Voice tech startup Intron launches new AI models amid broader sector expansion
Intron, a Nigerian AI company that provides speech-to-text transcription tools for healthcare workers, is introducing new speech recognition and text-to-speech AI models as it expands its services beyond the health sector. The launch comes as African startups develop multiple high-demand tools across various sectors to create additional revenue streams amid tighter funding and rising investor expectations. Similar to how PaidHR expanded its product offerings last year to diversify its revenue streams, this strategy continues to gain traction across Africa’s tech sector. Intron’s move reflects a similar approach. Intron is introducing three core models: Sahara-Optimus, a speech recognition model optimised for African accents; Sahara-TTS, a text-to-speech system featuring over 80 voices across more than 40 accents; and Sahara Voice-Lock, an intelligent voice authentication tool trained to combat fraud and deepfakes. “Intron was born in the busiest hospital wards, where background noise and scarce resources made accurate speech recognition a daily battle,” said Tobi Olatunji, Intron CEO. “We built for the hardest environment first, and now our technology scales effortlessly to courts, call centres, and content creators.” The startup, formerly Intron Health, piloted its clinical speech platforms in 2022 for hospitals and other key players in Africa’s healthcare sector, including health ministries. Since then, it has expanded its capabilities to offer voice-AI products to the Ogun State Judiciary in Nigeria to alleviate the burdens of manual note-taking and provide human-like conversational voice agents for call centres in the digital finance space. Intron aims to position itself as the key voice-infrastructure layer for startups, enterprises, and government institutions by offering voice technologies tailored to local needs in Africa, where platform giants like OpenAI may not meet these unique needs. “Rather than rail against Big Tech model bias, why not build better models?” Olatunji stated. The startup raised $1.6 million in a pre-seed round in July 2024. Intron is now training a new-generation Sahara-Titan model, which the company hopes will be able to understand, transcribe, and translate twenty major African languages like Swahili, Hausa, and Zulu. Alongside it is the Sahara-Primus model, which Intron hopes will generate fluent and natural-sounding speech in these twenty languages. The question is whether more African startups will continue to adopt an industry-agnostic approach and build for broader audiences to keep revenue flowing and stay financially sustainable in an increasingly challenging funding landscape. Mark your calendars! Moonshot by TechCabal is back in Lagos on October 15–16! Join Africa’s top founders, creatives & tech leaders for 2 days of keynotes, mixers & future-forward ideas. Early bird tickets now 20% off—don’t snooze! moonshot.techcabal.com
Read MoreStarlink subscriptions drops 11% in Kenya as Safaricom 5G routers win over users
Starlink’s customer numbers in Kenya have dropped for the first time since its launch in June 2023, highlighting the impact of a seven-month freeze on new sign-ups and growing pressure from local rivals, such as Safaricom’s 5G routers. New data from the Communications Authority (CA) shows that Starlink’s fixed internet subscriptions fell from over 19,000 in Q4 2024 to 17,066 by the end of March 2025, a decline of more than 2,000 users, or about 11% in one quarter. The drop from seventh to the eighth largest ISP in Kenya follows a service pause that began in late 2024, when Starlink stopped accepting new users in Nairobi and nearby counties, including Kiambu, Machakos, Kajiado, and Murang’a. The company cited overcapacity, caused by too many users trying to connect in the same areas. A new ground station in Nairobi, activated in January, was meant to ease the load. Many customers had already bought the hardware but remained on waitlists for months. While availability has reopened, the pause has stalled user growth. Some customers may have also chosen to stop paying the monthly KES 6,500 ($50) fee for its 180 Mbps plan, due to connection delays, unresolved technical issues, or switching to cheaper services. Safaricom’s fixed 5G packages, for instance, now start at KES 3,000 ($23) a month, with routers retailing at a fraction of the price of a Starlink kit (KES 3000 = $23). The latest Starlink kit goes for KES 45,000 ($348). Safaricom has not disclosed the number of customers using its 5G routers, although it has promoted adoption through aggressive marketing campaigns on its social media channels and sales teams in peri-urban areas. The subscription drop comes even as Starlink remains one of the few viable options for users in peri-urban and remote areas, where