. As the population grows and places existing services and infrastructure under severe stress, a motley of urban professionals, activists, entrepreneurs and government are talking about this thing called “smart cities”. There was a time (that we have not fully exited) when erecting or revamping older towns as new grand capital cities were the dream projects of leaders in developing countries. Especially those recently free from colonial governments. Dodoma, Abuja, Gaborone are a few living relics of this thinking; and the Egyptian government is currently constructing its belated new capital. Simply put, it was governments who did this type of thing. Constructing buildings—schools, administrative complexes, residential buildings, etc—are the sort of thing one would associate with technology startups that receive most of their funding from venture capitalists sitting in California. But Iyin Aboyeji, VC and founder of Talent City, a privately-owned charter city in Lagos, believes technology companies cannot overlook urban development. “Maybe in the rush to get Silicon Valley funding or a lack of foresight, I think we’ve ignored the more foundational pieces of the economy for what I call ‘apps and APIs’. I think we need to go back to the fundamentals, and one of the fundamentals is ‘How do people live?’” he said during an episode of TechCabal’s Next Wave show. “It’s something I tell my VC friends every time, that you cannot build something on nothing,” Aboyeji added. Sited on a 72,000-square-metre plot of land located in Alaro City, in Lagos, Aboyeji’s Talent City was conceived as a response to his experience at Andela, a tech talent provider he co-founded and helped midwife to unicorn status. Andela spent heavily on office settings and living quarters between 2014 and 2017 “because most real estate developers in Lagos didn’t understand how to build real estate for tech people”, TechCrunch reports Aboyeji as saying. So he set out to remedy this. As for the definition of a smart city, Aboyeji believes the name is a misnomer because cities are inherently smart, “otherwise no one would want to live in them”. “For a very long time, we’ve been importing a lot of Western responses to those questions without really doing a lot of deep thinking ourselves,” he said on the show. Digital smart cities Spanning several streets in Ikeja, Lagos, is the site of an ever-growing pastiche of phone parts dealers, computer shops and digital device mechanics huddled under colourful umbrellas or in low-slung shops and one-storey “offices”. You have arrived at Computer Village in Lagos, a sprawling market run by members of the Computer and Allied Products Dealers Association of Nigeria (CAPDAN). The market is a living testimony of how digital technology has evolved since the first memory chip shops opened in Surulere, the birthplace of Computer Village in Lagos. Computer Village’s boom is not unconnected to the fact that its host city, Lagos, is itself growing. Current population figures differ, but by 2035, the UN projects that Lagos will be home to 24.5 million people. Lagos is also the commercial and economic hub of Nigeria and West Africa to a large extent. It is also the home of Nigeria’s venture-backed technology ecosystem. Tech-focused smart city projects are emerging in African countries to drive economic growth. | Infographic: Ayomide Agbaje — TechCabal Insights. With digital technology penetrating all aspects of urban life, the idea of cities that are smart, where services and infrastructure are optimal for all residents, has taken hold. Especially when paired with technology solutions that are supposed to deliver this urban transformation. Slums have been reimagined in glowing utopian visions. <!– “70 percent of bank customers, who visit the banks, are there to resolve issues that border on failed ePayment transactions. From Lagos to Kano, Ondo to Kebbi, Rivers to Sokoto states, the story has remained the same. Customers continued to besiege the banking halls with the hope that their failed ePayment transactions would be resolved. While many customers were told to come back, others lament that their transactions could not be traced, setting in rounds of frustrations on the banking public”The Guardian, April 18, 2023 –> “Venture capital is not about writing code,” Aboyeji said on the show, “Sometimes the problems you need to solve require you to put some cement on the ground.” But one question I cannot get out of my mind is, how well do we know Africa’s sprawling cities? Or why they exist in the form that they currently do. This is especially pertinent for government-developed smart city projects because, going back their history, African governments display a rather bewildering ignorance of the dynamics of the peri–urban areas that seem irrevocably attached to their governance remit. How well is not just what you know, it’s also about what knowledge we have that is being documented and used rather than passively accepted. Think about it for a second. It’s easy
Read MoreExclusive: Caantin expands into US after two rebrands and layoffs
