Adebola Makinde

safeboda

SafeBoda loses about 170 million customers in Nigeria 

Maybe SafeBoda didn’t have a master plan after all as it has halted its operations in Nigeria. The e-hailing startup was originally founded in 2017 when it began operations in Uganda. It would rapidly spread out its wings to Kenya (an East African market with booming tech potential) until

Insurance

Backend Stories: Gbenro Dara's Insurtech startup, Octamile, is enabling insurance access to every social class 

The global insurance industry was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. With nationwide lockdowns and insecurity arising from health and jobs, event cancellation and other risks became the order. Amidst this, insurance companies especially the traditional ones were on the brink of failing and losing revenues. Shocks and more payouts were

Lesotho

The Big Four and Incomplete data: Lesotho suffers from paralysis amidst growth in the African tech industry

Data revealing growth in the African tech industry focuses on the ‘big four’ — Nigeria in Western Africa; South Africa in the Southern part of the continent and; Egypt and Kenya in Northern and Eastern Africa respectively. Undoubtedly, tech has witnessed Year-over-Year development, attracting attention from local and foreign investors; however,

5G

Despite 4.5% 4G subscribers in Zambia, MTN rolls out its 5G service in the country 

MTN, a pan-African South-African mobile network operator (MNO) has launched its 5G service in Zambia, a country in the Southern African region. The telecom operator had previously launched its 5G services in South Africa and Nigeria in 2020 and 2022 respectively. Zambia’s 19.6 million people are not compared

HRTech

Backend Stories: Nigerian founder, Darlyn Okojie is building a Pan-African employee management solution with cakes 

Managing workers or employees is usually the responsibility of Human Resource Managers (HRMs) in organisations big enough to employ them. Employees can comfortably communicate their concerns — whatever the case may be to enable growth and optimise outputs. Owing to cultural diversity, language, disabilities and the other different demographics humans fall

African creator economy

African startups pioneering the Creator Economy 

In an earlier piece, the African creator economy was analysed. In it, a creator was defined as well as amplifying the fact that the African continent is behind in the right resources to spread out fully if not to compete. Not just are African startups focusing on the creator economy

African creator economy

The Future of Jobs: A Glance Through The African Creator Economy

The global creator economy is estimated to be worth over $100 billion. The world population which now pegs at 8 billion has an average of 1.4 trillion or 16.72% from Africa. With these statistics, the African continent is renowned for its active youth population as well as the

Twiga

Twiga lays off 21% of its in-house employees, changes operations model

Kenyan B2B e-commerce agritech, Twiga has introduced an independent agent model against its trade development representatives (TDRs) of which 211 were laid off representing 21% of its over 1000 employees. With this new framework, the erstwhile company sales representatives can attend to various work offerings – enabling different streams of income.

Business

Safaricom hits over 1 million users in Ethiopia 

Telecommunications provider, Safaricom Ethiopia, a subsidiary of Safaricom has achieved a milestone of over 1 million users since its launch in the East African country in August of this year after obtaining an operating licence in July 2021 – disrupting the monopoly of Ethio Telecom. The telecom has spread its service

CBK

Paystack secures PSP licence from Kenya's Central Bank, announces beta launch 

Getting licensed in Kenya might have been a challenge for Nigerian startups such as Flutterwave and Chippercash but, to ease its operations in the new market and ensure its spread across different regions across Africa, Nigerian payments company, Paystack has announced it has secured a Payments Service Provider (PSP) licence

5G

Why Airtel’s latest bid for 5G licence was declined

On Tuesday, Airtel Africa, the parent company of Airtel Nigeria was declined access to an upfront reserve price fixed at $273.6 million — a move against the established protocol. The price which was the final amount in which MTN and Mafab Communications secured their 5G licences in December 2021 is

Africa

IFC launches $225 million fund directed towards early-stage startups in Africa, Central Asia, and Middle East

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a global development institution and member of the World Bank Group has launched a $225 million venture capital fund to support early-stage startups in Africa, Middle East, Central Asia and Pakistan. The investment, classified into equity and ‘equity-like’ will enable tech startups to attract scalable

Artificial Intelligence

Modus expands to Africa, aims to invest $75 million in AI and Blockchain-powered startups 

AI solutions in Africa are relatively low compared to the rapid adoption of blockchain technology. According to a 2017 report by Price Waterhouse Coopers, AI is projected to contribute $15.7 million to the global economy. This is despite the fact that the sector is dominated by foreign companies in

