Nigerian business banking startup Brass merges operations into Paystack MFB
Brass, a Nigerian business banking startup, will stop operating as an independent company and migrate customers into Paystack Microfinance Bank (Paystack MFB), closing the final chapter of one of Nigeria’s most closely watched fintech rescue deals. In a statement on Monday, Brass said interested customers would be migrated into Paystack MFB before July 31, 2026, as the company integrates its business banking operations into Paystack’s regulated banking infrastructure. “Brass will move its business banking into Paystack MFB,” the company said. “As part of this transition, Brass will no longer operate as an independent entity.” The shutdown marks the culmination of a turbulent two-year period for Brass, which once positioned itself as a modern banking layer for African businesses before a liquidity crisis threatened its survival in 2024. The move comes two years after a consortium led by Paystack, alongside PiggyVest, Ventures Platform, and P1 Ventures, acquired Brass following months of operational turmoil and customer withdrawal delays. Founded in 2020 by Sola Akindolu and Emmanuel Okeke, Brass built a digital banking platform for small businesses, offering business accounts, payroll tools, expense management, and cash-flow tracking. The startup emerged during a wave of African fintechs trying to replace traditional banking infrastructure for startups and SMEs. But by October 2023, the startup began experiencing delays in processing customer withdrawals, with several founders publicly complaining about being unable to access company funds. At the time, investors and ecosystem operators worried that the collapse of a deposit-taking fintech could damage trust in digital financial services more broadly. In May 2024, the Paystack-led consortium acquired Brass for an undisclosed amount in a deal aimed at stabilising operations and preventing a wider confidence crisis in Nigeria’s fintech sector. “We’re excited to act as new stewards for Brass’ mission,” the investors said at the time, describing the acquisition as part of a broader effort to make entrepreneurship “more frictionless and successful.” The acquisition led to a restructuring of the company, with Brass co-founders Akindolu and Okeke exiting the business. In Monday’s announcement, Brass said the months following the acquisition were spent rebuilding internal systems and operational processes under a new leadership team led by Philip Obosi and Yvonne Obike. “As we rebuilt and as our platform became more mature, something became increasingly clear,” the company said. “The next phase of our growth could not be achieved alone.” For Paystack, which was acquired by Stripe in 2020, the move deepens its push beyond payments into broader financial operations for African businesses. In January, Paystack entered Nigeria’s banking sector with the acquisition of Ladder Microfinance Bank. Paystack MFB offers treasury, transfers, and business banking services, making Brass’s business accounts and operations stack a closer fit within its existing infrastructure. The integration also highlights how Africa’s fintech market is evolving after years of venture-backed growth. During the funding boom of 2020 to 2022, startups often built overlapping financial products while competing aggressively for customers. As capital tightened and regulators increased scrutiny, consolidation has become more common across the sector. In January, Flutterwave, Africa’s largest payments startup, acquired open banking startup Mono. Brass framed its transition as a continuation rather than an ending. “This transition marks a new chapter,” the company said, “with even greater capability for the businesses we serve.”
Read MoreSpiro raises $215 million as race for Africa’s EV market heats up
Spiro, the electric mobility company building battery-swapping infrastructure for motorcycles across Africa, has raised $215 million in equity funding as it pushes deeper into a capital-intensive race to electrify urban transport. The round, backed by investors including Impact Fund Denmark and Equitane, comes four months after Spiro secured $50 million in debt financing and less than a year after a separate $100 million equity raise led by Afreximbank’s Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA). The latest investment signals continued investor appetite for electric mobility businesses that control both vehicles and the infrastructure needed to keep them running. While several African startups have entered the sector, battery-swapping networks remain expensive to build, requiring dense station coverage, battery inventory and local assembly capacity. Spiro is positioning itself for the growing demand for electric motorcycles as fuel costs rise and governments seek to reduce reliance on imported petroleum products. The company says riders can cut operating costs by up to 40% compared to petrol-powered bikes. The fresh capital will fund expansion of its swapping network, manufacturing operations and energy infrastructure, including solar-powered swap stations and battery storage systems. Founded in 2022, Spiro operates in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. The company said in a statement that it has deployed more than 100,000 electric motorcycles and built over 2,500 battery-swapping stations across its markets. The raise adds to a growing flow of climate and infrastructure capital into Africa’s electric transport sector. Investors are backing companies that combine vehicle financing, energy infrastructure and local manufacturing rather than focusing only on vehicle sales. Spiro assembles vehicles in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda and operates a battery recycling facility in Nigeria. The company said it plans further expansion into markets including Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “This past year marked a defining strategic milestone for Spiro,” founder Gagan Gupta said in a statement, pointing to the company’s vehicle deployments and swap-station network across seven markets. The funding strengthens Spiro’s position in a crowded market that includes players such as Ampersand, Roam and BasiGo, even as questions remain over how quickly electric mobility operators can reach profitability while financing large infrastructure rollouts across multiple countries.
