NCBA Loop is reinventing neobanking by pioneering Kenya’s embedded finance revolution
Kenya’s digital banking landscape is shifting, and NCBA Loop is leading this transformation. Launched as a digital bank in 2017, Loop has pivoted to a broader financial infrastructure model, embedding credit and payments directly into transactions. This evolution aligns with a global shift toward embedded finance, where banking services integrate into everyday commercial activities rather than as separate processes. Loop’s new model enables users to take loans and buy items in the same transaction—removing the traditional separation between lending and payments. Instead of applying for a loan before making a payment, credit becomes an automatic part of the transaction, mirroring the success of Safaricom’s M-PESA overdraft facility, Fuliza, and the growing Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) trend in Kenya. “We are both developing our solutions and observing trends here at home and in other parts of the world that we consider relevant,” said Eric Muriuki, CEO of Loop, in an interview with TechCabal. Loop, one of Kenya’s earliest digital banks, helped popularise neobanking in the country. However, the market has grown, with well-funded competitors like Ecobank-backed Fingo, Branch MFB, Umba, and Payless. In response to these competitive pressures, Loop is expanding beyond digital banking into a payments and credit infrastructure model. “Payments and credit will not be two different businesses, particularly short-term credit, because short-term credit is typically used to pay for something,” Muriuki explained. “You see a bit more embedding of credit into payment journeys.” Businesses also benefit from embedded finance, particularly in trade and commerce. “If you want to pay a supplier in China for imported goods, that payment transaction can have a credit structure embedded into it,” Muriuki added. Loop’s shift toward embedded finance mirrors a trend across industries where payments, credit, and insurance integrate into wider commercial transactions. APIs and improved internet access are enabling the creation of sector-specific financial solutions in agriculture, healthcare, and education. “You’ll see more language like financial infrastructure,” Muriuki said. “I could be an agri-tech company integrating technology into agriculture, but I then use financial infrastructure as a service, plugged into my agri-tech solution. That technology helps me register farmers, issue fertiliser, and distribute seeds—but the payments and credit linked to those transactions are services I consume from a financial infrastructure provider.” The future of neobanking in Kenya Muriuki predicts that while the distinction between neobanks and traditional banks will persist, the boundary will become thinner. Digital platforms will continue gaining market share in consumer banking, especially among a new generation of digitally native customers. Unlike older customers who transitioned from traditional banking to digital services, these users begin their financial journey in the digital space. They interact with multiple financial service providers through apps rather than maintaining a relationship with a single bank. For corporate clients, embedded finance will reshape value chains. Businesses will still maintain relationships with traditional banks, but their financial operations will be deeply integrated with digital platforms. However, regulatory constraints—particularly around deposit protection—will ensure that banks remain a central part of the financial system, even as fintech-driven solutions distribute capital more efficiently. “Of course, corporates will remain corporates—that won’t change much,” Muriuki said. “But as ecosystem solutions gain prominence, you’ll see that porous boundary I was talking about, where corporates remain in banking, but their value chain is firmly established on the digital platform side. That line will never fully disappear because regulation will keep it in place.” Loop’s transformation highlights the broader direction of Kenya’s financial sector. As embedded finance gains traction, the role of banks is shifting—from standalone service providers to integrated financial infrastructure powering digital commerce.
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How Oui Capital made a 53x return on an early $150,000 investment in Moniepoint
Three years before Oui Capital, an early-stage African venture capital firm, invested $150,000 for a 1.2% stake in Moniepoint, managing partner Olu Oyinsan met Tosin Eniolorunda, Moniepoint’s CEO, and immediately knew there was something different about him. “His understanding of banking technology stack and payment infrastructure was impressive. I knew he was up to something exciting,” Oyinsan recalled. Convinced that Moniepoint’s $12 million post-money valuation was a bargain given its traction and financial discipline, Oui Capital joined investors like Global Ventures, Soma Capital, and Kepple Africa in Moniepoint’s 2021 undisclosed Series B round. “We thought the team was incredibly strong in terms of engineering,” Oyinsan said. “We bet that superior engineering would solve the major problem at the time, which was high transaction failure rates and we were correct.” A month before that round, Eniolorunda told TechCabal that Moniepoint was on its way to becoming a unicorn. Three years later, when it finally became a unicorn, Oui Capital partially exited its $150,000 investment, making $8 million—enough to return twice its first fund to investors. There might not have been a more opportune moment for Oui Capital to return the fund— a rare feat for VC firms—as it might raise its third fund this year. The fund currently backs 22 startups and invests up to $500,000 in African early-stage startups. TechCabal spoke to Oyinsan to understand how the firm met Moniepoint’s founders, made the investment, and built its first fund. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You invested at a $12.5 million valuation. How did you negotiate your entry terms, and what key elements of the deal worked in your favour? The deal was undervalued. This was during the 2019–2020 boom when valuations were high. At the time, $12.5 million was a reasonable valuation given Moniepoint’s traction and growth rate. The company was already doing between $700k and $1 million in revenue and valuation multiples were at an all-time high here. The two things that worked in our favour were that the company was relatively new to VC funding and we would have been able to set it on the path to multiple funding rounds. Also, the founders were very pragmatic and valued getting quality investors over valuation numbers. You believed in Moniepoint from the first day. What gave you that conviction? They had something no one else had, and they understood how to build for businesses. The team had matured through their earlier work, so this wasn’t day one of their journey—it was just a new direction. Their DNA also matched ours. Back then, success often meant coming from an Ivy League school or being a YC-backed founder. TeamApt was among the first companies to reach this stage without YC, proving my thesis that great founders exist outside the conventional circles. At that time, the major fintechs raising big rounds were YC-backed—Paystack, Flutterwave, Kuda, and PiggyVest. Many investors followed that pattern: if you weren’t YC, you didn’t get a high valuation. But we moved on conviction. We saw the opportunity, and we went all in. I went beyond just investing—I did advisory work, helped create the first investment memo, and set up the data room alongside a Deloitte consultant I hired. The goal was to establish a funding trajectory: seed, Series A, B, and so on. Companies that skip stages often struggle. Even if you have Series B-level metrics, investors hesitate to write a big check if you’ve never raised capital before. That’s because investors play a role in passing companies along to the next funding stage. At what point did you know that Moniepoint would be a fund-returning investment? Was there a specific point that changed everything? We had strong conviction in this company from day one, we accurately predicted how big this could get. We had written in our initial investment memo that we believed that COVID-19 would change the game for Moniepoint. The company grew about 1000% during COVID followed by the cashless policies of the CBN that helped them grow about 100% every year. We knew we were on to something at this point. It was a matter of time. You sold some shares in the $110 million Series C round. Why then? Why not hold for longer? And how did you decide how much to sell? It was a concept of crystalising our gains while still leaving enough ownership to demonstrate our continued belief in the growth of the company to maximise future upside. We sold enough to return the entire fund and satisfy limited partners (LPs) while keeping the rest to enjoy the ride and the rest of the Moniepoint story. Was there any pressure from LPs to cash out? There was some pressure from LPs especially the Nigeria-based ones who are unfamiliar with venture capital as an asset class. For many of them, Oui Capital was their first investment in a VC fund. Most Nigerians gravitate towards shorter-term investments because of how rapidly government policy and economic indices sometimes change. Some of the global investors did not mind a longer holding period. But it’s our job as fund managers to find a good balance in the interest of our LPs and I think we did just that. Returning a first fund is incredibly rare. If you had to distill your success into three core investment principles, what would they be? Good portfolio construction. You can invest in a unicorn and still not return your fund. The key factors are: how much you invest, when you invest, the valuation at entry, and your ownership stake. When writing a check, you should already have a rough idea of how it will play out. In our investment memo, we projected that the company would reach a billion-dollar valuation, and the expected return was mapped out. That’s portfolio construction: ensuring that if things go well, the outcome justifies the risk. In venture capital, you decide whether to take riskier bets early or enter later with a higher amount. If you come in at Series
Read MoreAirtel Nigeria joins MTN to raise voice and internet plans by 50%
Airtel Nigeria, the country’s second-largest telecom operator, has raised the prices of its internet and voice plans by 50% one week after a similar hike by MTN Nigeria. With the new pricing, Airtel’s cheapest monthly data plan is now 2GB for ₦1,500, replacing the previous 1.2GB plan that cost ₦1,000. Other changes include 3GB for ₦2,000 (up from 1.5GB at ₦1,200), 4GB for ₦2,500 (previously 3GB at ₦1,500), and 8GB for ₦3,000 (up from 4.5GB at ₦2,000). Bigger plans have also been adjusted, with 10GB now costing ₦4,000 (previously 6GB at ₦2,500), 13GB for ₦5,000 (up from 10GB at ₦3,000), 18GB for ₦6,000 (previously 15GB at ₦4,000), and 25GB for ₦8,000 (replacing the former 18GB plan at ₦5,000). The adjustment continues a broader trend of telcos reviewing prices after the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) approved a 50% tariff increase on January 20, 2025. MTN Nigeria, which was the first r to implement the increase, got public backlash after the telco adjusted three of its data plans by more than 50%. While MTN Nigeria said its hike did not exceed the NCC-approved target and was merely removing subsidies from its special plans, the company later issued a letter of apology to its subscribers. Airtel Nigeria implemented a 25 kobo flat rate per second of calls, according to a company representative who spoke to TechCabal. One-minute call on the network cost around ₦15 an increase from ₦11. The tariff increase was not reflected in many of the daily and weekly plans. Subscribers can still buy the one-week 5GB plan for ₦1,500The Airtel Unlimited plans like ₦20,000 for 200GB in 30 days plus 10GB daily upon exhausting main data, and ₦30,000 for 300GB in 30 days are still available.
