I ended my May 2021 essay with the hypothesis “…leading fintechs might turn around and start acquiring the banks” and, sure enough, on the 12th of May 2021, the Competition Authority of Kenya in a gazette notice approved the acquisition of 84.89% stake in Century Microfinance Bank by Branch International Limited – a leading global …
On 1st of April, as I was publishing my Uniconization of African Fintech piece, Mastercard was busy announcing their $100 million investment into Airtel Money (Airtel Africa’s mobile money subsidiary) to acquire a minority position – half what TPG Capital. Even though I had gotten wind of the transaction knowing that Mastercard was already in …
The first quarter of 2021 ended on a great note as two African fintech businesses gained unicorn status, a rare fit amidst a raging global pandemic which is finally being aggressively tackled by the speedy supply of much-needed vaccines. Such is the African story – a trail of surprises in the midst of uncertainty. On …
Three significant news items went on the global wire on 25th February 2021 as follows; 1. Liquid Telecom, a member of the Econet Group that has laid more than 70,000km of fiber optic cable across Africa, raised $840M financing package (US$620M bond and a US$220M equivalent term loan in Rand). This was Liquid Telecom’s second …
African Corporate Executives turn to Tech Entrepreneurship: Part 2 Read More »
In the last century, the fashionable and accepted route to success for young Africans was to complete their education and join the corporate world. A few university students aspired to become entrepreneurs; most educational institutions did not offer entrepreneurial programs. With few exceptions, African families used to guide their children to join a leading multi-national …
African Corporate Executives turn to Tech Entrepreneurship Read More »
The last decade was an important experiment in Africa tech ventures moving out of the “labs” and becoming real businesses that saw investors backing them with so much capital that from 2014 to 2019, the total number of VC deals doubled every year until the advent of COVID-19, which disrupted global economic activities in 2020. …
Scaling Africa’s tech ventures to exit this decade Read More »
In the midst of the pandemic, Facebook (and partners) announced 2Africa a new subsea cable. About the same time last year, Google also announced a subsea cable called Equaino. It looks like they are trying to save Africa, but this is the problem – we have way too much capacity on the beach and not …
Africa is already connected NOT by Facebook and Google Read More »
On the 5th of November 2020, the 8th Angel Fair Africa will be virtual instead of in Dakar, Senegal due to the global pandemic. $23M of deals have happened over the last seven events which brought selected entrepreneurs to pitch to a room of angel investors whose primary intent was to DO DEALS. In April …
On the 1st of October 2020, the Global System Mobile Association (GSMA) released their “Mobile Economy Sub-Saharan Africa” report which forecasted the mobile economy in Africa into 2025. A positive outlook to start the month of October and the last quarter of 2020. The highlight of this forecast is that by 2025, even with 1.05 …
Africa’s Mobile Phone and Population Growth in the 21st Century Read More »
As the third quarter comes to an end am going to give you a run down on EXITS – the big elephant in the Africa investing room. Yesterday, Autocheck announced the acquisition of Cheki Nigeria and Ghana from ROAM Africa. On 9th September 2020, US based blockchain investor, Digital Currency Group (DCG) bought Naspers-backed South …