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In a duplex in Lagos, Cowrywise is trying to build a cathedral with 11 priests
One afternoon in February 2026, I went to Ikeja GRA, a highbrow neighbourhood in Lagos, to talk to a new crop of executives at Cowrywise, the wealth management fintech that manages money for over two million Nigerians. Four weeks earlier, at a January retreat held at a business club in Victoria Island, a highbrow area on the southern side of Lagos, Cowrywise had promoted 11 people to the title of associate vice president (AVP), the type of move that earns the rare tag of ‘unprecedented’ in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem. For a company of fewer than 80 people, it meant one in seven employees ended that day as a senior executive. My visit to Cowrywise’s office was to figure out whether this was a genuine restructuring of a growing financial institution or inflated titles meant to appease employees. What I found was more complex than either explanation. The Scale of Systemic Risk When a fintech has 10 users, risk is negligible. When it has 2 million, the complexity is systemic. Drag the slider to see why an 80-person company requires 11 Vice Presidents to survive. Active Customers 10 Startup Day 1 2 Million (Today) Risk Vectors: 2 Negligible Risk Transactions are sparse. The founders can manually review deposits, manage liquidity, and handle customer support directly. I was not alone in finding the promotions unusual. Abiola Sowemimo, a fintech human resources executive renowned for helping build Paystack’s HR team and practices, told me her first reaction was caution rather than judgment. “This is unusual. Not that it is automatically wrong, just very unusual,” she said. In a company of about 70 people, promoting 11 to AVP at once “would naturally raise questions.” “It is a leadership promotion, so the concern becomes whether this is a real promotion,” she added. But Sowemimo was equally clear that the nature of Cowrywise’s business changes the equation. “It looks like an intentional organisational move rather than business as usual,” she said. Part of what changes the equation is that Cowrywise is regulated by Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A company licensed to manage other people’s money faces scrutiny that an ordinary startup does not, because regulators want decision-making distributed among experienced people across important business units like risk, finance, and compliance. Cowrywise’s founders and AVPs. What does Cowrywise do? To understand the promotions, you first have to understand Cowrywise’s business model and how it makes money. Founded in 2016 by Razaq Ahmed and Edward Popoola, Cowrywise is a wealth-management company. What it does, in the words of Omowonuola Tunde-Bello, the AVP of investment management, is “invest on behalf of our clients and charge management fees.” Customers put their money in wallets via transfer or card payments; Cowrywise’s portfolio team allocates it across savings products, mutual funds, fixed-income products like treasury bills and, more recently, equities on the Nigerian Exchange Group, and the company takes a management fee on those assets. It is the same way a traditional asset-management firm like Chapel Hill Denham makes its money. Today, to fund a ₦1,000 ($0.70) investment plan, a Cowrywise user will transfer ₦1,015 ($0.70), inclusive of processing fees or set up a direct debit. They can pick from Naira portfolios that have returned between 4.33% and 51.56% so far this year. When I invested ₦1,000 ($0.73) in the highest-returning option in March, the 29.36% equity portfolio that was significantly weighted towards stocks, only ₦989 ($0.72) was reflected in my balance, indicating an additional ₦11 deduction from the invested amount. By May, my initial ₦1,000 had grown to ₦1,156, a 16.9% gain in two months. It lost ₦20 in March, gained ₦159 in April, and has added ₦17.34 so far in May. Cowrywise also partners with older asset management firms, such as Meristem Wealth Management, Afrinvest, ARM Investment Managers, and United Capital Asset Management, serving as a distribution layer and tech infrastructure for their funds. These relationships help the company’s partners bring regulated products to its customers, while Cowrywise provides the technology and distribution that get those products in front of retail customers through its app. A win-win of sorts for both parties. Cowrywise declined to share how it shares fees with its partners. How much does it cost to grow your wealth? Cowrywise sustains its operations by taking a small management fee on your investments. Play with the numbers below to see how fees and returns