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April 24 2023

This Botswana-based AI startup is looking to revolutionise marketing in Africa. Here is how they plan to do it

The rise in popularity of OpenAI’s conversational AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has seen the entrance into mainstream culture of consumer facing AI tools. DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are some other popular tools. In Africa, however, innovation around generative AI products has not become apparent. This does not mean that there is no activity in the AI space on the continent. Seipone.ai is a Botswana based AI startup which is building an enterprise software-as-a-service product which seeks to revolutionise the way brands understand their customers. Initially founded in 2018 as “Seriti Insights” which was a software consultancy firm, Seipone.ai made a full pivot to AI in April 2022, deciding to focus entirely on its enterprise AI SaaS product. This move is further explained by co-founder and CEO Nomsa Makgabenyana in an interview with TechCabal. “We started in 2018 building ad hoc and bespoke software solutions mainly in the insurance space for sales and operational teams to boost their productivity and to be able to get the maximum results from the data that they have,” she said. “Last year, we then decided to completely pivot from that business to build and solely focus on our AI too, Seipone.ai” A pivot worth making Although the timing for the pivot into AI seems well thought as it coincided with the bursting of generative AI into the mainstream, it was a difficult pivot to make for Makgabenyana and her team. “It was a difficult decision to make particularly because it meant we lost that consistent revenue from the consultancy business. But it was very important for us to take that strategic decision because we really believe in the potential of not only AI as a technology but of Seipone.ai as a business.” Speaking more on the product, Makgabenyana believes it will be the next big thing in helping companies and brands in Africa harness the power of social media and AI to really understand the sentiments and pain points of consumers. Using the power of artificial intelligence and applied machine learning, Seipone.ai carefully mines historical and real-time data to help brands and companies understand consumer sentiments for insightful decision-making, no matter their language and style in linguistics, which are ever so fleeting. It is designed to learn and understand natural language and is able to understand Setswana and other indigenous languages like Swahili as well as social media lingo and slang. It also gives emotions behind opinions and gives insights into what the public perception is of the user’s topic of interest, rendering it a bot with artificial intelligence capabilities. Target users include marketing agencies, advertising teams, brand builders, and managers by helping them to manage their brand reputation, identify online mentions, gain consumer intelligence, and more using a mix of algorithms that capture and comprehend 87% of data that is missed by traditional media tools that would otherwise be left out. Makgabenyane at the launch of Seipone.ai in April, 2022. (Image source: Provided) Expansion ambitions Although Seipone.ai currently serves clients only in Botswana, who include the country’s largest commercial bank and leading mobile network operator, the start has its sights set on entering the East Africa market, specifically Kenya. There are also future plans to penetrate the Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, USA, and Netherlands markets as there has been a significant amount of interest there. The startup is currently in the process of raising a seed round to further build out their minimal viable product (MVP) and also supercharge its expansion ambitions, a process she expects to be concluded within the next 6 to 18 months. “We have raised money in the past through some grants and although it has helped extend our runway, we are talking to a couple of investors who are showing a lot of interest. The issues we are coming across are with regards to valuations and other tidbits, which are expected especially in an undesirable economic environment but all in all, everything is progressing well and we expect to succeed with fundraising,” said Makgabenyana. Additionally, Makgabenyana also believes that the funding will help in marketing the product offering because their experience has shown that there is still a significant knowledge gap in most African markets about the true power of utilising AI as a marketing technology tool. Image source (Provided) To address that gap at the moment, Seipone.ai has developed a platform called Seipone Learning which is basically three workshops designed in-house to offer education on the power of AI for brands and companies. “So there’s three workshops in Seipone Learning. One is taken by me and focuses on showing the value of AI for businesses. The second one focuses more on how customers can incorporate AI into their marketing process and is taught by my co-founder Kagiso Mpa. The third one speaks more on understanding the value of language in marketing and is taught by a consultant who is a specialist in Applied Linguistics,” added Makgabenyana. Marching forward A year after fully pivoting to the AI product, Seipone.ai has had its fair share of wins, losses,challenges, and the lessons that come with the process. According to Makgabenyana, all those will contribute greatly towards building a business that will revolutionise the way companies and brands think about marketing in Africa. “I think we entered the market at the right time because the success of ChatGPT has given much needed attention to not only generative AI products but also enterprise ones like ours. We have garnered a significant amount of traction like raising some funds and also being accepted into programs like CcHub Nigeria which has helped us to significantly improve our product,” she said. On what will be the main focus over the next year of operations, Makgabenyana alludes to the focus on building partnerships that will serve the expansion mandate of the startup. “Forming partnerships will be very, very important because they will allow us to add some wind to our sails in terms of traction. Partnerships will also give us more clout because as a