Read MoreNigerian banking stocks surge 12.24% as lenders raise over $662 million in new capital
Nigerian banking stocks have surged since January 7 after several major lenders raised over ₦1 trillion ($662 million) from the stock market to meet new capital requirements. The NGX Banking Index, which tracks banking stocks, was up 12.24% at market close on Friday, February 14, according to data compiled by TechCabal. GTCO’s share price closed at ₦63.45 on Friday (up 12.90% since January 7) while Zenith Bank shares closed at ₦51.60 (up 4.03% since it announced its raise). The rally in banking stocks comes amid a broader wave of renewed investor confidence in Nigeria’s economy. While global markets remain volatile, Nigeria has quietly attracted foreign investment, bolstered by currency reforms and other measures aimed at stabilizing Africa’s largest economy. The country is seeing increased inflows after painful but necessary reforms to restore stability. According to Bloomberg, Nigeria’s sovereign risk spread has fallen to its lowest level since January 2020, erasing the premium accumulated during the pandemic and economic strain that followed. Banking sector capitalization and market response In March 2024, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) raised the minimum capital threshold for banks tenfold, excluding retained earnings from qualifying capital. This prompted major lenders to tap the stock market for additional funding to meet the new requirement before the 2026 deadline. Since the announcement, GTCO, a banking group with a market capitalization of ₦1.85 trillion, has raised ₦209 billion in the first phase of its recapitalization plan. On January 27, Zenith Bank followed suit, securing ₦350.4 billion through a rights issue and public offer. While these two banks alone have raised over ₦559.4 billion, other financial institutions have also secured funding, pushing the total above ₦1 trillion. Two market analysts suggest that the rally in banking stocks is also fueled by expectations of improved profitability and stability in the sector. With additional capital, banks are better positioned to expand lending and improve their balance sheets. “The banking stocks will likely continue to remain stable,” said Azeez Lawal, managing director of TrustBanc Asset Management Limited. “But we will not see growth in banking stocks not until they release their audited financial statements and announce dividend payments.” Despite the positive momentum, industry experts caution that sustaining the rally will depend on macroeconomic stability and regulatory clarity. January often sees increased stock market activity, suggesting that the observed growth may not entirely reflect underlying market fundamentals.
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TechCabal Daily – Race to the bottom
In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Good morning We’re still open to applications for features. We’re seeking deeply reported features on innovative startups, the business of tech, policymaking around innovation, and the intersection of culture and technology all across Africa. Send a pitch to kay@bigcabal.com. For more on what to include in your pitch, please check out our pitch guide. Analysts reluctant to predict January Inflation Kenyan commercial banks race to lower lending rate as Central Bank threatens fines Airtel Money’s play to win Kenya’s fintech and telecoms market World Wide Web 3 Events Economy Analysts reluctant to predict January Inflation Image source: TechCabal Analysts are holding off on forecasting Nigeria’s January 2025 inflation rate due to the National Bureau of Statistics’ (NBS) recent rebasing of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The rebasing, which sets 2024 as the new base year, adds new items to the composition of the inflation basket to reflect the consumption pattern of citizens. The NBS planned to release the rebased inflation report for December 2024 at the end of January 2025, but failed to do so. Without a clear base from the revised index, analysts say making accurate predictions is impossible. Despite raising interest rates six consecutive times in 2024, inflation surged to 34.8% in December. The rebased CPI index may result in lower inflation because the weighting of food, which accounts for the majority of household spending and contributes more than half of the CPI basket, has been cut to 40.1% from 51.8%. Before the rebasing, analysts expected inflation to remain elevated through mid-2025 before easing, potentially closing the year at 28%. This forecast was based on anticipated exchange rate stability (₦1,550–₦1,650/$), base effects, and a waning impact from fuel subsidy removal. However, the rebased index could upend these projections. The rebased CPI index could temper inflation readings, but without clarity on its full impact, analysts remain cautious. In the meantime, expectations lean toward a hold stance from the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), regardless of inflation’s movement. Collect payments Fincra anytime anywhere Are you dealing with the complexities of collecting payments in NGN, GHS or KES? Fincra’s payment gateway makes it easy to accept payments via cards, bank transfers, virtual accounts and mobile money. Get started now. Banking Kenyan commercial banks to lower lending rate as Central Bank threatens fines Image source: Google On February 14, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) gave us a masterclass on power play. After months of resisting the CBK’s four consecutive cuts to the benchmark interest rate, commercial banks are now hastily adjusting their lending rates following the apex bank’s threat of imposing daily fines for non-compliance. The CBK’s intensified pressure has left Kenyan banks scrambling to lower their rates, marking a significant shift in their stance. Despite the central bank’s repeated efforts to ease borrowing costs, many banks had delayed passing on these benefits to customers, resulting in a widening gap between the CBK rate (10.75%) and actual lending rates. Now, faced with the prospect of hefty penalties, banks are finally falling in line. The CBK is enforcing stricter measures. Banks that fail to adjust could face fines of KES 20 million ($154,619) or three times the monetary gain