Caantin, the Kenyan startup that was formerly called Kibanda and then TopUpMama, has led many lives. Backed by Ventures Platform and DFS Labs, Kibanda was digitising the supply chain for small restaurants in Kenya. As TopUpMama, it was helping big hotels and restaurants in Nigeria restock through a digital platform. TopUpMama had clients like Mr. Biggs and Sheraton Hotel, but it ran into an interesting problem: most companies were fine with using MS Excel to manage procurement. What clients would rather pay for was a dashboard that could give an overview of payment cycles, retention rates, and other relevant metrics. “The main reason people wanted to use a procurement product was to centralise data. [Caantin’s pivot] is an evolution of that problem,” said Njavwa Mutambo, the company’s CEO. That customer feedback informed the company’s pivot to Caantin, an artificial intelligence startup businesses can use to analyse and visualise data. “Our software is replacing [the cost of a data analyst],” Mutambo said. The startup, which employs five people, expanded to America in the fourth quarter of 2023 and now serves manufacturers and logistics companies. Its American customers now generate 75% of its revenue, according to Mutmabo. He added that the startup recorded its highest monthly revenue to date in April 2024. Its expansion into the United States comes as African startups are pressured to deliver strong performance even as macroeconomic conditions on the continent worsen. Inflation and currency depreciation in key markets like Nigeria and Egypt have reduced disposable income and startups struggle to grow revenue. “One of my favourite quotes is that it’s easier to make dollars than it is to make naira, and I can approve of that,” Mutambo told TechCabal over a call. Caantin began targeting the American market because of the high cost of talent in the US. The average yearly salary for an entry-level data analyst in South Africa, Africa’s most developed market, is $16,500, while the same position attracts a $64,000 salary in America. The startup charges between $15 and $100 for each company’s staff that uses the product and has twelve customers in North America and more than thirty in total. Caantin pivots from B2B e-commerce Caantin’s journey to increased revenue has not been smooth. In 2023, when it rebranded from Topup Mama, it laid off more than 90 employees. The rebrand and layoffs were surprising because Caantin had just raised a $1.7 million seed round and claimed it was growing exponentially. Mutambo described the experience as “difficult,” especially as the startup had to raise a bridge round to continue operations before it became Caantin. “We were doing millions of dollars of monthly sales but we realised something people didn’t see and it was that the path to getting to positive unit economics for B2B e-commerce businesses was extremely capital intensive and capital is drying up,” Mutambo told TechCabal. In recent months, well-funded Kenyan B2B e-commerce startups have shut down operations and laid off employees to cope with a drawback in investors’ appetite and profitability struggles. Zumi shut down in March 2023 due to its inability to raise capital despite crossing $20 million in sales, while MarketForce, once valued at $100 million, shut down its B2B e-commerce product in April 2024. In December, Wasoko merged with MAXAB to establish “a clear e-commerce leader” and laid off 10% of its combined workforce. Both companies raised more than $220 million combined. “Your job as an entrepreneur is to build the biggest company you can possibly build, especially if you are venture-backed and the way you build the biggest company you can possibly build is by targeting the biggest market you can possibly target,” Mutambo said.
Read MoreQuick Fire 🔥 with Rowland Okondor
Rowland Okondor heads the Product Team at BudPay. Having been in the Banking and Financial Technology sector for over 8 years, Rowland has been privileged to lead several cross-functional teams delivering innovative solutions, powering payments for businesses and consumers across Africa. Explain your job to a five-year-old. Let’s say you love toys and ask your uncle to build you one from scratch for your birthday in exactly two weeks. First, your uncle asks you to tell him everything you want in your toy (requirement gathering). Then your uncle gets a group of people who can draw (Designers) to show you an image of what your dream toy looks like (User interface Designs). Your uncle then gets people who can build your dream toy (Developers/Engineers). Finally, Your uncle gathers a set of people (Quality Assurance Testers) to try out your new toy to make sure the toy is exactly how you want it. Then your uncle shows up at your house on your birthday with your shiny new toy. Even better, your uncle keeps a journal (Roadmap) where you can write what you would like to improve on your dream toy. That, my dear, is how your favourite Uncle becomes your favourite Product Manager. In your experience across fintech startups and large corporations, what do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities for financial inclusion in Africa? One of the biggest challenges we as Africans have faced on financial inclusion is the banking penetration and the lack of banking infrastructure in rural areas which accounts for the largest number of the unbanked population. That has presented a unique opportunity for agency banking which has been taken in great stride if we are limiting financial inclusion to the basic needs of sending and receiving money with the nice-to-haves of bill payments. This has presented another challenge/opportunity concerning the integrity of the data on the financially included population via this agency/community banking scheme since their participation is in fact in proxy via the “agents”. The next step in the evolution of this scheme is to ease regulatory barriers that hinder this population from being more active players, increase financial literacy, and set up infrastructures that aid their