April 24 2023

Naira nullified: Killing cash in an economy that runs on cash

<!– In partnership with –> Cet article est aussi disponible en français This essay is a contribution from Chernay Johnson (Director of Research, DFS Lab) and Joseph Benson-Aruna (Partner, DFS Lab) At the end of 2022, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) decided it was time to aggressively mop up excess cash in the economy and push more of the population towards its cashless policy by redesigning the naira and limiting cash withdrawal amounts. If you’ve been on any news or social media platform tied to Nigeria, you should know by now how terribly that went. The policy faced a legal challenge from 16 Nigerian states arguing against the length and unfairness of the deadline, resulting in the Supreme Court ruling that the old naira notes remain legal tender until December 31, 2023, and ordering the apex bank to suspend the deadline for the swap of naira notes. Even with the suspension, the ramifications of this policy mishap on the economy have been massive. Banking ecosystem and payment infrastructure unprepared The magnitude of impact has been huge. Cash in circulation declined by almost 70% between December 2022 and February 2023, per official data we retrieved from the CBN. As banks struggled to handle the surge in cash deposits, businesses and individuals began rejecting old notes out of fear of being stuck with unspendable cash. Majority of the population (nearly half of which are unbanked) were caught between: (1) the apparent poor planning by the CBN with regards to making said new notes available to banks in time for the deadline, and (2) the banks’ inability to handle the uptick in electronic banking activities as a result of the policy. Various media (here, here, here and here) reported that people had flocked to physical bank branches and ATMs to cash in old naira notes and source new notes but were not adequately served. Partially, this is due to Nigeria having very low levels of physical banking infrastructure, e.g. only 16.2 ATMs per 100,000 adults as of 2021. Mainly, the banks just did not have enough cash on hand, leaving lower-tier customers especially underserved. Many customers attempted to go cashless with account-to-account bank transfers, but found themselves confronted by a wave of failed transactions (including those initiated by USSD) and faulty mobile banking applications. Many fled to Twitter in outrage with very limited recourse through customer support services. Though the Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has not reported the official failure rates (since 2020, sigh), a host of published media interviews with the banking industry suggest the worsening in downtime of the central switch is largely to blame. “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 Partner Message Join African law firm, TEMPLARS, and international law firm Clifford Chance for their tech roundtable “Perspectives on Fintech in Nigeria”. Explore the latest fintech trends with global investors, policymakers, and leaders. Register now for insightful discussions and networking. CICO networks and small merchants have borne the brunt of servicing the last mile The one million CICO agents (“human ATMs”) spread across the country have borne the brunt of the surge experiencing increased costs of sourcing cash that they must pass on to the consumer at the last mile. CICO withdrawal costs to consumers have reportedly increased almost 20X in recent months to between ₦200 and ₦300 for every ₦1,000 withdrawal. With the increased costs of transacting in cash, the poor have much less to spend on basic necessities and food. Nigeria’s expansive 39m+ micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) base (including petty cash businesses), contributing 46% of national GDP, are possibly the worst hit. These businesses run on cash from sales and have thus struggled to stay afloat. Some have had to take up other solutions such as allowing customers to “By Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) to maintain operations. A leading macro indicator, the Stanbic IBTC Bank PMI for Nigeria fell to its worst level since the pandemic, signalling deterioration in country-wide business activity in the first quarter of 2023. Immediate impact of CBN policy on payments digitisation bigger than the “pandemic effect” Electronic fund transfer (EFT) volumes settled through the NIBSS Instant Payment Scheme (NIP) rose by an impressive 226% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023 (see table below). Mobile payment channels—which often service the low-value retail segment—showed even more significant year-on-year growth in transaction volumes, 605% in the same period. These are major jumps in the number of digital transactions. DFSLab estimates based on official data from NIBSS and the Central Bank of Nigeria. Accessed 21 April 2023. We also looked at the longer-term trends in the official data (not shown here), which suggest that the impact of demonetisation policy on payments digitisation in Nigeria is already much larger than the “COVID pandemic effect”. Partner Content: Earnipay expands its earned wage access solution to provide more solutions for businesses and income earners While this data paints a clear picture of what’s happening on the supply side, we are still missing data to clarify what’s happening to consumers. It’s part of the DFS Lab mission to create new data and insights of the tech ecosystem, so in March our team conducted a rapid survey of ~1,000 respondents in Nigeria to assess what the picture on the ground looks like. As far as we know, this is the first assessment of digital payments’ usage behaviour, following the onset of the country-wide cash crunch. It’s important to note that the data reflect the behaviours of the more digitally included and urbanised population, given that our