Alameda Research

Inside FTX’s collapse: African-based Web 3 startup, Nestcoin to lay off employees 

Following the cryptocurrency exchange company, FTX’s collapse in an event that began with a reported article by Coindesk about claims that stated that Alameda Research, its crypto trading firm (now including its US subsidiary, FTX.US) have a suspicious balance sheet, tons of other media reports have expounded the

proptech

Spleet launches VaaS product, Spleet Verify, to evaluate prospective tenants 

Tenant screening or verification has been a crucial tool in today’s growing cases of fraud and other vices. While leasing a property to an unknown individual is one of the risks landlords face, it remains on the part of property management companies to build infrastructures or solutions such as

African creator economy

Backend Stories: Meet the founder who paid over $6 million to users without any fundraising

From working at a payments company to building his startup, Douglas Kendyson‘s e-commerce platform focusing on African creators, Selar has paid out over $6 million to users despite being bootstrapped except for a grant it received in 2018. The creator economy often called the influencer economy – which is not

Doroki

Paga, partners with Visa, launches Naira virtual and physical cards 

Leading mobile money company, Paga has on Monday, November 7, announced the launch of its Naira virtual and physical cards (Paga card) in partnership with American multinational financial company, Visa. This virtual payment method is set to start operating in Nigeria — the company’s largest market before expansion to other

LSETF

Mastercard partners with LSETF, aims at driving digital financial inclusion 

To address unemployment and embrace skill gathering and entrepreneurship, the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) was set up in 2016 to benefit its residents — having attended to more than 70,000 entrepreneurs to date. Furthering its aim to enable digital financial inclusion, it has partnered with global payments platform,

Cutstruct

Nigerian construction procurement startup, Cutstruct, raises $600k in pre-seed funding 

Solving hassles arising from nontransparent prices and supply bureaucracy among others in the construction industry, CutStruct Technology was founded in 2019 by John Oamen and Tayo Odunsi to solve these problems by providing an all-in-one service platform as well as its flagship product, LiveVend. This problem is prevalent everywhere in

MOL Logistics

Kenyan logistics startup, Sendy raises funding from MOL PLUS, aims at improving fulfilment services across Africa 

Kenyan logistics startup, Sendy has announced it has raised undisclosed funding from Japanese VC, MOL PLUS and other existing investors to enable increased adoption of its Fulfillment product across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire. Lately, the startup has been in the news due to the intermittent layoff of

Stears

Nigerian Data and Intelligence Company, Stears launches data product, Stears Election ahead of 2023 general elections

Pan-African data insight company, Stears has announced the launch of its new product, an open data project called Stears Election to disclose real-time election results. This is in its drive to reveal live data of the Nigerian general elections since 2019 when it made the record of building the first-ever

Adewale Adetona

Lagos Digital Summit (LDS) to hold 6th edition, features key industry professionals 

Launched in 2017 by Adewale Adetona popularly called iSlimfit, the Lagos Digital Summit (LDS) is an annual event that focuses on the development of digital media enthusiasts and business leaders. Themed “Scaling Businesses leveraging Digital Technology”, the Lagos Digital Summit is set to hold its 6th edition by 10 AM

Electric Vehicle

On-demand mobility solution company, Max expands to Ghana, aims at consolidating its EV product in Africa 

Popular for its ride-hailing services in Nigeria but originally launched as a logistics startup, Metro Africa Xpress Inc. (MAX) has transitioned to a fully-fledged transportation solutions provider and provider of electric vehicles (EV) in Africa. In 2021, it announced its plan to drive its services across Africa with its $31

Klas. Techstars Toronto Acclerator Program

Nigerian Edtech startup building the future of education, Klas, aims to expand to India

Imagine having a hit idea at a young age, but it turns out to be ironic. Well, that’s how an out-of-school champ, Nathan Nwachuku, Co-founder and CEO of Klas innovated his edtech startup at 18. You’re wondering how? As a Nigerian, you should be near completion of high

bsv academy

NITDA proposes roadmap for blockchain adoption, partners with Domineum to equip 30,000 Nigerians with blockchain skill set

Despite the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) prohibition on cryptocurrency trading by licensed banks in Nigeria and the relative increase in crypto use by citizens, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has partnered with blockchain-as-a-service startup, Domineum, to enable 30,000 Nigerians to have access to a scholarship