ascension on the ladder of financial needs beyond sending and receiving money, to saving and investing. Looking ahead 5 years, what emerging payment technologies are you most excited about, and why? I am particularly looking forward to payment technologies that connect Africa as a continent and ease the seamless exchange of money between countries in Africa. There is also some work on improving the current Payment infrastructures in Africa by leveraging the might of blockchain technology. Advancements in this regard hold huge promise for transaction processing speeds and success rate of financial transactions both locally and across Africa. As a product manager, how do you balance data-driven insights with user intuition when developing financial products? When developing financial products, it is imperative to understand that users’ expectations/intuition are largely influenced by market standards and competitive experience. However, in interacting with your products, unique patterns and behaviours are formed which are all evident in the data you gather. Here are some steps you can take in balancing data-driven insights with user intuition when developing financial products; Prioritise and balance by developing a healthy roadmap and decision framework that weighs the impact and feasibility of data-driven insights against intuitive ideas. Use analytics to validate intuition by implementing robust analytics to monitor how users interact with the product and define key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with both business goals and user satisfaction. Track these metrics to ensure that intuitive decisions are backed by positive data trends. Having worked in both fintech startups and MNCs, what are the biggest cultural differences you’ve observed in product development approaches? Many MNCs have the role of Product obscured in the delivery of solutions to end users. The role of the product in bridging the gap between the Business teams and relevant stakeholders in the delivery of value being completely ignored is also a peculiar occurrence in MNCs. The resultant effect of this is increased bureaucracy and a longer time to execute initiatives in the middle of a non-existent product roadmap. Working in fintech startups has shaped my idea of products and the role of product managers in product-led companies. The teams are more nimble, the organisational goals are clearer, there is better cross-functional collaboration, and the execution of roadmapped items is a lot faster. It is no surprise that some of the most successful startups have delivered immense value with the same infrastructures owned and managed by the banks. Beyond user acquisition and activation, what other key metrics do you focus on to measure the success of B2B fintech products? The most important metric when building B2B fintech products beyond acquisition and activation is the success rate. The efficacy of your product will be measured against the success of carrying out financial actions on your product simply because these actions have a high impact and reward both to the user and the business. Other notable metrics include Activity rate, Feature Utilisation, Customer Retention & Churn rate, Customer Lifetime Value, Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) especially as it directly relates to Revenue Per User (RPU). Other customer support metrics include Customer Satisfaction and Net Promoter Score (NPS), Response and Resolution Time. Looking back at your career, can you share an instance where a product misstep led to valuable learnings? Payment is partnerships and part of your product experience has to do with choosing the right partners to deliver the right experience. Understanding the available infrastructure in any given jurisdiction also plays a significant role in this process. To deliver an automated onboarding experience on a Product that we had been working on, we decided to validate one of the user requirements for onboarding automatically. This would also help us streamline the pipeline to more intending users. So we removed the ability for users to complete the validation
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👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily – Goodbye, Kabosu, the dog who inspired dogecoin
In partnership with Share this newsletter: Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Good morning In Adamawa, a North Eastern State in Nigeria where the temperature has risen to 50°C this past month, over 400 people died within 2 weeks from the extreme heat. Across Nigeria, several states are experiencing severe heatwaves that have sent citizens clamouring for air conditioning sets the country’s inflation rate makes impossible to afford. One climate-tech founder, however, is now finteuning a device—the Lightbox—which has the potential to change how airconditioning works, and how much energy it consumes. Here’s how Anaele Iroh’s device can bend the heat away. In today’s edition Copia Kenya is in new hands The dog who inspired dogecoin has died Kenya receives $250 million investment from the US Zimbabwe approves Starlink The World Wide Web3 Opportunities Startups Copia Kenya enters administration One of Kenya’s most funded startups, Copia Kenya, has entered into administration. Before entering administration, Copia Kenya explored options like layoffs which had the potential to affect over 1,000 employees. What’s happening? Despite raising $123 million in venture funding, including $50 million in a Series C round in 2022, and a $20 million extension in December 