fibre and mobile coverage is weak. For many of these users, Starlink offers faster speeds than legacy ISPs, but at a higher cost and without the benefit of local customer support. Retail momentum has also slowed. Supermarket chains like Carrefour have scaled back on Starlink kits, while others like Quickmart now promote Safaricom 5G routers instead. Although Starlink’s name recognition remains strong, thanks to social media buzz and endorsements from Elon Musk, regulatory hurdles could add pressure. The Kenyan government plans to raise satellite licence fees nearly tenfold and add a 0.4% turnover levy. Mark your calendars! Moonshot by TechCabal is back in Lagos on October 15–16! Join Africa’s top founders, creatives & tech leaders for 2 days of keynotes, mixers & future-forward ideas. Early bird tickets now 20% off—don’t snooze! moonshot.techcabal.com
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M-PESA’s market share drops for sixth straight quarter as Airtel Money gains ground
Safaricom’s M-PESA has now lost market share for six consecutive quarters, slipping from 97% in Q4 2023 to 90.8% in Q1 2025, according to new data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA). The continued slide points to growing competition in Kenya’s mobile money sector, where interoperability, pricing, and agent access influence customer behaviour. Airtel Money’s share rose to 9.1% in Q1 2025, up from 8.9% the previous quarter and just 2.9% two years ago. Its growth has been supported by fee refunds, lower transaction costs, and partnerships with supermarket chains like Naivas to expand agent access. Mobile money subscriptions grew 7.3% to 45.4 million during the quarter, pushing penetration to 86.6%. That rise mirrors a broader rebound in SIM subscriptions, which grew 6.7% to 76.2 million, helped by telcos’ win-back campaigns. The total number of registered mobile money agents also increased by 5.5% to 417,000, indicating a broader distribution reach for all players, particularly challengers like Airtel. While M-PESA still dominates in agent footprint with over 299,000 outlets, Airtel Money’s focused growth is beginning to pay off. Lower costs remain a key advantage for Airtel. Sending KES 1,000 ($7.7) to other networks costs KES 11 ($0.085) on Airtel, compared to M-PESA’s KES 13 ($0.1). Withdrawing the same amount is cheaper on Airtel by KES 2 ($0.015). M-PESA’s decline began after Kenya introduced mobile money interoperability in 2022, which enabled users to transact across different networks. That shift weakened the lock-in that Safaricom had long enjoyed. Airtel has used the opportunity to attract new users with targeted incentives, including airtime cashback for bank-to-Airtel Money transfers. The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has yet to implement agent-level interoperability, which would allow users to access services at any agent, regardless of provider. If rolled out, it could further reduce the barriers for customers to switch. M-PESA still moves over 30 billion transactions annually, worth more than KES 38.29 trillion ($296 billion), and serves over 34 million users. But Airtel’s gains suggest that momentum is no longer one-sided. CBK’s new payments infrastructure, the Fast Payment System (FPS), could further level the field by enabling instant money transfers across banks and payment platforms. Mark your calendars! Moonshot by TechCabal is back in Lagos on October 15–16! Join Africa’s top founders, creatives & tech leaders for 2 days of keynotes, mixers & future-forward ideas. Early bird tickets now 20% off—don’t snooze! moonshot.techcabal.com
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How to update your phone in 2025: A guide to keeping it fast and secure
Table of contents How to update Android phones How to update an iPhone How to update your phone according to an expert A few weeks ago, my friend’s phone started acting weird. Messages were lagging, the camera app kept crashing, and her battery drained faster than a sinkhole. Her first instinct? “Maybe I need a new phone.” But before she hit checkout on that shiny new device, I asked, “When was the last time you updated your phone?” She paused. “I don’t know… last year?” Turns out that little pop-up we all love to ignore had been trying to do her a favour. A quick update later, her phone felt brand new. That moment made something clear: most of us underestimate the importance of software updates. But they’re not just annoying interruptions; they’re the key to keeping your phone running smoothly, securely, and up to speed with the latest features. Here’s what you need to know about how updates work, why they matter, and what happens when you hit “Install now.” How to update your phone: A step-by-step guide Before starting any phone update, a little preparation goes a long way. These steps apply to both