April 24 2023

👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Starlink ignores South Africa

Lire en français Read this email in French. 24 APRIL, 2023 IN PARTNERSHIP WITH Good morning A new WhatsApp feature that will roll out soon will allow receivers to stop disappearing messages from disappearing. Basically, if you receive a message set to automatically delete, WhatsApp will allow you to press a button to ask the sender to allow you to keep the message forever. Sounds unnecessary and complicated? Don’t blame Meta, they’ve probably fired all the employees in charge of UX and product. ‍ In today’s edition Starlink is not coming to South Africa Twitter is reinventing verification Altech group raises $18 million TC Insights: The Ecosystem Scandals of 2022 The World Wide Web3 Event: Code Cash Crop Ag-Hackathon Opportunities STARLINK IS NOT COMING TO SOUTH AFRICA It’s been months since Starboy Elon Musk’s internet service launched in Africa. In January, Nigeria became the first African country to receive the service. A month later the service launched in Rwanda, with blessings from the country’s ministry of ICT and innovation. According to Starlink’s availability map, the service is set to launch in 19 more African countries in 2023, with Zambia, Angola and Kenya scheduled for a Q2 2023 launch. Sixteen countries—Uganda, Tunisia, Ghana and Egypt inclusive—are scheduled for a 2024 release, while 18 more countries have unconfirmed launch windows. South Africa, Africa’s largest internet-consuming nation, is however missing from Starlink’s chart. Things are going South: Earlier this month, the Democratic Alliance claimed that the South African government was blocking Starlink’s entry into the country with its harsh telecommunications guidelines. For Starlink to launch in South Africa, it needs the IECS and IECNS licences. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) requires all companies that apply for these licences to have 30% of their equity held by “historically-disadvantaged groups”. That means South Africa wants Musk to give up a large stake in his profitable venture, so he can offer services in the country. Zoom out: ICASA, last week, mentioned that it had met with Starlink twice but was yet to receive an official licence application, an event everyone knows might never happen. ‍ . Kenya had a similar rule but President William Ruto recently reversed the law which required foreign businesses to have 30% Kenyan ownership to operate in the country. WORK WITH MONIEPOINT At Moniepoint, we’re creating the best workplace for global talent using the 4M framework- Meaning, Membership, Mastery and Money. This isn’t an ad designed to convince you to join us, but it has all the reasons why you should. Watch it here. This is partner content. TWITTER REINVENTS VERIFICATION On behalf of TechCabal, I’d like to wish all previously-verified readers a warm welcome back into the fray. How does it feel to fall from grace? Last Friday, true to his promise, Chief Twit Elon Musk and his Twitteroos effected the new legacy verified wipeout. All Twitter users—over 407,000 of them—who were previously verified under the old administration lost their blue ticks, and only Twitter Blue subscribers now have the verified marks. Friends