balance out in real-time. Initial Investment (₦) Expected Return 16.9% Estimated Platform Fee: ₦15.00 Your Net Profit: ₦154.00 Total Final Balance: ₦1,154.00 *Note: This is a simplified calculation for educational purposes, based on a flat 1.5% management fee deduction model. The startup’s digital-first model traces directly to Ahmed’s time as an investment analyst at firms like Vetiva and Meristem, where he observed that traditional wealth managers catered almost exclusively to high-net-worth clients, leaving the vast majority of Nigerians without access to investment products. In 2025, the director-general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Dr Emomotimi Agama, said that less than 4% of Nigerians invest in the capital market. That digital path has also allowed Cowrywise to create products like Halal savings for Muslims that don’t accrue interest; Stash (a digital wallet for receiving and sending money); Circles (group savings); Triggers (a feature that automatically saves or invests when preset conditions are met, like when your football club scores a goal); and Money Badges (gamified milestones celebrating savings achievements). It also runs Sprout, a corporate treasury management tool leveraging technology and asset management solutions to help businesses invest idle cash. Cowrywise’s business has also expanded beyond retail distribution. Over the past year, the company has built a proprietary investment capability, deploying capital across public markets and other financial assets with a focus on long-term, risk-adjusted returns and begun portfolio construction for select high-net-worth clients. Abdulrauf (Rufy) Bello, the AVP for investment management, who joined a year ago specifically to lead that capability, now manages the proprietary book alongside contributing to the firm’s broader investment research and financial education output. This shift
Read MoreNigeria’s central bank expands PoS operating radius to 70 metres
Nigeria’s central bank has expanded the permitted operating radius for Point of Sale (PoS) terminals from 10 metres to 70 metres after concerns that the original restriction was too rigid for agents and merchants. In a May 29, 2026 circular, the CBN also extended the enforcement deadline for the geo-fencing policy to August 1, 2026, giving payment companies more time to comply with the directive first introduced in August 2025. The revision marks a partial retreat from one of the CBN’s strictest rules in Nigeria’s fast-growing agent banking market, which sought to tightly control where PoS terminals can operate. Under the rules, operators such as Moniepoint, OPay, and Palmpay must geo-tag all PoS terminals and tie them to precise GPS coordinates, allowing regulators to track where each transaction originates. The original framework limited terminals to operating within 10 metres of their registered business locations, a restriction designed to curb fraud, identity masking, and the movement of terminals outside registered addresses. The updated rules now expand that radius to 70 metres. “Evidence of compliance to the above should be addressed to the Director, Payments System Supervision Department via paymentdata@cbn.gov.ng not later than July 31, 2026,” the CBN said in its circular. The regulator’s push reflects growing concern over the scale and visibility of Nigeria’s PoS ecosystem. Since their 2013 introduction, PoS terminals have become Nigeria’s dominant cash access channel, with about 1,600 PoS agents per square kilometre. There were 8.36 million registered PoS terminals, with 5.90 million active or deployed as of March 2025. Transactions reached a record ₦10.51 trillion in Q1 2025, a 301.67% increase from Q1 2024. The rapid growth, however, has heightened fraud and compliance concerns, with agents sometimes unknowingly serving as access points for illicit activity. In 2024, TechCabal first reported that the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) had been tasked with developing a geofencing framework to prevent terminals from being used outside their registered deployment addresses. The 2025 rule required all payment terminals to be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA), either NIBSS or Unified Payment Services Limited, with accurate latitude and longitude coordinates reflecting the merchant or agent’s place of business and operating status. Terminals not directly routed to a PTSA are not permitted to transact, and operators must ensure their devices and applications are certified by the National Central Switch (NCS). In its new circular, the CBN asked all financial institutions to resolve all operational issues with the NCS within the stipulated timeline.
