Barclays Africa's Blockchain Transaction A World First 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 It’s been a busy week for the continent’s fintech scene. The past week saw MTN South Africa announce that it would be discontinuing its mobile money service due to “a lack of commercial viability”. This revelation comes just
Afrimarket Lands €10 Million To Deploy E-commerce Platform Across Francophone Africa 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 The French e-commerce startup, Afrimarket, has raised €10 million from the Global Innovation Fund and the private sector arm of the French Development Agency (AFD), Proparco, as well from as a handful of individual investors such as the co-
African Tech Conversations Poetic Investments With Tomi Davies 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Tomi Davies is a Nigerian investor, author and tech evangelist who is widely considered the God-father of Africa’s angel investment scene. He is also the founder of the Lagos Angel Network (LAN), as well as the founding President
Mark Zuckerberg Goes On A Charm Offensive In Nigeria And Kenya 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Mark Zuckerberg’s much-publicised trip to the continent spawned dozens of think-pieces in the blogosphere this past week. Many pundits clearly view Mark’s 'surprise' visit to Nigeria and Kenya as an affirmation of the continent’
72: Naspers Wilting In The Heat + DEMO Africa 2016 Highlights 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 The gravy train may well be over at Africa’s largest tech company (by market value)— Naspers. Naspers CEO, Koos Bekker, told investors late last week that the coming year is going to be a trying one for the company.
71: Econet Wireless Set To Roll Out Shine's Ad Blocking Service 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Econet Wireless has recently announced that all ±40 million of their subscribers in Africa will benefit from Shine’s ad blocking service— starting with those in Zimbabwe. This deal represents Shine’s first deployment on the continent, following partnerships they’
African Tech Conversations Safeguarding Digital Assets With Riaan Badenhorst 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Riaan Badenhorst’s worst disappointment as a young man has led to a fairly successful career in IT security. There’s no doubt that the folks at Kaspersky Lab— currently the world’s fourth largest antivirus vendor, are rather pleased
70: Not-so-little Trademark Faux Pas Leaves Safaricom and Craft Silicon Red-faced 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Safaricom and Craft Silicon both took an “L” this past week. As it turns out, they neglected to trademark the Little Cabs brand name before launching their ride-sharing service some weeks ago. And now, they’ve had to drop
69: MTN Group Reports Losses In Mid-Year Results For 2016 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 MTN Group’s warning that their interim financial results for the period ending June 30th 2016 would be unpleasant did a lot to absorb the shock when reality struck last Friday— the day the report eventually dropped. Despite revenue for
68: Kinnevik's Half-Year Financial Report Sheds Light On Their Investment In Nigeria's Konga 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Who knew that a little quarterly update by a publicly-traded Swedish investment firm could get Nigeria’s e-commerce fraternity all worked up? Not us. So, as Kinnevik was going about its business last week, the firm released its
67: Telkom South Africa In The Lead With Game Changing Mobile Packages 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Data costs need to come down significantly if Africa is ever going to realise the dream of making access to the internet available to every single person living on the continent. As things stand, according to a new research report
African Tech Conversations Insurance Goes Mobile With Frank Schutte 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Frank Schutte, is formerly the Managing Director for Retail Product & Marketing for South Africa’s largest life insurer— Liberty. In a gutsy move, he left his cushy gig there to found a startup called MobiLife, which is "Africa’
66: Codeacademy Receives $30 Million Investment Lead By Naspers Ventures 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 There’s no doubt that online education is a hot ticket at the moment. While the folks at Andela are probably still celebrating landing $24 million worth of investment courtesy of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and others, the New York-
Facebook 65: Will Facebook's OpenCellular Crush BRCK? 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Last week, the global digital behemoth that is Facebook announced that they’ll be rolling out the OpenCellular system worldwide. OpenCellular is said to be an inexpensive, weather-resistant and fully customisable platform that will be able to serve as
African Tech Conversations Being Delusional With Toro Orero 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 It’s fair to say that the Nigerian-born Toro Orero is a live wire that’s all the way lit. He serves as Managing Partner at DraperDarkFlow— a Silicon Valley VC Fund backed by the illustrious Tim Draper, who’
64: African Spirit, American Spin 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 It’s the 4th of July, and in honour of the fact that our biggest audience outside of Africa is based in the USA, this week’s African Tech Round-up episode has a decidedly American spin. Playing guest-host
African Tech Conversations Maintaining Legacies With Oliver Fortuin 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Oliver Fortuin heads up BT’s (formerly British Telecoms) operations in Sub-Saharan Africa, where he is tasked with leading the charge for a legacy ICT institution (that is nearly two centuries old) in some of the world’s most
63: Kenya's Buni.tv Acquired by Trace TV 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 One of the more surprising things that came out of a recent conversation Andile Masuku had with BT’s Managing Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, Oliver Fortuin is his answer when asked (somewhat unfairly) what disruptive trend could potentially render
African Tech Conversations Wooing Venture Capital With Ben White 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Ben White is exceedingly well-travelled, and his love for building new businesses has taken him all around the world and seen him collaborate with like-minded individuals pretty much anywhere he spends three hours or more. As the founder
62: Uber Domination 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Despite the considerable push-back Uber has experienced in certain African markets, the firm’s march towards utter and complete world domination continued last week as they launched in Tanzania’s capital city, Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam is
African Tech Conversations Open Source Plumbing With Matthew Lee 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 By his own admission, Matthew Lee would not have been voted most likely to become an executive at a leading software multi-national by his classmates at the trade school where he trained to be a plumber. Years after he
Nigeria 61: Is MTN Nigeria's Nightmare Over? 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 On Friday, June 10th 2016 MTN’s stock price on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange jumped by 20%. This happened in the wake of the news that the firm’s nine-month Nigerian nightmare might finally be coming to an end.
Naspers 60: Naspers Now Worth Over ZAR 1 Trillion 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 If there were a race to being Africa’s largest media and internet company, out of fairness to other firms in the running, Naspers would probably be asked not to enter. After seeing its share price rise to an all-
Ghana 59: Ghana's Police Threaten Social Media Blackout 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Turns out Ghana’s top cop— Inspector General of Police John Kudalor thinks that blocking social media access across the country might be necessary to ensure Ghana’s national security on election day in November 2016. Mr Kudalor reckons that
African Tech Conversations Banking Africa With Stephen van Coller 🟢 CLICK HERE to subscribe to the African Tech Roundup Podcast 🟢 Stephen van Coller is the Chief Executive for Corporate and Investment Banking at Barclays Africa He is a Chartered Accountant who worked for Ernst & Young in South Africa and the UK for many years, before leaving the professional accounting