Android and iPhone users. Pre-update checklist Back up your phone: Save your data first. Use iCloud, Google Drive, or your computer to back up important files, photos, and contacts. Charge your battery: Ensure your phone is at least 50% charged, or better yet, plugged in. Connect to Wi-Fi: Updates are significant. Use a stable Wi-Fi connection so the update doesn’t stall or fail. Free up storage space: Clear out unused apps or big files. Your phone needs enough space to download and install the update smoothly. How to update Android phones How to check for an update Open Settings Tap System > Software update Tap Download and install, if available Samsung Settings > Software update > Download and install Xiaomi Settings > Tap the MIUI banner > Check for update Note: For significant updates, such as HyperOS, you may need to install the file or adjust your region settings manually. OnePlus Settings > System > System updates > Tap Check for updates For manual updates, download the .zip file from the OnePlus website and follow the steps for a Local upgrade inside the System Update settings. Common Android update issues & fixes Not Enough Space: Delete large videos, photos, or unused apps to free up space. Clear app cache under Settings > Apps. Wi-Fi Problems: Switch to a stronger signal. Restart your router if needed. Battery Drains After Update: Give it a day or two. Updates often recalibrate your phone. Apps Not Working Right: Update the apps. If that fails, try uninstalling and reinstalling. Stuck or Error Messages: Restart your phone. If the issue persists, check for another update or backup, and then reset your device. Read more on Android phones: Tecno Pop 9 review: What phone sellers and users think about it in 2025 Top 10 Android phones released in 2025 How to update an iPhone The easy way (Wireless) Go to Settings > General > Software Update Tap Download and Install Follow the prompts and restart your phone when it’s done Ensure you’re connected to Wi-Fi, plugged in, and backed up beforehand. The manual way (Using a computer) If wireless doesn’t work: On a Mac (macOS Catalina or later): Open Finder, select your iPhone, and click Check for Update On Windows or older Macs: Open iTunes, click your device, then check for updates Follow the steps to download and install the software. Extra iOS features Automatic updates Settings > General > Software Update > Automatic UpdatesTurn on both “Download iOS Updates” and “Install iOS Updates” Rapid security response For fast security fixes:Go to the same menu above and enable “Security Responses & System Files” Common iPhone update issues & fixes Not enough space: Tap “Continue” to let the system remove and reinstall apps, or delete files manually. Update not showing: Restart your phone. Also, check for VPNs or proxies; they can block updates. Your phone is too old: Ensure your model supports the latest iOS version. Read more on iphones: iOS 26 Unveiled at WWDC 2025: Key highlights and announcements How to update your phone (Tips from someone who’s fixed many broken ones) When it comes to updating your smartphone, few people have seen the consequences, both good and bad, more closely than phone repair technicians. To understand what happens after users hit that “update now” button, we spoke with Samuel Ogundipe, a Lagos-based mobile repair expert and owner of RepairItNow. This phone service shop has handled thousands of devices over the past decade. “Updates are important, no doubt, but they’re not magic. I’ve had customers come in with phones that slowed down, overheated, or even stopped working properly just after installing one,” Samuel tells us. “It’s not always the update itself that’s bad, but how the device handles it, especially older models.” Based on our conversation with Samuel and what he has seen firsthand, we break down the most common update complaints and what is going on under the hood. 1. UI changes that disorient more than delight A common frustration Samuel sees? Clients feel completely lost after an update. “They tell me, ‘It’s like someone moved everything in my kitchen!’” He laughs. “Icons are smaller, settings are moved, and the font looks weird. They think their phone has changed brands.” These user interface overhauls, especially on Android devices, can be jarring, particularly for older users who are accustomed to relying on muscle memory when navigating their phones. Samuel points out that while developers aim for ‘fresh’ design, they sometimes forget that users value familiarity more than flash. 2. Post-Update performance drops While updates are meant to improve performance, Samuel says he’s seen plenty of cases where the opposite happens. “We get phones in, where everything was working fine, until the update. Then it starts freezing, apps crash, or it just becomes slow like it’s struggling to breathe,” he explains.