Read More“I didn’t see it becoming a business”: Day 1 to 1000 of Startbutton Africa
Mallick Bolakale laughed as he took me back to the early 2010s, when buying items from eBay in Nigeria required navigating an underground system. Then, a Nigerian needed a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to create an encrypted address and a broker with a foreign bank card and a shipping address in the United States to order items from the online marketplace, he recalled. Buyers would first send money to the broker’s naira account; the broker would convert it to dollars and pay for the item with his foreign card. The broker would then receive the items at his address before arranging their shipment to Nigeria. Bolakale, who at the time was studying law while repairing and reselling gadgets on the side to save money for law school, helped people buy electronics from eBay. Then he decided to risk the ₦500,000 (about $3,000 at the time) he had saved for law school. He used the money to buy gadgets like laptops from eBay, hoping to resell them at a profit before school resumed. The process worked the same way it always had until a friend, using his laptop, refreshed the eBay page without turning on a VPN. eBay detected the local Internet Protocol (IP) address—a unique numerical label assigned to every device connected to the internet—flagged the transaction as suspicious activity, and cancelled the order. That should have been the end of the story, but the broker refused to reconnect his card for the refund process, worried the card details could be misused while the refund was being processed. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Bolakale recalled, “that’s how I lost my law school fees.” More than a decade later, he co-founded a startup designed to solve the kind of cross-border friction that ruined that transaction. Founded in July 2023 with Kelechi Oti and Charles Idem, Startbutton Africa operates a merchant of records (MOR) system that helps businesses expand across African markets without setting up local payment operations, compliance systems, tax processes, and regulatory relationships from scratch. The startup assists businesses in new countries with payment collections and tax compliance. Businesses entering new countries often have to rebuild banking relationships, secure licences, embed payment integrations, and set up other compliance structures. Startbutton wants to simplify that process by sitting underneath expansion across the continent. Today, the company says it operates across 15 African markets, including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda. Day 1: Interrupted vacations and Twitter DMs In 2022, Bolakale was in Rwanda, taking a break from work, when an unnamed company reached out to him, saying they were struggling to access Nigeria’s local payment infrastructure without local operational structures in place. A year earlier, the Central Bank of Nigeria had discontinued the sale of foreign exchange to Bureau De Change operators, worsening dollar scarcity and disrupting how individuals and businesses accessed foreign currency. By then, Bolakale had spent the past decade working across law, compliance, and fintech; he worked on compliance at Stripe-owned fintech Paystack and advised payment companies navigating regulatory and operational challenges. He had also seen how difficult expansion became once businesses crossed into markets with different tax obligations and payment infrastructure. So, he started building a workaround. “I didn’t really see it as something that was going to be a business,” Bolakale said. “I just felt like it was something I was doing to help businesses.” He incorporated Startbutton in 2023 and began manually helping businesses create local structures, connect with payment providers, and receive payments locally. Because accessing foreign currency had become difficult and expensive due to CBN’s directive, Bolakale listed his house on Airbnb, an online marketplace that lets people rent out their homes, and used the dollar payouts from bookings to settle merchants while collecting naira locally from customers. “It’s almost like what you were doing on eBay,” I pointed out during our conversation. “Exactly,” Bolakale replied. “This time, it was me doing it as opposed to using a broker.” By 2023, Bolakale and his co-founders had begun building Startbutton into an actual product. Then came the tweet that validated the idea. Bolakale recalled seeing a post from the founder of Bible Buddy, a faith-based AI startup, complaining on Twitter (now x) that despite the existence of fintechs, he still could not accept international payments because his startup was based in the United States. “That’s exactly what we’re solving for,” he remembered thinking. He replied to the tweet and sent the founder a direct message. Bible Buddy eventually tested the platform, requested a few changes, then became Startbutton’s first customer. “It was the first time it dawned on me that this was actually starting,” Bolakale said. Day 100: Frozen accounts and stablecoin settlements Weeks after Startbutton launched, it ran into its first major crisis. According to Bolakale, the company had just closed a $50,000 friends-and-family round to hire people and properly begin operations. But shortly after the funds landed in the company’s Wise account, the account was frozen. According to Bolakale, Wise flagged the account because Startbutton was using it for financial services and settlements, activities the platform did not expect the account to be used for. At the time, Startbutton was still a five-man team, trying to stabilise operations across its first markets: Nigeria, Rwanda, Ghana, South Africa, and the United States. “During that time, I self-funded the salaries,” he said. “The founders were not earning salaries.” In the two months that Wise held the account, Startbutton began settling merchants through stablecoin transactions, Bolakale said. By October 2023, Bolakale said that Wise released the funds, while Startbutton closed a $200,000 funding round. Day 500: Scaling down and structuring In addition to its merchant-of-record operations, Startbutton helped businesses incorporate locally, set up operational structures, navigate compliance processes, and, in some cases, support physical-goods expansion into African markets. Bolakale explained that at first, the flexibility helped Startbutton grow. Still, over time, he questioned whether the company was building something scalable or simply becoming a collection of expansion services for customer requests. “We realised that