in high places: If you still want the blue beetle tick without paying the $8 entry fee, there’s still hope—all you have to do is have millions of followers and join Musk’s posse. After the wipeout, celebrities took to Twitter to announce the loss of their social status, but some like horror writer Stephen King and family man LeBron James were still verified even without subscribing to Twitter Blue. Both had tweeted weeks ago that they would not pay for the service. Musk, moments after King’s tweet, charitably revealed that he was personally paying the Twitter Blue fees for a few persons. Fight the blues: Now, many more celebrities including pop star Lil NasX, Patton Oswalt, and Nigerian activist Aisha Yesufu who have been verified by force are looking for ways to rid themselves of the blue mark. Critics believe that Musk’s action is misleading and misrepresents the celebrities, many of whom have active followers who could be influenced into paying for the struggling Twitter Blue. So far, Twitter Blue reportedly has just about 385,000 subscribers, but it’s presently unclear how many of these people are actually willing paying subscribers. It’s still a long way off from the 50 million Twitter Blue subscriptions it needs to stay afloat. Come on, Elon, you can do it. Pave the way, put your back into it. ALTECH GROUP RAISES $18 MILLION The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is bringing the energy for funding news. Last week, DRC-based cleantech company Altech Group announced an $18 million raise in debt financing. The company, which has over 4,500 employees covering 22 provinces in the DRC, wants to use the money to provide more Congolese households with access to solar energy. Who funded the raise? Altech’s raise was led by the Energy Entrepreneurs Growth Fund (EEGF) Triple Jump and Rabobank. It also received support from Social Investment Managers and Advisors (SIMA Funds), SIDI (Solidarité Internationale pour le Développement et l’Investissement), Kiva, Whole Planet Foundation, and EquityBCDC. The grants were provided by Creating Hope in Conflict: a Humanitarian Grand Challenge and ANSER RDC. What’s next? Altech has reportedly sold over 350,000 solar products, affecting the lives of 1.7 million Congolese. Now, co-founder Washikala Malango says that it will use the funds to target households in rural, peri-urban and urban areas. So far, per Crunchbase, Altech Group has raised $27.1 million since its founding in 2013 with its last funding round being a $180,000 debt financing round in March 2022. EXPLORE FINTECH WITH TEMPLARS Join African law firm TEMPLARS and international law firm Clifford Chance for their tech roundtable Perspectives on Fintech in Ghana. Explore the latest fintech trends with global investors, policymakers, and leaders. Register now for insightful discussions and networking. This is partner content. TC INSIGHTS: WHAT THE TECH ECOSYSTEM SCANDALS OF 2022 HAD IN COMMON In addition to layoffs and the economic downturn in 2022, the African tech ecosystem was hit by a wave of scandals that shook the sector

April 24 2023

👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Starlink ignores South Africa

April 22 2023

Where does YC’s scaleback leave the African tech ecosystem?