from higher rates. Additionally, bank officials risk personal fines of up to KES 1 million ($7,730). Leading lenders—including KCB, Equity, Cooperative Bank, I&M, and DTB—have responded by slashing rates by one to four percentage points. Equity Bank, in particular, has made three reductions in six months, positioning itself as the most responsive to CBK’s directives. Loans could become more affordable for borrowers. However, with the average lending rate still at 17.22%—an eight-year high—access to credit remains a challenge. The high rate of non-performing loans (NPLs) could leave banks wary of borrowers, leading to more scrutiny during borrowing processes. While the intense due diligence could solve the problem of bad loans, it will also likely reduce borrowing activity, taking the goal of stimulating economic participation further away from the apex bank. Yet, it is a good thing. The rate of compliance—although forced—signals that banks are willing to set aside differing opinions, and work with the regulator to achieve a common goal. You can now Pay with Opay on Paystack Checkout Paystack merchants in Nigeria can now accept payments from over tens of millions of OPay users through Paystack Checkout. Find out more here→ Fintech Airtel Money is making a play to win the Kenyan fintech and telecoms market Image Source: Airtel Money Airtel Money is making an aggressive play for Kenya’s mobile money market by refunding 100% of bank transfer fees as airtime. Unlike past promotions, this airtime won’t expire, making it a strong incentive for users to move money through Airtel instead of its dominant rival, Safaricom’s M-Pesa. This isn’t Airtel’s first attempt at using refunds to lure customers. In 2023, its “Rudishiwa Transaction Fee” programme, which refunded withdrawal charges as airtime, helped push its market share from 6.6% to 7.6%. Now, by extending the model to bank transfers, Airtel is hoping to build on that momentum. But will this strategy work? Mobile money dominance isn’t just about pricing—it’s about habit and accessibility. While Safaricom’s M-Pesa remains the default for most Kenyans, Airtel has been expanding its agent network and bundling financial incentives with mobile services, such as its new “Smarta Bundles.” The question is whether customers see enough value in switching or if M-Pesa’s extensive reach and convenience still outweigh Airtel’s price incentives. The real test will be Safaricom’s response. If M-Pesa holds firm, Airtel could gain ground among cost-conscious users. But if Safaricom counters with its own pricing adjustments, Airtel’s competitive edge could be short-lived. Either way, the battle for Kenya’s mobile money market is heating up, and customers stand to benefit. Expand with Cedar Money Expand your business globally with Cedar Money! Our cross-border stablecoin solutions offer fast, secure, and reliable transactions, simplifying payments and fueling growth. Unlock seamless global trade today. Visit www.cedar.money to get started! CRYPTO TRACKER The
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Carbin Africa takes on the ‘messy middle’ in Lagos’ car market
Despite soaring inflation and a crumbling local currency, car dealer Precious Okoedion says no week goes by without a car sale at any one of his three dealerships across Lagos State, Nigeria. Okoedion says many of these sales—over 30 since 2023—have been facilitated through the auto tech platform, Carbin Africa. Launched in 2023 by two ex-Cars45 employees, Femi Oriowo and Fawaz Abdul, Carbin Africa is digitising car inventory and sales processes for car merchants and dealerships in Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest car market. Before joining Carbin Africa, Okoedion says he was just a “street trader working with Cars45,” where he first met and established a relationship with the Carbin Africa co-founders. Since joining the platform, a wide variety of merchants, dealers and their inventory have since opened up to him. “A client will walk in here and say, okay, he wants [a Lexus] RS350, I don’t have it. I can quickly log into Carbin Africa and get what I want,” says Okoedion, in the Yaba outlet of his business, Okopi Auto Limited. Beginnings Oriowo’s path to founding Carbin Africa began when he was an OLX merchant serving as a middleman between Computer Village vendors and end buyers. He recalls passing by several car dealerships to and from the popular computer hardware market on the Lagos mainland, and thinking that selling cars on an online marketplace was not too far-fetched. Once, buoyed by youthful courage, he entered into one of the dealerships and asked the owner if he could list the inventory on OLX and earn a commission. “I was really confident in those days,” Oriowo says in his office in the heart of Yaba, Lagos’ famed tech cluster. The dealer agreed to the arrangement, providing him with photos and specifications of the inventory. Within a week, he’d sold his first car, he said. In a complete move towards car sales, Oriowo joined Cars45 after it launched in 2016 and built a merchant network with classmates from the University of Lagos where he was studying to become a geophysicist. He says they spread out at Cars45’s five retail centres across Lagos and he set up a corporate bank to process their sales centrally. Then they “started to sell cars aggressively,” he says, at least 25 per month. Eventually, because of the traction they had, Oriowo says he secured a 30-car monthly consignment deal from Cars45 management at the time. The deal was contracted on condition that he could find a physical lot for the consignment. Fawaz Abdul and Femi Oriowo launched Carbin Africa after participating in 54Collective’s Gen F Venture Studio program Together with his crew, the dealership initially operated from Abdul’s grandmother’s backyard before Cars45 offered to co-fund a proper car showroom. But before business could fully kick off there, COVID-19 lockdowns happened, followed closely by management changes at Cars45, summarily ending the agreement. Oriowo says they adapted by reducing inventory with the capital they had and partnering with dealers to sell their inventory for commissions—₦50,000 per car. “They (dealers) really loved it because they only had to worry about buying the cars; they did not have to worry about