Read MoreAfolabi Oyebiyi on learning how to code what he cannot see
In every conversation, there comes a point when it becomes something closer to a life guide—how things work, where they fail, and what it takes to keep going anyway. With Afolabi Oyebiyi, a software engineer at Nigerian software consulting firm Cyclone, that point arrives when he talks about the accumulation of small, technical details like the screen readers that make computers speak, the textbooks that don’t, the coding tools that assume everyone has sight. He talks about them because his condition has made him work within these confines. Before he became a software engineer, he was already learning how systems behave when they are not designed for you. Then, in 2005, when his sight began to deteriorate, his relationship with the digital world changed in ways he could not reverse, and he had to adapt. He followed a slow rebuilding, including spending time in rehabilitation centres where he first encountered screen readers, braille, and online platforms that promised self-paced learning but assumed visual interaction. He also enrolled at the Lagos branch of the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT), an Indian-based global private skills and talent development firm, where he was the first visually impaired student, learning alongside a system that was itself learning how to include him. Even now, as a backend engineer working in industry, the struggle continues—between capability and accessibility, between what tools are designed to do and what he needs them to do. But that is only part of the picture. The other part is the work itself: writing code, solving problems, and occasionally pushing back when accessibility is treated as optional. TechCabal spoke to Afolabi about his struggles, his work, and the long, uneven path of learning to code and build a career in a system that was never designed with him in mind. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Why did you decide to become a programmer, or how did you become interested in programming as a blind person? I’ve always been interested in computers and how they work. I also have an older brother who is a software engineer. Though he is into AI now, at the time when I wanted to become a software engineer, he was one. So computers were all around me. The longer answer concerns my desire to bring about change for people with disabilities. When I was planning to get into tech, I thought I could effect change as a software engineer, given my accessibility concerns, and hopefully build technology that alleviates them. I wanted to build assistive technology because I had already been introduced to screen readers. I wanted to be able to build screen readers and accessible websites and apps, and you need coding skills specifically for that. That’s what drew me to coding. Other forms of technology professions, like graphics, were visually intensive. But with coding, you can bypass the visual intensity of it all. All you need to do is hear what you’re typing and hear your console logs. When did you lose your sight, and did you start coding before or after? My visual impairment started in 2005, and it slowly deteriorated over the next few years after that. That’s basically the origin story of my supervillain arc. I started coding actively around 2014–2015. I started by teaching myself through online platforms like Codecademy, Coursera, and W3Schools before deciding to attend a proper institute. So I went to NIIT. I did a two-and-a-half-year software engineering diploma there. One of the reasons I went there was that my brother had also gone to NIIT years earlier. That was his introduction to the tech world. So when I needed a place to study, that was naturally the first thing that came to my mind. How did they accommodate you at the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT)? I was the first and only visually impaired student at NIIT. In my first couple of weeks there, I was actively trying to quit. Every day I would go to school and say, “Today’s my last day.” It was that difficult. And the funny thing was, at the time, we weren’t even doing coding yet. It was just basic Microsoft Word. The teachers had never taught blind people before. I had to listen in class and then go home and fight with my computer. It was extremely difficult. But I got lucky as time went by. The teachers began to adapt to me. We would have mini private sessions during class. It was a mix of the teachers’ consideration and a whole lot of extra work on my part. When I got to coding specifically, I had a teacher called Mr Andrew who was pretty much godsent. He went way beyond what was required of him under the contract. He helped me during school and after school. I remember being on the phone with this guy sometimes at 1 am or 2 am, and he never complained. I pretty much owe my career to him. I would have quit NIIT without that guy. What about the time between 2005 and 2015? Were you learning computers on your own? I somehow managed to finish secondary school. When my sight was degenerating, I was in JSS3. I was already using computers before my eyes began to degenerate, so I had to relearn everything. After secondary school, with all the despair and depression, in 2013, I went to a rehabilitation centre for the blind. That’s where I got introduced to screen readers, Braille, and typewriters. It also helped me meet other blind people. Before that period, I was a recluse. I never went out. Meeting other blind people—some who had it way worse put things in perspective for me. Learning screen readers really changed a lot for me. It gave me hope. How long did it take you to learn Braille and screen readers? I actively resisted Braille, but I had to do it for the curriculum. For screen readers, I think it was easier because it’s
Read MoreMoonshot by TechCabal unveils 2026 theme, “Courage & Conviction — Building for a New World”