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“People made this happen, not me”: Day 1-1000 of Lendsqr
Lendsqr grew from a side project to four failed product launches and found product-market fit, twice. If anyone in Nigeria could solve a fintech or credit-related problem, it was Adedeji Olowe. Before founding his fintech Lendsqr, which provides proprietary technology for lenders, Olowe worked in different capacities in some of Nigeria’s biggest banks. He was the former head of electronic banking and web management at Nigeria’s largest bank by asset, Access Bank. He held the same role at Fidelity Bank, a tier II Nigerian bank. He was the former head of cards at UBA and head of business automation at FCMB. Olowe is the current board chairman of Nigeria’s fintech poster child, Paystack, and previously served on the boards of Sparkle and Verve International, a division of Nigeria’s fintech unicorn, Interswitch. His efforts alongside other trustees of the Open Banking Nigeria helped secure the approval of open banking in Nigeria. I sought Olowe out for two main reasons: to learn why, after nearly 20 years in banking, he chose to build credit technology for lenders rather than become a digital lender himself, and to understand exactly how he achieved this. I went into the interview anticipating that Olowe was going to share a barrage of tips and motivational-esque talk about how he did it. Yet, Olowe’s answer was simple: he wouldn’t have done it without the faith and talent of numerous people. This is the story of Lendsqr as told to TechCabal. 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It came from Joey, a ridiculously talented designer and partner at DFS Labs. I met Joey through Tosin Eniolorunda of Moniepoint. Joey once helped us redesign Fidelity’s Internet banking platform. It was so well done, it didn’t need a facelift for a decade. Joey had an idea around building the technology to help digital lenders disburse loans and get paid back. He floated it by me, and while he and his team didn’t run with it, I couldn’t let it go. That was 2017. By early 2018, I started tinkering with the concept myself. I wasn’t ready to build a startup from scratch, but the itch had taken hold. I was still working full-time as an executive at Coronation Group, reporting directly to Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede. I told him about this little side project. He gave me his blessing. We called it Lendstack back then. Everyone was using “stack”—Paystack, Wealthstack—so we joined the party. I was also on Paystack’s board at the time, so I eventually decided to change the name. But naming was the least of our problems. We built and scrapped the product four times between 2018 and 2020. Each version failed to meet the ambition we had in our heads. The tech didn’t work. The experience wasn’t good. I wasn’t even full-time. It was me, a personal assistant, and a contractor here and there. It was Mickey Mouse software. That’s the truth. An accidental product market fit Then, sometime in late 2019, a company called BlinkCash approached us. They didn’t want to use our platform; they just needed a lending app and backend built from scratch. We needed the cash, so I gave the brief to two young developers: Chigozie and Tosin. I can’t overstate this: what those boys built became the Lendsqr of today. We turned their codebase into
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Digital Nomads: A 24-hour Lagos pharmacy chain makes a healthtech pivot
Three weeks ago, I was in Lekki, an upscale part of Lagos, for a weekend staycation. Sometime that Saturday, a dull headache crept in, the kind that makes you squint in sunlight and wish you had packed better. I stepped into the nearest pharmacy along Admiralty Way. Inside, the fluorescent lights glowed softly. The shelves were well organised and perfectly labelled. Everything seemed exactly where it belonged. I picked up a pain-relief drug, paid, and left. Yet, something about the place stayed with me. Days later, on a call with Odunola Oyegade, it all made sense. I had walked into one of the four Mopheth Pharmacy stores she and her husband own across Lagos. What began as a 12-square-metre shop in Adeola Odeku street, Victoria Island, now serves up to 150,000 customers every month. No one prepared me for the clarity of her vision or how she and her husband bootstrapped it all with just ₦50,000 ($544.5)*, an entrepreneurial and religious faith, and a relentless focus on quality. Today, she’s taking that wealth of experience into the digital healthtech sector with Hexia Health, building with the same confidence and stride of vision. Get the best African tech newsletters in your inbox Country Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Antarctic Territory British Indian Ocean Territory British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Canton and Enderbury Islands Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos [Keeling] Islands Colombia Comoros Congo – Brazzaville Congo – Kinshasa Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Côte d’Ivoire Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Dronning Maud Land East Germany Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories French Southern and Antarctic Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong SAR China Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Johnston Island Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macau SAR China Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Metropolitan France Mexico Micronesia Midway Islands Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar [Burma] Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles Neutral Zone New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island North Korea North Vietnam Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pacific Islands Trust Territory Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Panama Canal Zone Papua New Guinea Paraguay People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen Peru Philippines Pitcairn Islands Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Réunion Saint Barthélemy Saint Helena Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Korea Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria São Tomé and Príncipe Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu U.S. Minor Outlying Islands U.S. Miscellaneous Pacific Islands U.S. Virgin Islands Uganda Ukraine Union of Soviet Socialist Republics United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Unknown or Invalid Region Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Wake Island Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Åland Islands ?> Gender Male Female Others TC Daily Events TC Scoop <!– Next Wave –> <!– Entering Tech –> Subscribe Grit follows vision Odunola Oyegade, a trained pharmacist, started Mopheth Pharmacy with her husband, Adekunle Oyegade, who is also a pharmacist from a family line of entrepreneurial healthcare professionals. She, too, had a knack for entrepreneurship, recalling how she would go to her grandfather’s home during the holidays as a child to sell goods at the store he owned. She studied at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, then landed a job as a full-time pharmacist afterward. Even then, she was determined to raise the bar for pharmacy care in Nigeria and build a practice people could trust. In 1997, her now-husband, Adekunle, founded Mopheth, while she took to his side as co-founder. “We registered [Mopheth] before we were even married. We knew what we wanted to do, but didn’t know when and how it was going to happen,” Oyegade said. It took a while before business eventually kicked in for the pharmacist couple. There was no external funding, and the 1990s didn’t provide a kind climate for business. This was largely because entrepreneurs in Nigeria at the time faced obstacles such as poor electricity supply, inadequate access to finance, high costs of doing business, and unreliable infrastructure. All of these made it difficult to start and sustain new ventures. Even today, not much has changed. Yet, this didn’t deter the couple. The Oyegades opened a pharmacy because they spotted something wrong in the sector: people were misusing medicine. “Let’s assume a customer wanted to buy an antibiotic, and they needed 20 as the right dosage. They’d walk into stores and ask them to ‘cut five’ so they could feel better for a day or two,” said Oyegade. But good intentions alone don’t run a business. At one point, the couple tried to get a ₦100,000 (($1,089)* bank loan and were turned down. In the 1990s, Nigeria’s banking sector was going through a wave of consolidation. Several banks were closing down for failing to meet capitalisation requirements, and the ones that remained needed to ensure they did business right and shielded themselves from risk. “They didn’t give us [the loan], likely because we didn’t have enough revenue. The banks probably thought we were too
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Cloud costs are sneaky—here’s how to keep them in check
At this commercialised phase of cloud computing, the greatest selling point is the ability to speed up product time-to-market for developers and builders, eliminating huge initial investment costs. It is also notorious for racking hidden costs, as this seemingly cheap, flexible option can balloon into an unpredictable and overwhelming line item on your budget. From almost 2 years of experience managing monthly cloud costs for a company of 300+ employees, the major cost drivers are compute, data transfers, and storage. The impact of these cost drivers is usually multiplied in enterprises that run multiple application environments like dev, staging, and prod. Often, the resources spun up in the dev/staging environments far outweigh what is needed, resulting in waste. To keep these high-cost drivers in check, cloud users should implement some or all of these cost-saving options. Automate resource clean-up to eliminate wasted spend When working in a dev/test environment, rely on automation rather than human discipline to clean up, which often doesn’t scale well. With automation, for example, resources provisioned through a CI/CD pipeline can be assigned a time-to-live (TTL) period to ensure they’re automatically cleaned up after use. This doesn’t impact production because it’s dev/test, and that’s an easy place to start. Take advantage of standardised patterns Leverage standardised usage patterns to unlock cost-saving opportunities like reserved instances or enterprise discount plans. By defining common instance types such as small, medium, and large across the organisation, teams can consolidate demand and make bulk purchases of those specific types, maximising discounts. This is far more efficient than spreading usage across many slightly different instance configurations in smaller quantities. It is easy to build these standards into Terraform modules, for instance, and define which instance type is categorised as small, medium, or large. Match resources to workloads for optimal cost efficiency Developers often over-provision infrastructure, for example, assigning 64 CPU cores