Lexi Novitske is the Principal Investment Officer for Africa at Singularity Investments. Lexi is based in Lagos and has interesting insights on picking winning investments as an outsider working in a continent with a notorious dearth of data. She strongly believes that Africa could very well deliver the world’s next unicorn.
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’s importance as a valuable source of under-utilised tech talent, and as a hot-bed of home-grown innovation. Others read it as a pre-cursor to a massive wave of foreign investment that's expected to wash over the continent’s technology industry. We, on the other hand, can’...
Farouk Jivani is a business consultant-turned angel investor who has invested in a couple of Kenyan startups-- one of them being the music downloads platform, Mdundo.com. In this chat, Farouk describes the allure of African markets to angel investors based abroad, and shares on what it's like to be a hands-on investor in early-stage businesses that have the potential to be the next big thing.
Tsholo Mogotsi in the Director for Economic Development Facilitation at the City of Joburg. In this chat with Andile Masuku Tsholo talks about the City of Joburg's commitment to lead the continent in providing it's citizens with the most advanced web-enabled infrastructure. He also sheds light on the role of public institutions in promoting innovation on the continent.
Amrote Abdella is the Director for Venture Capital & Start-ups and Africa Initiatives (Microsoft 4Afrika) at Microsoft. In this chat with Andile Masuku, Amrote shares what it’s like to be embedded in one of the world’s largest tech companies, and being deployed in arguably the world’s fastest growing tech market(s). Listen in to hear Amrote’s take on how Microsoft is responding to next generation tech biggies like Google and Uber’s disruptive ambitions and what Microsoft might consider their...
Stephen Ozoigbo is the CEO of the African Technology Foundation and the Managing Partner of the US State Department-backed Lions @frica initiative. In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Stephen talks about his journey from investment banking to being one of Africa's foremost tech and innovation evangelists. Stephen's high-profile community-building efforts within the continent's burgeoning tech ecosystem allows him to eloquently address the challenge of keeping up with global innovation faced...
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. At this point, Naspers has only one card up its sleeve, and it’s called Tencent Holdings. After all, Naspers’ 33 percent stake in the Chinese technology company currently accounts for almost half its revenue, and its internet and pay-tv businesses are stalling at a time when they des...
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’ve struck with the likes of the Caribbean mobile operator, Digicel, and Three Group in the UK and Italy. There’s no doubt about it, life is about to get a little tougher for online media platforms that rely on ad revenue to survive, as w...
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 the word “Cab” from their brand after the “Little Cab” trademark-holder went to court to defend his right to use that name. From now on, they are to be known as Little. The whole situation is more than a little embarrassing to say the least, and reminds me of the wisdom MiPhone...
Babusi Nyoni is a Cape town-based Zimbabwean digital all-rounder. Babusi is the Digital Creative Group Head at South Africa’s #1 ranked through-the-line agency, M&C SAATCHI Abel. Andile Masuku catches up with Babusi to discuss an AI-enabled campaign he recently masterminded and executed for a global FMCG brand, and to chat about the rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence in general. Tune in to hear him factor in on what the world might look and feel like when those technologies...
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 the interim period improving by ±US$5.7 billion, MTN reported an after tax loss attributable to equity holders of just over US$401 thousand. That translates to a headline loss per share of nearly US$0.20. Compare that with 2015’s headline earnings of just under US...
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 we. So, as Kinnevik was going about its business last week, the firm released its Second Quarter Report which detailed the performance of its subsidiaries around the world. That simple act of due diligence on Kinnevik’s part (which admittedly is something that happens every quarter without fail, but only garnered media attention in Nigeria this time ro...
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 by Global Market Insights, an estimated 590 million Africans still do not have access to electricity, to say nothing of reliable web access. However, South Africa’s largest telecoms operator, the government-owned Telkom, has announced some game-changing 4G/LTE data-led...
Jaco Van Zyl is the co-founder and MD of the South African startup, PulseIt— a company which is looking to give online voucher firms like Vouchercloud, Groupon and Shazam a run for their money. In this chat Jaco Van Zyl explain swhy so many VC’s and African tech firms seem quite bullish on the online voucher business, and why he thinks his startup has what it takes to steal market share from more established international players and fend off newer players like ttrumpet who are just as hungry fo...