selling,” Oriowo says. It was this collaboration with dealers combined with previous experience working as merchants on Cars45 that revealed challenges and market gaps which ultimately led to Carbin’s founding, Oriowo says. Unique selling point Carbin Africa is one of several online platforms that have launched since 2010 to ease the buying and selling of cars in Nigeria. To buy a car in Nigeria prior to 2010, you needed to visit any of several small and medium sized dealerships, or find listings in a newspaper, or attend a car auction, or know someone who had a car they were looking to sell. Marketplaces like Cheki—whose Ugandan and Kenyan operation Cars45 acquired in 2021, OLX, and Jiji facilitated the move online connecting anyone who wanted to buy or sell a car. Later startups like Cars45—which launched in 2016 and was acquired by Jiji in 2021—introduced, as its standout feature, verification and inspection services which were sorely needed in a low-trust market prone to fraud. In Lagos, the car market relies heavily on middlemen, according to Richard Odoboh, one such middleman who has been using Carbin Africa since it launched. These middlemen, or auto merchants as Carbin refers to them, know where you can find a good Nigerian-used Toyota Camry or who deals in good UK-used vehicles—used vehicles, valued at an estimated $1.24 billion, comprise about 90% of the car market in Nigeria. In the best case scenario, they know how to verify the authenticity of car vehicles or where to avoid buying a car. In 2018, five West African countries made up the top 10 importers of used light duty vehicles from Europe in 2018. Source: Compiled by UNEP based on data from the European Commission- Eurostat Comext Database, 2019 Their operations though, like your neighborhood tuck shops, are highly fragmented. It is unclear, for instance, how many of such middlemen there are exactly in Lagos. Oriowo says there’s likely around 10,000 across the country with a large percentage stationed most of the time in Lagos. These middlemen or auto merchants are Carbin Africa’s prime target customers. Oriowo argues that while end users might make a purchase, on average, once every few years, a middleman might sell two or three cars per month. By bringing together car dealers—which Carbin Africa defines as established brick and mortar dealership with at least five cars in their inventory and a dedicated staff to interface with the startup—Carbin Africa makes available to the them a large variety of cars to trade in. “I get cars from Carbin and then clients from Jiji,” Odoboh says, adding that he’s sold about 15-20 since joining the platform in 2023. He says he’s made as little as ₦50,000 and as high as ₦1 million in individual commissions. The platform is also solving for what Oriowo says remains a challenge for middlemen or auto merchants who use existing marketplaces: obsolete listings
Read More“Success speaks louder than stereotypes”–Norrsken22’s Lexi Novitske and Precious John-Adeyemi on bridging funding gap for female founders
Scaling a startup requires capital to invest in technology, hire talent, and achieve product-market fit. Many entrepreneurs rely on investors to fund this vision, but female founders find it more difficult to secure capital compared to men due to systemic challenges including biases in venture capital decision-making and the limited number of female founders pursuing high-growth opportunities. In 2024, female CEOs raised just $48 million—four times less than the previous year, according to the Big Deal. This is the lowest figure since 2019. In contrast, their male counterparts raised $2.2 billion. Norrsken22, a growth fund that invests in African startups, has backed female-led companies across Africa including Credrails, a fintech company, led by Pauline Wanjiku Githugu, and Sabi, a Nigerian B2B e-commerce platform led by Anu Adasolum. TechCabal spoke with Lexi Novitske, General Partner at Norrsken22, and Precious John-Adeyemi, Investment Analyst at Norrsken22, about the challenges of female entrepreneurs and bridging the funding gap. This interview has been slightly edited for length and clarity. What are the barriers female founders face in accessing funding? Lexi: Networking. Everyone struggles with it but female founders often connect more within their circles, while the investment world is still very male-dominated. Precious: Women start businesses in sectors that VCs often perceive as less scalable or less profitable. Even though these businesses leverage technology, they frequently operate in legacy industries such as consumer goods, education, or healthcare—sectors that, despite their economic significance, do not always fit the high-growth profiles favoured by VCs. Additionally, limited access to networks makes it more challenging for women to establish relationships necessary for business growth. This is why we must be intentional and proactive in supporting female-founder-focused communities and programs. By fostering more inclusive networks and ensuring greater representation in funding and decision-making, we can help bridge this gap. How would you say these challenges have evolved over the past five years? Lexi: More women are leading funds and joining investment teams, which helps. The bigger shift? Investors have seen enough female-led companies scale and deliver serious returns, so the bias is tilting in a more positive direction. Success speaks louder than stereotypes. Precious: Well, there has been progress in addressing these challenges. Gradually, we are seeing more recognition of the funding gap, leading to the rise of female-focused VC funds, accelerators, and grant programs. More investors are now tracking gender diversity metrics in their portfolios and making conscious efforts to back female-led companies. Norrsken22 is very proactive about it; we track the number of female-led startups that come in through our pipeline. And it’s hopeful to see a lot of VCs picking up on that as well. What values do venture capital firms typically look for when evaluating startups and do you think it’s missing in female-led startups? Lexi: VCs care about the fundamentals—unit economics, traction, market size, and scalability. Beyond that, we look for a team that can retain top talent, build strong governance systems (key for