“I really hope that one day, YC will recognise the value of what I’m building and back my startup. That will be the game changer.” This is Ayo*, a Lagos-based founder, sharing his hopes of being selected into one of Y Combinator’s cohorts last year. Like many founders, Ayo associates YC’s acceptance with startup success. “The money, the network, the opportunities—nothing beats it,’ he added emphatically. Ayo’s startup did not make it to YC’s list in the end, but that has done nothing to his faith in the accelerator. He will continue to try until he gets in, he says—a possibility that is now much slimmer, given YC’s recent scale-back from Africa. Y Combinator (YC), one of the world’s leading startup accelerators, has been a major player in shaping Africa’s tech ecosystem since the middle of the past decade, when tech-powered upstarts began to spring across the continent. The accelerator has backed over a hundred startups, including some of the continent’s success stories such as Flutterwave, Wave, and the Stripe-acquired Paystack. A report from last year, by research firm Briter Bridges, described YC’s portfolio companies as having the propensity to scale, evidenced by the over $1.3 billion follow-on funding raised by YC-backed companies. In a 2022 report by TechPoint, Michael Seibel, managing director and group partner at Y Combinator, spoke to the accelerator’s presence in Africa: “We continue to be impressed with the talent and ingenuity of African founders. We believe that African startup founders will be a massive part of the continued development of the continent.” But a sharp trend observed in YC’s latest cohorts suggests that the global accelerator may now be looking less at African (and other non-US) startups. About 50% of the startups YC funded in its 2021 summer batch were based outside the US—a move which, at the time, highlighted the accelerator’s increasing global presence. The W22 batch that followed recorded 24 startups from Africa, marking about 6% of startups in the cohort. After this cohort, the tide noticeably changed, and fewer African startups were accepted into the global accelerator. YC’s S22 batch had just eight African startups, a 63% decline from the previous cohort. Now, the latest W23 cohort welcomed only three startups from Africa, the lowest in recent years. Reports from industry watchers say the trend is traceable to YC’s refocus on US-focused startups, which comprised over 90% of the latest cohort. Indian startups, which historically trailed US startups in the number of accepted entries, recorded lesser acceptance in this cohort, with only 11 of them representing the region, compared to 33 in the winter batch last year. The trend is replicated across other regions, including Latin America, suggesting that Africa is not alone as it watches YC moonwalk from its heavy lifting across the world. But unlike India and some of these other economies, Africa’s technology ecosystem is just beginning to fledge, and YC’s presence directs much-needed attention to the continent, enabling more funding and growth opportunities. Implications for the African tech ecosystem Given YC’s outsized role in the African tech funding market, it’s easy to imagine a gloomy picture for the continent should the global accelerator decide to shelve its pan-African ambitions. Many African startups—such as Healthlane—credit the turning point in their businesses to the accelerator. Healthlane had failed to secure institutional investment after trying for two years, then they got into YC, and a $2.4 million funding followed. So, if YC gets blurry in the African tech picture, what happens to our nascent ecosystem? Joshua Marima, head of engagement and investor relations at research firm Briter, believes that YC’s scaledown might impact the ability of founders to raise capital, but not in any way absolute as other accelerators and funding instruments are now operational on the continent. “Founders will feel the pinch of YC’s $500k being less available, but there are now several other sources of funding. We are also seeing several other international accelerators stepping up, such as the Techstars brand which recently announced an all-Africa cohort. Local accelerators are also being more deliberate,” he said in a chat with TechCabal. Marima’s opinions are echoed by a reality in African tech: numerous founders are raising significant capital—$1 million and more—without going through Y Combinator. Local funds worth over $10 million, such as Microtraction Community Limited and LoftyInc Afropreneur Fund 3 are on the table for Africans. This was not the case when YC first began to invest in African startups. The ecosystem is maturing fast on the back of the “Africa rising” narrative, which continues to position the continent as a choice destination for local and global investors. “There was an obvious funding gap when YC made its first strides on the continent. Nobody was writing big cheques for founders back then. I think YC contributed hugely to closing that gap as the case it today. Of course, we still need YC in the African tech picture, but no founder should ride with the idea that they cannot scale without YC’s ticket,” Osita Nwoye, TechCircle’s founder and longtime Africa tech pundit, said on a call with TechCabal. This gap Nwoye speaks about is recognised by global accelerator Techstars, whose CEO, Maelle Gavet, predicts that Africa will leapfrog Western Europe this year by producing more tech-powered startups. Bridging this funding gap is a priority for Techstars, demonstrated by their decision to set up shop in Lagos, Nigeria. The ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator’s head, Oyin Solebo, spoke to TechCabal for this piece. “I can’t comment on YC, but what I can tell you is that we [Techstars] continue to believe in the strength and potential of African entrepreneurs. This belief is supported by the result of our recent State of Innovation Research report, which demonstrates an increasing belief in innovation coming from Africa…and the importance of accelerators for the African ecosystem,” she said. The way forward There are arguments that it is probably too early to confirm YC’s scaledown in Africa—especially as their reduced footprint is at a