2023, Copia Global, the parent company of Copia Kenya, couldn’t secure new funding. Consequently, Copia Global is winding down, allowing its Kenyan arm to seek capital independently. Copia Kenya will undergo a restructuring with Makenzi Muthusi and Julius Ngonga from KPMG, an audit and advisory firm, appointed to manage the process. Copia revealed on May 24 that the administrators will work with the management to raise capital from new investors. Under the guidance of the administrator, the company’s management team is tasked with implementing a new strategy that prioritises profitability, cost reduction and increased digital consumers. Layoffs will still happen: While Copia Kenya’s administration may save the company from going under, the company has highlighted that layoffs are unavoidable but only those directly affected by the restructuring will lose their jobs. To save money, Copia Kenya is ditching its old system of handling orders in person or by phone. Instead, it will focus on customers placing orders themselves through the mobile app. Copia believes this is a more digital and potentially cheaper way to operate. Copia Kenya’s financial troubles began to show in 2023. At that time, the company had 1,800 employees and 50,000 agents in Kenya and Uganda. However, it started reducing staff, laying off 50 employees early in the year and 350 more in July 2023. These layoffs were part of cost-cutting efforts to become profitable, indicating financial difficulties. Further signs of setbacks continued to appear as it shut down its operations in Uganda, just two years after launching there. It also had to abandon its ambitious expansion plans for other African countries. Copia Global’s winddown highlights the struggles in the country’s startup ecosystem, with closures attributed to increased taxation and operational expenses. Moniepoint is Africa’s fastest-growing fintech The Financial Times has ranked Moniepoint as Africa’s fastest-growing fintech based on its absolute and compound growth rate. Read more about it here. Crypto The dog who inspired Dogecoin has died Kabosu How do you think meme coins are named? For the most part, meme coins often draw inspiration from internet culture. Some names are pure accidents, born from online jokes that take on a life of their own. Others are a deliberate nod to popular memes, like the unforgettable “doge” inspired by Kabosu, the shiba inu dog whose quizzical expression made the internet go gaga. Speaking of doge, Kabosu, the dog who inspired the famous meme coin Dogecoin has died. Kabosu was likely around 18 years old when it died, per owner Atsuko Sato. The Japanese dog was dubbed the “Mona Lisa of the internet” after its iconic 2010 photo inspired a raft of other internet memes. Kabosu is seen grinning at the camera in the picture, her paws resting on the sofa. The image was turned into an NFT digital artwork that was sold for $4 million. The Kabosu-inspired dogecoin, which started as a joke between two software engineers, has gone on to become the eighth-most valuable cryptocurrency in the world, with a market capitalisation of $23 billion. The price of the coin inched up by 14% after news of Kabosu’s death spread. Dogecoin received popular backing, including Elon Musk (who made it a currency option to buy some Tesla products), Snoop Dogg, Mark Cuban, and Gene Simmons, among others. In November of last year, a statue of Kabosu was built in Sakura, Japan. Rest in peace, Kabosu. Collect payments anytime anywhere with Fincra Are you dealing with the complexities of collecting payments from your customers? Fincra’s payment gateway makes it easy to accept payments via cards, bank transfers, virtual accounts and mobile money. What’s more? You get to save money on fees when you use Fincra. Get started now. Investments Kenya receives $250 million investment from the US In May 2024, Kenya’s president, William Ruto, made history as the first African leader to be hosted in the White House in 16 years! The visit was held with much fanfare as Ruto was treated to a host of delegates upon arrival, including the President of the US, Joe Biden. Ruto’s visit was in part to help the US repair its broken bond with Africa—as China and Russia continue to buddy up with the continent—and partly to help drive loads of American dollar investments into the East African country. What followed Ruto’s visit was an increased investment from the US International Development Finance Corporation in Kenya. A new $250 million package means that the DFC has now invested over $1 billion in Kenya. The DFC says it will establish a local office in Kenya. The new DFC financing package will be used to finance affordable student rental housing projects in Nairobi and bolster digital connectivity, e-mobility, and renewable energy across the country. Tech startups were not left out of the investment spree. E-mobility startups Roam Electric, Mogo Auto, and BasiGo have received $10
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This climate-tech founder wants to be a part of the climate conversation