to an application that only needs 8. To avoid unnecessary costs, monitor metrics like peak CPU utilisation and scale resources vertically to better match demand, and in cases where high availability isn’t critical, consider horizontal downscaling to further reduce overhead. Additionally, implement autoscaling strategies by setting minimum and maximum capacity thresholds based on observed traffic patterns, ensuring resources scale dynamically with workload fluctuations. Design cost-aware architectures from the ground up Designing with cost in mind means making architectural choices that minimise unnecessary expenses. Data transfer cost, one of the major cost drivers, is typically influenced by data travel direction, within or outside VPCs, availability zone, and regions. AWS explains how structuring your network architecture to keep traffic within the same availability zone or region can significantly reduce data transfer costs. Similarly, it’s important to regularly monitor how data is stored and how long it needs to be retained. Not all data requires high-performance, high-cost storage solutions. Frequently accessed data might justify being stored in faster, more expensive storage tiers, but infrequently accessed or archival data should be moved to lower-cost storage classes such as Amazon S3 Glacier, Azure Cool Blob Storage, or Google Cloud Archive. Implementing lifecycle policies helps automate this process by transitioning data between storage classes based on age, access frequency, or business rules. This ensures you’re not paying premium rates for storing old log files, backups, or audit data that’s rarely accessed but still needs to be retained for compliance or historical purposes. Proper classification and tiering of storage can result in substantial long-term savings, especially as data volume grows. Budgeting and resource tagging for cost visibility and accountability One effective way to manage cloud spend across an organisation is to allocate specific monthly budgets to individual teams, departments, or business units. Alongside this, implementing consistent resource tagging on cloud resources to associate them with their respective owners. This tagging enables detailed cost tracking and reporting, allowing organisations to break down cloud expenses by team or function. Most cloud providers offer tools like AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Cost Management, or Google Cloud Billing Reports, which work best when tags are properly configured. By making teams directly responsible for their cloud usage, they are more likely to evaluate their provisioning decisions, clean up unused resources, and avoid unnecessary spending when they see the direct impact on their budget. It transforms cloud cost management from a centralised concern into a shared responsibility in day-to-day engineering practices. Ultimately, cost optimisation isn’t just a financial concern; it’s a technical discipline that leads to more resilient, maintainable, and scalable applications. Architecting with cost efficiency in mind empowers developers to build more sustainable systems without sacrificing performance. By applying these strategies, teams can significantly reduce cloud spend. ___________ Osinachi Ibiam-Uro is a Cloud-savvy DevOps Engineer delivering secure, scalable infrastructure for Web3 and AI enterprise teams. Passionate about automation, cost optimisation, and cross-cloud deployments. She loves building reliable systems in the cloud using Terraform, Kubernetes, and GitHub Actions across AWS and GCP. Mark your calendars! Moonshot by TechCabal is back in Lagos on October 15–16! Join Africa’s top founders, creatives & tech leaders for 2 days of keynotes, mixers & future-forward ideas. Early bird tickets now 20% off—don’t snooze! moonshot.techcabal.com
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Asset Chain launches P2P blockchain trading platform with zero fees
Asset Chain, a Nigerian blockchain infrastructure company, has launched its eponymous blockchain, a Layer-1 (L1) network built to provide a safer and faster way for Nigerians to trade digital assets and real-world assets—like property or commodities—directly with each other, without relying on middlemen or traditional banks. The launch introduces a new decentralised exchange (DEX) where users can trade between USDT, a dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Tether, and cNGN, a Naira-backed stablecoin. The company says its DEX is “gasless,” meaning users do not pay transaction fees. “Traders will buy USDT with cNGN without talking to anyone, and settlement is instant. Also, traders don’t pay gas fees. It is free of charge (sponsored) on Asset Chain,” said Ugochukwu Aronu, the company’s CEO and co-founder. Nigeria’s crypto market accounted for $59 billion in transactions in 2024. A good chunk of these transactions happen on peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto exchanges, which are often untraceable due to their informal nature. Asset Chain is going after the P2P crypto market to solve common issues like fraud. Asset Chain’s DEX uses smart contracts to automate trades, so buyers and sellers don’t have to trust each other or rely on a third party. When a user wants to trade, the smart contract checks the details and matches a buyer to a seller based on their pre-set conditions, then completes the exchange automatically. Currently, 200 traders and liquidity providers have joined the DEX platform, and the company says hundreds more users are expressing interest. Asset Chain targets ₦100 billion ($65 million) in trading volume within its first 60 days. An Asset Chain spokesperson told TechCabal that the platform is designed to be easy to use and “offers a seamless experience similar to popular P2P exchanges but with added security and privacy, ensuring users control their funds at all times.” The blockchain is currently invite-only, which the company says is to ensure that only serious users join at first, provide liquidity, and help test the system before opening it to everyone. “It is invite-only, not because of the blockchain’s performance—that has been [tested and] verified already. It can handle over 20,000 transactions per second,” Aronu said. 