scaling big), and even sometimes the kind of ambition that makes profitability a later problem, not a new problem. Precious: VCs evaluate startups based on several core factors, with the most essential being market size, execution capabilities, and exit opportunities. Another critical consideration is monetisation strategy, as investors seek clear and scalable revenue models. These factors are not inherently missing in female-led startups but may be perceived differently due to biases in the investment process. Addressing these biases is crucial for creating a more equitable investment landscape that fully recognises and unlocks the potential of female founders. Are there specific financial or operational milestones that female founders should prioritise to increase their chances of securing funding? Lexi: Same as for any founder—black, white, male, female, Ivy League, or self-taught. Show strong traction, repeat customer engagement, attractive unit economics, and predictable growth. No special playbook—just execute well. Precious: Prioritise strong revenue growth, healthy unit economics, and a clear path to scalability. VCs look for businesses with consistent traction, high gross margins, and efficient customer acquisition & retention strategies. A clear path to exit (profitable exit) increases investor confidence, positioning the business as a high-potential investment opportunity. What trends should female founders focus on to increase their chances of securing funding? Lexi: We don’t chase hype, but real opportunities are out there—stablecoins making cross-border payments seamless, fixing fragmented supply chains, Pan-African banking, and the like. Precious: AI is indubitably a major focus in the investment landscape right now. But beyond the LLMs, generative AI, and other headline-grabbing innovations, I believe the real opportunity lies in leveraging AI to drive efficiency, automation, and transformation in legacy industries. For example, in healthcare, AI can enhance diagnostics, personalise treatments, and streamline administrative processes, making healthcare delivery more accessible and cost-effective. That is something I would like to see. What common mistakes should female entrepreneurs avoid when pitching to investors? Lexi: One: Not being concise. Learn from existing pitch templates and nail a clear, compelling story. Two: Not knowing exactly how much money you need, what you’ll use it for, and the KPIs that will prove its worth. Precious: Female founders should not be afraid to sell—not just their product, but their vision, their market opportunity, and their ability to scale. Too often, women pitch with a focus on operational excellence, risk mitigation, and sustainable growth, while male founders tend to emphasise bold ambitions, market dominance, and high-reward potential. Investors want to back businesses that can generate significant returns, and that requires founders to confidently articulate a big vision and the path to achieving it. Selling isn’t just about revenue, it’s about convincing investors that the business has the potential to become an industry leader. This means owning the numbers, confidently projecting future growth, and making a strong case for why the company is the right bet. Women should embrace the same level of conviction, storytelling, and scale-driven thinking that often defines the most successful fundraising pitches. The ability to sell is not just a skill; it’s a necessity for securing capital and building high-growth businesses.
Read MoreKenyan banks race to cut lending rates as Central Bank threatens daily fines
Kenyan commercial banks are racing to cut lending rates in response to a directive from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), which has threatened financial institutions with daily fines for non-compliance. The regulator is cracking down on lenders that have been slow to adjust their rates following successive Central Bank rate cuts to ease the cost of credit for businesses. According to Kenya’s Banking Act, the CBK can impose fines of KES 20 million ($154,619) or three times the monetary gain on banks that fail to comply with industry regulations. Lenders also face a daily penalty of KES 100,000 ($773) per violation, while bank officials may be fined up to KES 1 million ($7,730). Leading banks, including KCB Group, Equity Group, Cooperative Bank, I&M, and DTB, have cut interest rates by one to four percentage points. CBK wants to stimulate economic activity and support struggling households and businesses. Equity Bank’s latest rate cut this week marks its third reduction in six months, making it the only major lender to have consistently lowered borrowing rates in response to CBK’s monetary policy adjustments. “The regulator wants recent monetary policy decisions to be passed down to borrowers, which the banks have not,” said a senior CBK official who asked not to be named to speak freely. “If banks don’t comply, they will be penalized.” The CBK has increased surveillance of banks with an onsite inspection to ensure lenders price their loans pegged on their risk-based models and the falling central bank rate. Other banks that have not complied are expected to cut their rates to avoid unnecessary financial penalties. “All we are asking is for banks to be fair and to act in the same way that they were quick to raise lending rates when the policy rate was increasing and the treasury rates were increasing,” CBK Governor Kamau Thugge said on December 6. “I think it’s in banks’ interest to lower their lending rates. If they continue on this path it will be a no-win for anyone and the economy will not be able to perform,” Thugge said. Between November and December 2024, Thugge summoned bank executives and urged them to lower borrowing costs to support the economy. Only a handful of lenders, like Equity, complied with the directive. Despite three successive rate cuts, the gap between the central bank rate and lending rates has widened to a near three-year high, raising questions about the low transmission of monetary policy changes to customers. The average interest rate hit 17.22%, an eight-year high, cutting private sector credit growth by 1.4%. Since August 2024, CBK has cut the benchmark rate by 2.25 basis points to 10.75, with the latest being February 5, 2025.
