Market Intelligence

A collection of 37 posts

Venture Capital

The Trajectory Africa Distilled #07: The Asset Intensity Question in Digital Commerce

The market needs African B2B e-commerce to be asset-heavy, but the venture money was raised for asset-light.

Fintech

OP-ED - An engineer and his team of AI agents have a quarrel with your bank card

Part three of three on Francois Rautenbach, an engineer using AI to do the work of five while making the case for a way to pay that hangs on proof rather than trust.

Venture Capital

OP-ED - Two readings on the same deal... a second look at Aboyeji's big week

He said I'd misread him, then sent me the tape. He was right, from where he was standing.

Venture Capital

OP-ED - Reading Aboyeji's big week: making sense of Africa's competing investment theories

When the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) backs two very different fund managers in the same announcement, and a new philanthropic venture-builder launches with an ambitious manifesto within a fortnight, the question isn't necessarily which intervention is right.

The Trajectory Africa Distilled

The Trajectory Africa Distilled #04: Cross-Border Payments—Stablecoins vs. Instant Payment Systems

Instant payment systems like the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) offer a state-sanctioned alternative to stablecoins, but face structural constraints that are ultimately political, not technical. Tayo Akinyemi works through the trade-offs.

Fintech

The Trajectory Africa Distilled #03: The Infrastructure Behind Productive Lending

Open banking regulation, fragmented data, and punishing cash reserve ratios explain why creditworthy borrowers and affordable capital so rarely find each other in African markets.

Market Intelligence

OP-ED - What really happens between "send" and "received"

A Nigerian software engineer on currency volatility, rate buffers, and why transparency beats the "zero fees" promise every time.

Artificial Intelligence

OP-ED - AI in Africa's context gap: a PwC partner, a Wits researcher and a Ghanaian founder walk into the same problem

A PwC partner says African organisations' AI tools are 'pretty useless' without clean data. A Wits computer scientist explains why. And a Ghanaian AI founder is betting he can close the gap. Part 2 of 2

Market Intelligence

POD - Russell Southwood on monopolies, M-Pesa, and candid framings of Africa's digital economy

Analyst and author Russell Southwood reflects on a quarter-century of observing Africa's digital transformation. From yellow pages cold calls to fibre-to-the-home rollouts, Southwood makes the case for holding optimism and realism in the same hand.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - The US$140-million (R2.4-billion) reality check

PwC’s latest Africa Cloud Business Survey says 98% of African organisations plan to expand their cloud architecture and 37% are implementing agentic AI. A sit-down with the man behind the numbers unearthed qualifications more revealing than the statistics.

Digital Economy

OP-ED - When the crowd becomes the mob: prediction markets and the price of 'truth'

A journalist threatened over a betting market. Insider trading on military strikes. Billions wagered on geopolitical chaos. The question must be asked: are prediction markets indispensable truth machines or sophisticated casinos with geopolitical consequences.

Social Media

OP-ED - X marks the spot: your platform is someone else's country

Open-sourcing a candid disagreement with Future in the Humanities (FITH) Founding Chair Prof Iginio Gagliardone about Mastodon and X. What are the tradeoffs of building an African intellectual project on platforms that might extract more than they give?

Fintech

POD - Seyi Ebenezer on why African startups should stop chasing cheques and start building books

Payaza's co-founder and CEO Seyi Ebenezer makes the case for debt over venture capital, explains why credit ratings are the ultimate negotiating weapon for African founders, and passionately advances the idea of a pan-African credit rating agency built by the continent, for the continent.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - The mine, the machine, and the intern

From post-WW2 coal mines to modern codebases, history suggests AI transformation will rise or fall not on technical capability alone, but on whether organisations deliberately redesign the social systems that surround the machine.

Artificial Intelligence

OP-ED - How solo sailors sleep

Solo sailors don't forecast the ocean. They set an alarm and pay attention. In the age of AI disruption, that pragmatic sensibility turns out to be rarer and more valuable than anyone is admitting.

This Is Connectivity

OP-ED - Video podcasts are just chatshows with visible microphones

Twenty-five years of podcast evolution has come full circle. Adam Wakefield argues audio's so-called limitations are actually its greatest edge in the attention economy.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - My former teacher wants to put a conscience in AI. I have thoughts.

Smart legal contracts might be AI's best guardrail. But the system they're designed to protect was never neutral to begin with.

Artificial Intelligence

POD - Natasha Blycha on why AI without law is just code without conscience

Emerging technology lawyer Natasha Blycha unpacks why smart legal contracts may be AI's most important guardrail, how Africa's slower adoption could become a strategic advantage, and what a Mennonite community taught her about choosing the right technology.

Market Intelligence

OP-ED - Afrexim walked away from Fitch. Cassava's creditors can't.

Western rating agencies helped blow up the global economy, paid their fines, and kept it moving. Now they're the arbiters of African creditworthiness. But dismissing their scrutiny doesn't make the numbers disappear.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - After the launch party: who actually benefits from AI?

What gets measured depends on who builds the scale.

Venture Capital

OP-ED - Cupid's cash flow: the matchmakers have marriage problems too

When venture capitalists push portfolio consolidation, they're not just playing cupid. They're managing their own performance pressure.

Fintech

The Trajectory Africa Distilled #02: Infrastructure-building Opportunities in Fintech

Trade credit, stablecoins, neobanks — where the smart money is heading next.

Digital Economy

OP-ED - Bitcoin sells out? From peer-to-peer currency to Wall Street collateral: the maturation no one asked for

Bitcoin needs institutional stability to fulfill its promise. But that stability requires exactly the gatekeepers it was designed to circumvent.

Infrastructure

OP-ED - GPUs to gigawatts: how Africa’s energy potential could re-shape the AI landscape

As AI’s hunger for power grows, Africa’s untapped energy reserves could redefine the continent’s role in the global tech race.

Artificial Intelligence

OP-ED - Africa's AI awakening: from Western brainrot to homegrown tech sovereignty

As Gen Z in the West abandons social media's endless scroll for "meaning," Africa is laying internet connectivity infrastructure at scale. Will it import yesterday's engagement-maximisation playbook or build for actual human flourishing?