TechCabal has revealed the theme for the fourth edition of Moonshot by TechCabal, its flagship pan-African technology conference: “Courage & Conviction — Building for a New World.” The two-day conference returns to the National Theatre in Lagos, Nigeria, on October 28 and 29, 2026. The theme marks a deliberate shift in posture for African technology. Where Moonshot 2025’s “Building Momentum” recognised an ecosystem turning a corner after the funding corrections of 2022 and 2023, Courage & Conviction begins from the premise that the corner has been turned and that the question is no longer whether Africa’s tech ecosystem can survive but what it looks like in today’s world. The case for ‘building a new world’ The theme responds to a fast-changing global order marked by shifting capital flows, growing demand for exits and disciplined execution, and the rapid restructuring of entire industries by AI. Rather than framing Africa’s tech ecosystem as adapting to this new world, Moonshot 2026 positions it as actively building one as it owns more of the value it creates, designs solutions from first principles, and competes globally while enduring locally. “African tech made it through by adapting quickly, rebuilding where necessary, and continuing to ship products and build companies in one of the most complex operating environments in the world,” said Olanewaju Odunowo, the head of TechCabal Insights. “Survival was never the ceiling. It was always just the floor. Moonshot 2026 is where we explore what it looks like when African tech decides to win.” The five convictions shaping Moonshot 2026 Programming, speaker selection, and narrative across all nine content tracks will be anchored in a five-pillar Courage & Conviction manifesto: Be brave enough to build like winners: celebrating bold bets, hard pivots, and the unglamorous but critical work of building infrastructure. Build so it can last: operational discipline, sustainable business models, and corporate governance are treated as competitive advantages rather than aspirations. Radical innovation, designed here: homegrown breakthroughs across AI, climate, hardware, creative industries, and commerce, built from African complexity with the ambition to define global standards. Conviction is the difference: spotlighting the founders, investors, and policymakers who stayed, doubled down, and made unconventional bets that are only now making sense. A promise to ourselves: positioning African tech not as a side market in the story of global innovation, but as a centre. What to expect Moonshot 2026 will retain the nine content tracks introduced across previous editions. Future of Commerce, Creative Economy, Emerging Tech (AI & ML), Government & Policy, Startup Festival, FUEL: The Investors Conference, Clean Tech & Climate, Big Tech & Enterprise, and Entering Tech, with each track’s programming anchored to the manifesto. Attendees can expect deep dives that do not shy away from failure, candid conversations about exits, M&A, and strategic consolidation, and showcases of Africa-first technology built for the global stage. This year’s edition is designed to be “a room full of people who have earned the right to be ambitious and who understand that ambition, without discipline and honest reflection, is just noise.” Building on a record of impact The theme arrives on the back of Moonshot’s emergence as the fastest-growing technology conference in Africa. The 2025 edition drew 6,000 attendees from 39 countries, part of a three-year run that has convened more than 12,650 participants from 44 countries since 2023. Investors attending the conference have collectively deployed over $5 billion through their funds, startups exhibiting on the Moonshot floor carry a combined estimated valuation exceeding $15 billion, and the conference’s TC Battlefield pitch competition has awarded $105,000 to 14 early-stage winners drawn from 960 applicants. Moonshot 2026 is headline sponsored by Grey, the global cross-border payments company serving nearly three million users across more than 70 countries. Confirmed speakers, the full session programme, and ticket pricing, including bundle access to co-located events, will be announced in the coming weeks. To stay updated, visit moonshot.techcabal.com. About TechCabal TechCabal is Africa’s leading technology media publication, providing reporting, data, and context on African technology, business, and innovation since 2013. TechCabal covers startup funding, mergers and acquisitions, fintech, policy, the creative economy, and the people building the continent’s digital future. TechCabal is part of Big Cabal Media, which also operates Zikoko, Cabal Creative, and TC Insights. For more information, visit techcabal.com and moonshot.techcabal.com. Media contact Stephen Agwaibor stephen.agwaibor@bigcabal.com +234 816 4430 193 Tolu Adebayo tolu@bigcabal.com +234 814 0356 210
Read MoreKenya leads Bloomberg’s list of African startups to watch
Kenya’s BuuPass, Leta, Oye and WorkPay have been named to Bloomberg News’ 2026 Africa Startups to Watch list, featuring 25 companies in healthcare, fintech, logistics, climate technology and artificial intelligence sectors. Bloomberg News editors and analysts assessed companies based on the scale of the problem they are addressing, the originality of their approach and their traction with customers and investors. The startups on the list are largely focused on problems that governments, traditional financial institutions and public infrastructure have struggled to solve, from healthcare financing and clean water access to digital payments and emergency response services. “Across a diverse range of sectors, the startups present an array of solutions to pressing challenges and problems,” Jennifer Zabasajja, Bloomberg Television’s chief Africa correspondent and anchor, said in a statement. She added that almost half of the funding raised by companies on this year’s list came from African investors. Kenya had the largest representation on the list with four startups. South Africa, Nigeria, and Tanzania each had three companies, while the remaining startups came from Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mauritius and Somalia. Bloomberg editors and analysts assessed companies based on the scale