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Quick Fire 
with Timi Odueso
Timi Odueso is a content strategist who’s spent the past decade helping media and arts companies across Africa craft, manage and grow compelling narratives. When he isn’t obsessing over content or growth questions, Timi can be found writing fiction and playing League of Legends. Coincidentally, and purely so, he’s been writing/editing TC Daily since 2021 and is partly responsible for all bad puns since. Explain your job to a five-year-old. Imagine you have a big box of colourful storybooks, and you want to share them with friends. My job is to help find those friends, make sure they know the storybooks exist, and get them excited to read them every time a new one comes out. I also help make the storybooks fun, easy to read, and interesting, so all our friends keep coming back for more stories! You studied law. What drew you to media products? At first I was afraid, it was part of my job as a journalist. And then, it offered me the opportunity to learn a lot of things and learn them fast. There’s product management, yes, but there’s also front-end development, UX/UI design, performance marketing, and content strategy. I’ve even done a couple of expense sheets. Plus law and products are similar in the sense that you can do both in any sector and any company. What’s one major lesson you’ve learned from running a newsletter that most people wouldn’t expect? One key lesson I’ve learned is that the best newsletters have a face—or a voice. You know exactly who’s behind the words. For example, I remember Casey Newton’s newsletter before I remember that it’s called The Platformer. When I read Morning Brew, I can vividly picture Dan Toomey delivering the news in a TikTok-style rundown, and with Jay Acunzo, it’s like I’m listening to his podcast all over again. Great newsletters work because email is inherently personal. Unlike social media, where reactions are visible to everyone, your response to a newsletter is private—just between you and the writer(s)—even when, like Morning Brew, it’s a bunch of people. When that voice feels right, it’s like getting a note from a friend. And that’s why they succeed. What makes a great newsletter stand out from the noise in today’s crowded media space where readers have options? Like everything creative, people can smell the inauthenticity miles away. So make your newsletter authentic. Look, if you’re going to stand out, you need to have your voice, and be intentional with writing/creating things that matter to you. How do you measure the success of a newsletter—beyond just open rates? It depends on the objective of the newsletter. For a newsletter with an objective to redirect leads or readers outside the product itself, the metric of success is not an open rate but a click-through rate. The value here is not how many people open, it’s how many people click. Open rates are super critical; I’d say they’re the primary measure of success but look, they’re just percentages, and percentages can be misunderstood. For example, a newsletter recording an increase in open rates from 35% in January to 40% in June is not necessarily a good thing. In January, the newsletter may have had 100,000 readers which would mean a 35% open rate is 35,000 active readers. In June, they may have dropped to 80,000 which means just 32,000 active subs at a 40% open rate. The percentage increased, sure, but the real numbers tell us that numbers are dropping. That’s why it’s essential to go beyond percentages and focus on the actual numbers, whether it’s clicks, conversions, or another metric, to truly measure your newsletter’s success. If you could give one piece of advice to someone launching a newsletter in 2025, what would it be? Be consistent—this is the hardest part. I always like to say that newsletters are hungry-hungry babies. They require consistent attention or they will fester away into irrelevance. Crafting newsletter products for Africans comes with its peculiarities. Can you share some of these peculiarities and how you’ve navigated them? The biggest is that we’re still navigating is email literacy. Over the past five years, across every company I’ve worked with, we’ve consistently found that our target audiences aren’t as email-literate or email-conscious as we’d like. This gap makes growth tougher by limiting the number of high-quality leads we can generate. For example, you might run an ad and capture 4,000 leads, but only around 400 of them will consistently read the product—many might not even remember clicking the sign-up link. To address this, we’ve tightened our sign-up process with a double opt-in. This ensures that only genuinely interested readers subscribe, even if it means a narrower funnel. The funnel is so thin it only reinforces my theory on email literacy. I think we continue to grossly overestimate just how many people use email for their day-to-day tasks. Can anybody make a long-term career out of building newsletters and products for media companies? Is this something you see yourself doing for a long time? I’ll let you know the answer to the first in ten years, haha. On a more serious note, I follow several media product leaders from Alex Lieberman of Morning Brew to the Heads of Newsletters at The Economist, The Telegraph and others. There is a long-term career out there given that media companies, over the past decade, have realised that email is the only social space they can actually own. And it’s not just newsletters, media companies build products out of podcasts, videos, games (hello Wordle), even webpages; it’s why the NYT, Washington Post and a few others have their own apps. If it’s consistent, has a defined audience and is monetisable, then it’s a product. I like to do interesting stuff (even when they get monotonous), and building products in less funded sectors like media and arts means I often have to wear many hats and do different tasks. It keeps me engaged so yes, I am here for
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TechCabal Daily – Layoffs at Max
