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 POD - Nikolai Barnwell on building PawaPay without the VC machine, and why mobile money beats cards PawaPay CEO Nikolai Barnwell on why payments, not "fintech", is the real problem worth solving, what a decade at 88mph taught him about funding, and why he is betting the continent's rails on mobile money over cards.
Venture Building OP-ED - Are founders and funders on the same page? Notes from an unreleased PawaPay conversation. Hindsight from someone who watched 88mph's death rate from the inside. Fundamentals focus from someone who has held PawaPay back from the fintech funding boom.
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
Digital Transformation OP-ED - After the launch party: who actually benefits from AI? What gets measured depends on who builds the scale.
Artificial Intelligence OP-ED - Cue ominous film score: is the AI agent apocalypse upon us? Last week, an AI startup watched its entire value proposition ship as a native feature. This is the story of what that moment reveals — and what some are betting it doesn't.
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.
Career OP-ED - AI augmentation in 2025: what Accenture's layoffs and a homeless Nigerian app founder reveal about the future of work The question isn't whether you're augmented. It's whether you can deliver.
This Is Connectivity OP-ED - Self-driving VC: Boardy, QuantumLight, and the end of the warm intro? AI is automating the art of the warm introduction. What happens when connectivity becomes a product rather than a relationship?
Venture Capital The Trajectory Africa Distilled #01: The Limits of Digitalisation in African Markets In the opening instalment of her seven-part email series, Tayo Akinyemi explores why African fintech companies opt to build physical infrastructure to enable digital solutions - and identifies five opportunities emerging from this constraint.
Market Intelligence OP-ED - What do SAG Ventures and Balloon Ventures have in common? The intermediary trap Prince Nwadeyi's published research and Joshua Bicknell's operational experience expose the same problem: entrenched incentive structures don't serve those closest to real economic activity.
Impact Investing OP-ED - M-KOPA’s decade of discovery: when patient capital buys time to pivot M-KOPA’s lengthy path to profitability shows how patient capital can buy the time (and permission) to pivot until the real business emerges.
Fintech POD - April Long on why chasing 'impact' almost killed her fintech whilst bulk traders quietly transformed Africa-China trade Pyxis (rebranded Waka) CEO April Long reveals how her obsession with serving SMEs blinded her to the aggregators actually moving $286 billion in trade - and why accepting this reality saved her venture.
Fintech OP-ED - The education of April Long: a Chinese entrepreneur's humbling lessons building for Africa's $286 billion trade gap After a decade in East Africa, fintech founder April Long reflects on the tough pivots, misread assumptions, and modest wins behind building Pyxis (rebranded Waka) for Africa-China trade.
Cybersecurity OP-ED - A little less propaganda, a little more cybersecurity science The drive of young mathematician Tswelopele Moshe to bridge theory with practical consulting solutions reflects a deeper quest for a more scientific approach to cybersecurity, challenging industry norms.
African Tech Roundup Vietnamese-style Africa-focused Fintech Innovation With Quan Le of Binkabi Binkabi CEO Quan Le unpacks how blockchain tech and Vietnamese smarts could usher in a profitable era of increased international trade participation for African farmers.
African Tech Roundup Accion's Michael Schlein on Financial Inclusion, Fintech & Impact Investment Sceptics Accion CEO Michael Schlein explains why he's bullish on fintech startups and shares how his organisation is leveraging investments in tech-led microfinance innovation to reach the more than two billion people who are currently invisible to and/or poorly served by the global financial system.