of the problem they address, the originality of their approach and their traction with customers and investors. Here are the startups that made Bloomberg’s 2026 Africa Startups to Watch list: Healthcare 10mg Health (Nigeria) Founded in 2022 by pharmacist Christian Nwachukwu, 10mg Health helps hospitals and pharmacies access financing in markets where upfront medical costs often delay treatment. The startup combines healthcare and fintech, using medical and behavioural data to assess risk and expand access to care in underserved communities. Remedial Health (Nigeria) Founded in 2021, YC-backed Remedial Health provides software that helps healthcare providers manage inventory, verify suppliers and access financing. It is also backed by Tencent and has financed tens of millions of dollars worth of medicines through its platform. Deaftronics (Botswana) Founded in 2019, Deaftronics develops solar-powered hearing aids designed for regions with unreliable electricity access. Supported by organisations including Johnson & Johnson, the company aims to make hearing care more affordable and accessible across Africa. Telemedan (Chad): Founded in 2021, Telemedan uses solar-powered telemedicine stations to connect patients with doctors remotely in regions with extremely low physician density. The company focuses on low-cost healthcare delivery models that reduce dependence on physical medical infrastructure. Waspito (Cameroon) Founded in 2020, Waspito operates a telemedicine platform that allows patients to connect instantly with doctors online without appointments. Launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company was inspired by the founder’s experience navigating a family medical emergency and is focused on expanding healthcare access in underserved communities. SafeSip (Tanzania) Founded in 2023, SafeSip develops AI-monitored, solar-powered water purification systems designed to make contaminated water safe for drinking. The company is tackling clean water access while reducing dependence on single-use plastic bottles. Fintech AzamPay (Mauritius/Tanzania) Founded in 2018, AzamPay is building payment infrastructure for businesses across Tanzania and East Africa. Inspired by Bangladesh’s bKash model, the company aims to reduce transaction costs and accelerate the adoption of digital payments in largely cash-driven economies. Black Swan (Tanzania) Founded in 2022, Black Swan uses artificial intelligence and alternative data such as utility payments and transaction histories to assess borrowers without formal credit records. The company is backed by Germany’s develoPPP Ventures and focuses on expanding access to credit for underserved consumers and small businesses. HUB2 (Ivory Coast) Founded in 2017, HUB2 is building payment infrastructure that connects mobile money wallets, bank accounts, cards and digital wallets through a single platform. The company focuses on improving transaction reliability across West Africa and has tailored its systems to the regulatory requirements of the CFA franc zone. Nkwa (Cameroon): Founded in 2021, Nkwa operates a savings-focused platform built for informal economies where financial literacy and access to formal banking services remain limited. The company is supported by Cameroon’s Ministry of Finance and local angel investors. Omniscient (South Africa) Founded in 2019, Omniscient uses artificial intelligence and consumer data from retailers, telecom operators and transaction records to help banks and insurers assess creditworthiness. Its backers include TransUnion, Arise and Shoprite Holdings. Oye (Kenya) Founded in 2022, Oye links accident insurance and access to credit to everyday fuel purchases made by motorcycle taxi riders. Backed by Britam, the startup is targeting one million riders as it expands financial protection within the informal transport sector. Sycamore (Nigeria) Founded in 2019, Sycamore offers digital lending and investment products to individuals and businesses. The company is expanding beyond Nigeria, including into the UK, as it builds financial products for Africans at home and abroad. In 2026, it obtained an MFB licence by acquiring an undisclosed microfinance bank in Nigeria. PawaPay (Pan-African) Founded in 2020, PawaPay helps businesses process payments across fragmented mobile money networks by connecting banks, telecom operators and merchants through a single platform. The company processes millions of transactions daily across about 20 countries and has reported profitability since 2023. Transport and logistics BuuPass (Kenya) Founded in 2016 by Sonia Kabra and Wyclife Omondi, BuuPass digitises ticket bookings across buses, trains and flights through a single platform. Backed by Founders Factory Africa and Google’s Black Founders Fund, the company is building transport data infrastructure around Africa’s largely informal travel sector. Leta (Kenya) Founded in 2021, Leta helps businesses plan, assign and track deliveries in real time to reduce transport and logistics costs. Backed by Google’s Africa Investment Fund, the company is developing software to improve supply chain efficiency across African markets. It entered the Ghanaian market after completing a $5 million seed round in July 2025. Complete Farmer (Ghana) Founded in 2017, Complete Farmer uses supply chain technology to connect farmers with buyers and vendors while improving quality assurance and traceability. The company has attracted Series A funding, including support from Alitheia Capital, as it expands access to export markets for African growers. Climate and sustainability Amesect (South Africa) Founded in 2023, Amesect converts organic waste into fertiliser and animal feed, tackling waste management and food
Read MoreSouth Africa, Nigeria, Kenya emerge as Africa’s top work outsourcing markets
Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya have been ranked as Africa’s leading business process outsourcing (BPO) destinations as global firms shift customer service, AI training, and back-office work to lower-cost English-speaking markets. A global ranking by US consultancy Ataraxis places South Africa first in Africa, followed by Nigeria and Kenya, highlighting the continent’s growing role in the global outsourcing market. The rankings point to a shift in the global outsourcing market, with African economies emerging as credible alternatives for roles traditionally concentrated in Asia. It also reflects a trend in which African markets are competing on both cost and skills rather than just the youth population bulge. “South Africa ranks #5 globally, emerging as the highest-ranked outsourcing destination in Africa,” Ataraxis said. “Nigeria ranks #6 globally, benefiting from strong English proficiency, competitive labour costs, and high talent availability.” Ataraxis said South Africa’s lead reflects stronger infrastructure and a more mature services sector, while Nigeria’s position is supported by a large, youthful labour force. Kenya ranked 11th out of 193 countries, driven by low labour costs and strong English proficiency. The BPO sector covers outsourced functions including customer support, telemarketing, data entry, content moderation, and AI training. Globally, the Philippines remained the top outsourcing destination, supported by scale, English fluency, and established infrastructure. India, Malaysia, Chile, Peru, Indonesia, Argentina and Romania ranked above Kenya. The UK ranked 29th and the US 86th, weighed down by high labour costs. Ataraxis said the US remains strong on infrastructure and business stability but uncompetitive on cost. “Without the labour cost variable, the United States would rank among the strongest global talent markets,” Ataraxis said in the report. “US companies can often hire several offshore staff for the cost of one domestic employee.” In Kenya, most outsourcing activity is concentrated in AI training, content moderation, customer support, telemarketing, data annotation, and digital marketing. Companies such as Teleperformance and Sama already operate large outsourcing centres in Nairobi. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering new rules that would require foreign-based customer care workers serving American consumers to demonstrate proficiency in American-standard English. FCC chair Brendan Carr said on March 4 that Americans often struggle with offshore customer service due to language and cultural barriers. The move could open more BPO opportunities for English-speaking African countries like Nigeria and Kenya. Labour groups, however, have raised concerns over pay and working conditions in the sector, particularly in AI data work and content moderation.
Read MoreMTN to join Airtel, Globacom to restore airtime lending after regulatory pause
MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest telecom operator, is working to restore its Xtratime airtime lending service soon after Nigeria’s consumer protection regulator suspended the enforcement of new digital lending rules. “The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has suspended the enforcement of DEON. To that extent, we will reinstate the service,” a company insider told TechCabal. MTN’s decision to restore the service is a departure from what executives told investors during the company’s May 4 earnings call. The telecom operator had argued that the court ruling restraining enforcement of the rules did not automatically require it to resume airtime lending because the judgment neither invalidated the underlying regulations nor directly instructed operators to restore services. MTN declined to comment for this story. Airtel and Globacom have already restored airtime lending services following the regulatory pause. MTN’s Xtratime allows subscribers to borrow airtime or data and repay through subsequent recharges. The product generates fees, supports telecom consumption, and sits at the intersection of the company’s telecom and fintech businesses. “In terms of what needs to happen for us to resume airtime advance service, there are essentially two conditions,” Tobechukwu Okigbo, MTN Nigeria’s chief corporate services and sustainability officer, said during the earnings call. “First, we would require either a court ruling that sets aside the regulations empowering the FCCPC to license, which has not happened, or a clear directive instructing us to reinstate the service.” The company’s stance changed after the FCCPC suspended enforcement of its Digital, Electronic, Online or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending Regulations (DEON Regulations) 2025 on May 22. The suspension followed an April 15 interim order issued by the Federal High Court in Lagos after a lawsuit filed by the Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Nigeria (WASPAN), the umbrella body for value-added service providers. MTN, however, insists that Xtratime’s absence has not fundamentally altered customer demand. “There was a short-term impact on consumption patterns, which lasted only a few days,” MTN Nigeria chief executive officer Karl Toriola said during the earnings call. “However, as time progressed, customers adapted. They either shifted to self-funded usage or found alternative ways to manage short-term needs.” According to MTN, fees from Xtratime contribute roughly 3% of revenue, while airtime and data consumption linked to the product account for a low-20% share of total airtime distribution. “This consumption is split across voice and data in line with the mix reflected in our revenue,” Toriola said. MTN Nigeria generated ₦5.2 trillion ($3.77 billion) in revenue in 2025, and expects at least ₦6.24 trillion ($4.52 billion) in 2026. Despite Xtratime’s role in customer spending behaviour, the company argued that the product mainly changed how customers pay for telecom services rather than whether they consumed those services at all. “As we have said, we expect consumption patterns and top-line revenue to normalise to levels consistent with what we would see without Xtratime. That is why we do not expect any material impact on full-year performance,” Toriola said. In its Q1 2026 earnings report, MTN said it was advancing the onboarding of approved providers and expects to resume the service once onboarding is completed. MTN’s move to restore Xtratime suggests the product still matters operationally and competitively, but after weeks of suspension, the company’s message to investors is that the business can absorb Xtratime’s absence if need be.
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