- First Bank, FCMB, Access Bank and others are refusing to collect the old notes, saying that the deadline had elapsed. Zenith bank on the other hand continues to collect old notes.
- Overall, Telkom’s revenue is up 2.3% to R11 billion but its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) are down 13.5% to R2.5 billion, showing the company’s continued struggle with profitability and bottom line growth.
- While it is true that instant payments and mobile money usage have surged since the CBN launched its cash crunch exercise, the full picture is that the surge is costing Nigerians much more than fancy growth metrics can tell.
- Curacel, a Nigerian startup that builds infrastructure for insurance products across Africa, has raised a $3 million seed round to roll out new technology offerings and expand into North Africa.
- In this interview for TechCabal, Noel K. Tshiani (@NoelTshiani) of Congo Business Network, speaks with Josué Vangu, founder of Jovan Group Technologies, about the startup environment in Lubumbashi, the second most populous city in DRC.
- Terraa’s product offering, a tech-enabled B2B platform and logistics infrastructure, enables farmers to earn higher incomes and access stable markets at better prices, while retailers benefit from competitive prices and a consistent supply of high-quality goods.
- Airtel has acquired the necessary spectrum it needs to roll out 5G in Kenya. The telco, however, will only launch 5G in high-income neighbourhoods where Kenyans who can afford 5G are likely to be situated.
More in #TCDaily.
- Since 2021 Ethiopia’s government has wanted to sell 40% of its stake in state-owned Ethio-Telecom, then the sole operator in the East African nation. The government hopes increasing how much it is willing to let go of will convince buyers. Last Opening up Ethiopia’s economy was the centrepiece of…
- After graduating with a degree in Fine and Applied Arts from Obafemi Awolowo university in 2010, Kunle Adewale had one question on his mind: what could he do differently as an artist?
@kunleAdewale505
- In South Africa, where an estimated four million people hold cryptocurrencies according to recent data, the Canadian-born neobank will be competing with the likes of Luno, VALR, Kraken, among others.
- When Lekan Omotoso and Seye Bandele (@seyedele) met 11 years ago in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, they could not have guessed that they’d attempt to solve a $24-billion problem through Pade HCM, the HR tech startup they would go on to co-found.
- Orange has announced the opening of its first digital centre in Sierra Leone. This move comes two months after it launched its 12th digital centre in Botswana.
More in #TCDaily.
- Read today’s edition of TC Weekender for news about a 4 million sim card fraud, digital centres, business expansions, business closure, layoffs, and more on Netflix’s password crackdown.
- “Along the way, I invested in real estate. I tried starting a couple of other companies on the side, including a T-shirt business, which was a total failure.”
#AskAnInvestor
- The Kwik cofounder talks about the state of funding in Africa, a new phase for the African tech ecosystem, and what consolidation could mean for African startups.
- According to its latest financial figures, Yahoo, which was acquired in 2021 from Verizon by Apollo, a global private-equity firm, for $5 billion, is profitable and brings in roughly $8 billion in annual revenue.
- Orange has also built similar digital centres in Tunisia, Senegal, Ethiopia, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Madagascar, Morocco, Liberia, Botswana, and Guinea.
- The startup claims to have over 1,000 paying customers across North America, Europe, Australia, South Africa, and Latin America who pay monthly subscription fees of between $49 and $119.
- This week's Quick Fire guest, Edidiong Ekong (@edidiongmekong), is a senior marketing executive who believes the use of AI and machine learning, interactive and immersive content will drive growth for brands in 2023.
- A technical mistake by Google's new AI service Bard wiped $100 billion off the company's market value. In Kenya, investigators have arrested scammers who defrauded Safaricom of $4 million through an extensive SIM card fraud scheme.
More in #TCDaily.
- A day after Google launched Bard, Microsoft also announced new versions of their web browsers Bing and Edge, in a move that could be interpreted as the company taking the AI-powered search battle to Google.