In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية TGIVD If you got the acronym in our welcome message, congratulations on finding love. You can show us some of that Valentine’s love in a couple of ways. Follow us @techcabal on TikTok and help us compete with Bella Poarch and all the other TikTok dancers. Share our pitch call with all the brilliant feature writers you know. Fill out the form at the bottom of this edition to let us know how we’re doing. Thank you! Quick Fire with Timi Odueso MAX laid off 30% of its workforce in January as it pursues EV goals Nigerian government takes over Keystone Bank after court ruling Funding Tracker World Wide Web 3 Events Features Quick Fire with Timi Odueso Timi Odueso is a content strategist who’s spent the past decade helping media and arts companies across Africa craft, manage and grow compelling narratives. When he isn’t obsessing over content or growth questions, Timi can be found writing fiction and playing League of Legends. Coincidentally, and purely so, he’s been writing/editing TC Daily since 2021 and is partly responsible for all bad puns since. Image source: TechCabal Explain your job to a five-year-old Imagine you have a big box of colourful storybooks, and you want to share them with friends. My job is to help find those friends, make sure they know the storybooks exist, and get them excited to read them every time a new one comes out. I also help make the storybooks fun, easy to read, and interesting, so all our friends keep coming back for more stories! You studied law. What drew you to media products? At first I was afraid, it was part of my job as a journalist. And then, it offered me the opportunity to learn a lot of things and learn them fast. There’s product management, yes, but there’s also front-end development, UX/UI design, performance marketing, and content strategy. I’ve even done a couple of expense sheets. Plus law and products are similar in the sense that you can do both in any sector and any company. How do you measure the success of a newsletter—beyond just open rates? It depends on the objective of the newsletter. For a newsletter with an objective to redirect leads or readers outside the product itself, the metric of success is not an open rate but a click-through rate. The value here is not how many people open, it’s how many people click. Open rates are super critical; I’d say they’re the primary measure of success but look, they’re just percentages, and percentages can be misunderstood. For example, a newsletter recording an increase in open rates from 35% in January to 40% in June is not necessarily a good thing. In January, the newsletter may have had 100,000 readers which would mean a 35% open rate is 35,000 active readers. In June, they may have dropped to 80,000 which means just 32,000 active subs at a 40% open rate. The percentage increased, sure, but the real numbers tell us that numbers are dropping. That’s why it’s essential to go beyond percentages and focus on the actual numbers, whether it’s clicks, conversions, or another metric, to truly measure your newsletter’s success. If you could give one piece of advice to someone launching a newsletter in 2025, what would it be? Be consistent—this is the hardest part. I always like to say that newsletters are hungry-hungry babies. They require consistent attention or they will fester away into irrelevance. Crafting newsletter products for Africans comes with its peculiarities. Can you share some of these peculiarities and how you’ve navigated them? The biggest is that we’re still navigating is email literacy. Over the past five years, across every company I’ve worked with, we’ve consistently found that our target audiences aren’t as email-literate or email-conscious as we’d like. This gap makes growth tougher by limiting the number of high-quality leads we can generate. For example, you might run an ad and capture 4,000 leads, but only around 400 of them will consistently read the product—many might not even remember clicking the sign-up link. To address this, we’ve tightened our sign-up process with a double opt-in. This ensures that only genuinely interested readers subscribe, even if it means a narrower funnel. The funnel is so thin it only reinforces my theory on email literacy. I think we continue to grossly overestimate just how many people use emails for their day-to-day tasks. Collect payments Fincra anytime anywhere Are you dealing with the complexities of collecting payments in NGN, GHS or KES? Fincra’s payment gateway makes it easy to accept payments via cards, bank transfers, virtual accounts and mobile money. Get started now. Startups MAX laid off 30% of its workforce in January as it pursues EV goals Image source: MAX Nigerian mobility financing startup MAX has made a bold bet on electric vehicles (EVs), but not without casualties. In January, the company laid off 150 employees—30% of its workforce—as it transitioned to exclusively financing EVs across Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon. The move is part of MAX’s ambitious plan to finance 120,000 EVs, triple the number of vehicles it supported in 2024. However, the layoffs have raised concerns among employees, some of whom claim the terminations were abrupt and lacked severance packages. MAX insists the restructuring was necessary, offering support measures like job placement assistance. Beyond workforce cuts, the company has introduced cost-saving measures, including reduced energy consumption and a push for cleaner energy sources at its offices and battery swap stations. MAX is also scaling its EV charging infrastructure, securing a $10 million partnership with PASH Global in November 2024. Despite its aggressive pivot, MAX faces huge financial demands. Since 2019, it has raised $63 million in equity and debt financing, but with EVs costing up to $900 per unit, securing additional capital will be critical. The mass job cuts signal that the mobility financing startup is on a path to becoming cost-efficient. Nigeria’s EV
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