In 2019, the BBC team sent a crew to test a climate control device called The Lightbox. The device, which reportedly can utilize water and light to mimic photosynthesis and cool the environment, was met with a lot of speculation at first. After a two-hour test, they reached a verdict: the device successfully replaced two air conditioners in a boiler room that previously required three to run. The Lightbox, created by Anaele Iroh, a doctoral alumnus of the Dublin Institute of Technology and the founder of Adis-energy, is a device engineered to absorb heat from the environment with little or no electricity. “For a room that requires five kilowatts of power for an AC, a control system like mine can utilize one kilowatt of power to maintain the same temperature as with the air conditioning system,” Iroh shared. Iroh’s Lightbox device uses heat and water to dehumidify and cool spaces, utilizing less energy than required with regular ACs. The Lightbox Nigeria has been feeling the heat of climate change intensely in the past year; hotter than anything the country has ever experienced. In states like Sokoto, the temperature went as high as 40.8C, and in Yola, Adamawa State, the death toll as a result of the extreme temperature reached 400 between May 1 to May 13. To cope with the scorching heat, there has been increased usage of energy-guzzling fans and air conditioning units which generate severe heat and greenhouse gasses, creating further complications for the environment. According to this report, the air conditioner market in the past year is experiencing a surge in demand due to the rising temperature and these cooling devices are some of the biggest energy consumers around. A standard banking hall in Nigeria uses a minimum of two portable air conditioners, which consume between 3,000 to 5,000 watts of energy per hour, depending on size. Iroh believes that he can solve this problem, and in April 2024, he presented the Union Bank branch in his hometown, Mbaise, with the Lightbox, which could keep their banking halls and offices cool with 75% less energy. While his solution was met with a lot of skepticism earlier, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a paper a couple of years later on the same discovery which they called “desalination.” According to Gang Chen, a power engineering professor at the institution, the discovery of desalination is especially crucial for the development of clean energy which would impact the climate-tech space. Iroh who has a Ph.D from the Dublin Institute of Technology believes that the problem of Nigeria’s climate problem must be approached from a Nigerian perspective rather than a Western one. “I’ve been trying to influence the global debate on climate change, because if these countries get it wrong, then every other country —like Nigeria— gets it wrong.” According to the World Economic Forum, heat from machines like heating and cooling devices, industrial machines, etc is one of the biggest challenges in tackling climate change, yet the bulk of the focus of climate solutions is only focused on decarbonizing cars and electricity. “For people in a country like Nigeria, the solution to climate change isn’t things like not flying airplanes or electric cars. Elon Musk could sell one million Teslas and it won’t affect the person living in Sokoto state, because fossil fuel is not their problem,” Iroh said. Oghosa Erhahon, an energy and sustainability specialist, also believes in a specialized approach to climate change. According to her, the climate crisis is peculiar to different regions and the solutions must mirror those peculiarities. “There isn’t one blanket solution to the climate crisis,” she shared. “People from different regions have to find their solutions and voices in responding to the climate crisis, which is a shame because that’s not what’s happening in Nigeria right now.” For the past year, Iroh has struggled to convince investors to invest in his device due to the novelty of the idea. In 2019, he almost secured $2 million in funding from BFan, until his financial advisors disrupted the deal as they still weren’t convinced it would work. “If we were doing something predictable or known, then I think we’d have had more success with funding,” he said. “I’ve had to build everything by myself from scratch, including selling everything I own to keep working. It’s only now that we have demonstration units we can give to people to try out that we’re getting some requests for funding.” In 2023, climate tech became a big deal. Investors, who previously didn’t pay much regard to the sector, signed off $1 billion of the entire funding on the continent ($3.5 billion) to that area. Despite this rush, the funding is concentrated in areas of climate change like electric vehicles that have become popular in the last few years. According to Erhahon, one of the reasons for this is simply the high risk attached to funding climate tech, especially one that requires hardware. “Most climate tech requires devices that have to be built from scratch, and most likely with parts imported from other parts of the world. It’s complicated, and that can turn investors off.” Joash Lee, an angel investor, shares that another reason why it’s tough to fund climate tech is due to the large amount of money that it typically requires to make a difference. “Climate tech startups need more capital —about four to five times more than fintechs, for example—which is more than most early-stage VCs provide,” he wrote. “Private equity firms also tend to stay away, as they generally prefer to invest in cash flow-positive businesses.” “Also, these solutions require deep technical knowledge to evaluate, and investors who lack the expertise typically steer clear of these deals, until the knowledge becomes more mainstream like EVs, for instance,” In the meantime, Iroh is focused on finetuning his device to more aesthetically appealing models and pitching them to banks and other large energy-consuming spaces like airports, hotels and churches.
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