- Two days after Google announced its ChatGPT rival, Bard, Microsoft announced its own AI service. The company is powering its search engine Bing and its browser Edge with AI.
More in #TCDaily.
- IMF urges Nigeria's Fed Gov & Central Bank to extend the deadline for the recognition of the 200, 500, and 1000 naira notes as legal tender amidst the shortage and chaos caused by the banknote swap process. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court temporarily halts the ban on old notes.
- The licenses will enable Flutterwave to act as an official payment service provider in Egypt, collect payments on behalf of its customers and settle payments locally and globally.
- In this edition of PR for African Startups, Claudine Moore(@ClaudineMoore) of Allison+Partners(@AllisonPR) discusses how startups can be intentional with PR during an economic downturn.
- The new Edge, for example, will allow users to ask for a summary of a lengthy financial report to get the key takeaways – and then use the chat function to ask for a comparison to a competing company’s financials and automatically put it in a table.
- Partech Africa has closed its second fund, Partech Africa II, at €245 million (roughly $262 million). This second round is double the size of its first Africa-focused fund of €125 million (about $133 million) which closed in 2019.
More in #TCDaily.
- According to the company, this funding will be used to further develop the platform, expand its reach, and hire new talent to support the company's growth.
- Solving the problem of sub-optimised business processes for startups is Clio's superpower. The company believes it one-stop-solution can ramp up internal efficiency by up to 90%
- Since its launch, ThriveAgric claims to have built a network of over 500,000 smallholder farmers, giving them access to insight, distribution and over $150 million in credit.
- “We couldn’t raise and couldn’t sustain the business with just the money we were making,” Laolu Onifade, co-founder and CEO at Hytch, told TechCabal.
- Kenya’s Employment and Labour Relations Court on Monday refused the Facebook parent company’s request to remove it from a suit about working conditions for content moderators.
- In this exclusive interview for TechCabal, Noel K. Tshiani (@NoelTshiani) of Congo Business Network, discusses with Félix Maroy, founder of FYATU, about the growing opportunities for fintech startups in Kinshasa.
- The Employment and Labour Relations Court has ruled that Meta can be sued in Kenya for creating a toxic work environment and causing physiological harm to its former content moderators in the country.
More in #TCDaily.
- The advent of Bard will mean that its various AI-powered features will be brought to Search, helping billions of Google search users who perform 5.6 billion searches per day and approximately 2 trillion global searches per year
- In light of the recent hardships faced by Nigerians as the infrastructure of several banks struggles to keep up with demand, can blockchain technology offer a solution?
- BNPL products have become common in South Africa where more than 27 million consumers are either unserved or underserved by existing credit facilities, and 38% of the 26 million consumers with access are in breach or in arrears on their credit provider’s payments.
- Seven months after accusing fintech unicorn Flutterwave of financial impropriety, Kenya’s Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) has dropped its case against the startup.
More in #TCDaily.
- In a much needed public win since it became embroiled in scandals in 2022, Kenya has dropped its charges of financial impropriety against Flutterwave. The court case began in July 2022, when Flutterwave was charged to court on suspicions of card fraud and money laundering. As a result, the court…
- AfricaNXT is more than the panel discussions; it's a blend of immersive experiences and festivals that offer insight, fun, and game-changing networking. And, TechCabal has got you covered with the ultimate guide to exciting festivities at AfricaNXT.
- MNT-Halan joins Africa's unicorn herd! MTN declares ₦2 trillion in revenue in 2022, leading Nigerian companies. Jumia's liquidity takes a historic dip, Amazon launches in Nigeria but delays in South Africa. Read all this and more in this week's TC Weekender.
- According to the Ghanaian authorities at the time, the bill against MTN was for unpaid taxes for the period between 2014 and 2018 during which time the telco had allegedly under-declared its revenue in its Ghana operations by as much as 30%.
- The details of this deal highlight what might be an answer to a long-asked question of why the North African startup ecosystem hasn’t yet leveraged its relationship with the Gulf region at scale.