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The permissionless blockchain is built to attract developers, joining other projects like Bantu that aim to capture value from keeping payments circulating within Africa. Yet, Asset Chain will need more crypto projects to build on its blockchain if it hopes to reach the scale and local impact it aims for. The company wants to keep more payment value within Nigeria and Africa, rather than sending it to foreign platforms. When people put their cryptocurrencies and stablecoins into decentralised finance (DeFi) apps on blockchains like Base, Solana, or Ethereum, for example, by staking or adding to liquidity pools, the value of those assets is counted as total value locked (TVL) on the platform. TVL shows how much money is being used in these apps, and when it grows, it helps bring in more users and liquidity providers to these networks. “Almost nothing comes to Nigeria, and it must change,” said Aronu. “We can’t just keep contributing to other blockchains and platforms without getting any value in return. We must have our own infrastructure that attracts and captures value globally.” Beyond
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Explainer: Nigeria’s ride-hailing graveyard and the network effect
On the surface, Nigeria’s ride-hailing market seems ripe for disruption. Drivers continue to complain of tightening margins from dominant platforms, while riders constantly seek better prices. It is the perfect setup for a nimble challenger to offer a more equitable deal and win the day. But so far, Nigeria’s startup landscape is a graveyard for ambitious ride-hailing apps. An estimated 2,500 such apps have launched over the past decade, only to become obscure weeks, months or years later. This consistent failure has been framed as a story of startups being outspent by global giants, like Uber, Bolt, and inDrive. But that view is simplistic. The critical challenge is not just access to capital, but the punishing economics of creating what truly matters in a platform business: the network effect. Network effect is a powerful phenomenon where a product or service becomes more valuable as more people – users, and service providers – use it. Each party adds compounding value in a sort of positive feedback loop. For instance, the more riders express interest in a ride-hailing service, the more drivers join the network and vice versa. The concept of a network effect is the engine behind successful digital platforms, from social networks like WhatsApp and LinkedIn, to e-commerce platforms like Jumia, Selar, and Chowdeck, and ride-hailing networks like Uber, Bolt, and LagRide. A rider doesn’t care about a new sleek app or comfortable car options if the nearest driver is almost always 40 minutes away. They will leave for apps with shorter wait times and may never return. Likewise, drivers will leave, even if offered lower commissions, for platforms where the demand is constant. Getting started: Building an atomic network Within the concept of a network effect, the first dilemma every ride-sharing app faces is the classic “chicken-and-egg” problem: a platform needs drivers to attract riders, but drivers will not join without a critical mass of riders. The solution, experts argue, lies in creating an atomic network—the smallest viable network where enough riders and drivers are present to ensure everyone sticks around. Attracting and retaining the “hard side”—the drivers, who generate most of the platform’s value—is critical to building this network. One good way to approach this is to pick your battleground, geographically. When Uber launched in 2014, it focused on the island, a more upscale part of Lagos State. GoKada, the motorcycle-hailing service, launched in Lagos in 2018 with an exclusive focus on Yaba, a dense hub of students and tech professionals. By concentrating drivers in one area, a ride-hailing service can improve the perception of supply—like ensuring goods are always on the shelf—and refine its model with customer feedback before expanding to surrounding regions. Image source: Ngozi Chukwu, generated on Gemini An atomic network is critical. Laolu Onifade, founder of the now-defunct car pooling startup Hytch, learned this the hard way. Onboarding about 50 drivers before launch and about 1,000 riders days after launch, with no marketing spend, seemed like a good start, but their locations were too dispersed. “One thing we noticed was that sometimes, a driver would be on the island and the rider is somewhere on the mainland,” he recalled. Even when a service succeeds in building a viable atomic network, this success is not easily transferred to other locations or networks. This is why most platforms use a city-by-city expansion, and why some ride-sharing platforms are often described as a network of networks. Bolt cleverly exploited this by expanding into cities where Uber was less focused. According to news reports from the period, while Uber initially concentrated its resources on primary commercial hubs, Nigeria and Abuja, Bolt pursued rapid expansion into underserved cities like Enugu and Abeokuta. By doing so, it captured market share and built a local network effect in areas where it faced little initial resistance. The necessity of building a new network for each city creates opportunities for agile competitors. A new company can sidestep established rivals by targeting secondary cities and suburbs or regions within a city where they lack a strong presence. However, creating these networks from scratch in every new location is extremely costly. Wooing and keeping the hard side The consensus in two-sided marketplaces like ride-hailing is to focus on the “hard side” first. Riders are considered the easy side—more numerous and generally less costly to attract. The journey to securing a committed driver base, the hard side, has evolved dramatically. Ugochi Ugbomeh, co-founder of one of Nigeria’s foremost ride-hailing platforms, e-Tranzit, says that when the company launched 12 years ago, it started with company-owned cars and salaried drivers. This strategy was to ensure drivers were always available and to control the experience for their first users. She recalls a market with low smartphone penetration, where the concept of sourcing rides from an app was alien to taxi drivers, requiring extensive evangelism. “e-Tranzit imported over 100 mobile devices from China, providing them to drivers for free with repayment tied to ride earnings,” she told TechCabal. When Bankole Cardoso launched the Rocket Internet-backed Easy Taxi, another early ride-sharing platform, in 2013, he faced similar hurdles. “The first challenge was convincing Nigerian taxi drivers of the value of this innovation,” he said. Easy Taxi found a financing partner to provide phones to drivers on a three-month repayment plan. Within a year, they had 500 cars in Lagos and 200 in Abuja. The approach of the Nigerian pioneers like e-Tranzit and Easy Taxi to kickstarting their atomic network is known as flintstoning—manually bootstrapping the network by importing phones and providing financing to yellow cab drivers. These efforts were crucial, but by the time Uber arrived in Nigeria in 2014, these platforms still had fewer than 1,000 drivers combined. Uber’s launch changed the economics of driver acquisition by literally paying to bring in everyone to the network. The platform used a “peer-to-peer” (P2P) model, which looked beyond yellow cabs and began recruiting everyday people with cars who were not in the taxi business. Driver literacy and smartphone penetration were less of an issue
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South Africa’s Bank Zero shareholders to pocket $5m and 12% stake in Lesaka acquisition
The shareholders of South Africa’s Bank Zero are set to receive a 12% stake in Lesaka Technologies, worth roughly R1 billion ($56.3 million), plus up to R91 million ($5.1 million) in cash, as part of a deal that will see Lesaka fully acquire the zero-fee digital bank. The R1.1 billion ($61.4 million) deal, pending regulatory approval, marks a strategic shift for Lesaka from fintech to fully licensed digital banking. The agreement is based on an assumed Lesaka share price of ZAR 88.26 ($4.97). If the share price is higher when the deal is finalised, the cash portion will increase and the equity portion will decrease, maintaining the overall value. Bank Zero is expected to be profitable in its first fiscal year under Lesaka’s ownership. Bank Zero, co-founded by former First National Bank executives Michael Jordaan and Yatin Narsai, launched in 2021 with a radical proposition: a zero-fee, fully app-based banking experience. By April 2025, it had attracted over R400 million (over $22 million) in deposits and over 40,000 funded accounts. “Bank Zero was built from the ground up to deliver a secure, digital-first banking experience,” Narsai said. “Joining forces with Lesaka allows us to accelerate that mission at scale—reaching more customers, faster—while staying true to the principles that define who we are.” The deal gives Lesaka access to Bank Zero’s banking license and tech-driven infrastructure, enabling it to offer a full suite of banking services, tap into new revenue streams, fund lending growth through customer deposits rather than bank debt, and potentially reduce a gross debt of over R1 billion (over $56 million). “The acquisition of Bank Zero is a transformative event in Lesaka’s journey,” said Lesaka chairman Ali Mazanderani. “It enables us to better serve our consumers, merchants, and enterprise clients by embedding a trusted, well-engineered neobank capability into our fintech platform.” Bank Zero chairman Michael Jordaan said the company is “confident the synergies between our digital banking infrastructure and Lesaka’s fintech reach will create sustainable value for all stakeholders.” Jordaan will join Lesaka’s board post-deal, while Narsai will remain CEO. The founding team stays on with shareholding lockups ranging from 18 to 36 months. Rand Merchant Bank advised on the deal, with Webber Wentzel & Rouse acting as legal counsel. If all conditions are met, Lesaka is expected to provide deeper financial details in its year-end results in September 2025. Mark your calendars! Moonshot by TechCabal is back in Lagos on October 15–16! Join Africa’s top founders, creatives & tech leaders for 2 days of keynotes, mixers & future-forward ideas. Early bird tickets now 20% off—don’t snooze! moonshot.techcabal.com
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