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-based Codecademy has closed a $30 million Series C investment round led by Naspers, through its Naspers Ventures division. Codecademy plans to use the funds to extend its global reach, build its mobile presence, and beef up its course content. It does seem that for...
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 a wireless access point for connecting devices using 2G, LTE or even Wi-Fi. While this move by Facebook is no doubt just a footnote in the company’s playbook for achieving complete digital dominance, one wonders if this could signal the beginning o...
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 in this instalment is very good friend of the show, aka “The American Homie”, Trevor Wolfe— Co-founder and CEO of Delvv.io. Trevor is fresh off a plane from Europe and the States where he’s successfully closed a round of funding for his crowdsourced research startup. In addition to factoring in...
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 BT redundant in the next decade. His answer? The trend towards consolidated media ownership. Listen in to this week’s African Tech Round-up to hear Oliver unpack that answer. Meanwhile, the French Urban television network Trace TV’s acquisition of Ke...
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 the 3rd African city Uber has taken to in as many weeks (following Luanda, Uganda and Accra, Ghana) and their 475th location worldwide. Since launching in Johannesburg in 2012, Uber has quietly gone about silencing many of the doubts that sceptics have had a...
Ever wonder what it might be like to run a startup that’s owned by a successful tech company, backed by one of Africa’s wealthiest entrepreneurs? Well, one thing is for sure— it’s no walk in the park. At least, that’s according to Charles Murray. Charles is a director of a messaging and internet calling app called ttrumpet that’s looking to capture a big share of Africa’s digital vouchering market. ttrumpet-- dubbed a "lifestyle app", is a subsidiary of Fastcomm, a tech group that boasts having ...
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. MTN has reportedly struck a deal with the Nigerian government, and is set to pay the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) $1.7 billion over three years— significantly less than the $5.2 billion they were initially fined for flouting SIM card registration regulations months ago. Whil...
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-time high on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange last week— reaching R2,320.73 per share, pushing its market value to R1,02 trillion (±$6,7 billion), it’s now a matter of “catch me if you can” as far as any of the firm’s competitors closing in on them. In this week’s African Tech Round-up, A...
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 Ghana might do well to learn from the example set by other countries on the continent and around the world that have take similar steps in the recent past— Uganda no doubt being top of mind. It's likely that the Inspector General’s comments might have been ma...
Brian Anderson is the Head of Sales and Business Development at Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), a NYSE-listed firm specialising in banking and payments technology as well as consulting and outsourcing solutions— which acquired one of the world’s leading financial software and technology services companies SunGard in 2015. The company services 20,000 clients in 130 countries and has 55,000 employees and $9.3 billion in revenue. Brian speaks to Andile Masuku about the company's next ...
Late last week a violent attack on two Uber partner vehicles in the Sandton Central Business District led to the injury of three police officers who attended the scene to calm things down, and also resulted in the damage of two law enforcement vehicles. The assault on the Uber partners’ cars is said to have been carried out by a group of meter taxi drivers unhappy with Uber’s disruption of their livelihood. One man has reportedly been arrested in connection with the incident. Meanwhile, the quie...
Vodacom is finally pulling the plug on their disastrous six-year attempt to roll out M-Pesa in South Africa. (The service will be shut down on June 30th 2016.) Funny thing is, Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub has blamed his company’s diabolical failure to meet their target of enlisting at least 10 million active users on South Africa’s relatively well-established banking industry. (By the end of 2015 they had only managed to onboard a paltry 76,000 active users.) However, Joosub’s assertion does not s...
Following our coverage last week of the partnership between VAST Networks and Ruckus Wireless to deliver on Africa’s largest single deployment of WiFi infrastructure at the recently opened Mall of Africa in Midrand, South Africa— we thought it might be a good idea to invite a certified WiFi-freak to help us understand why WiFi may indeed be “the next big thing” in terms of ushering in seamless connectedness on the continent. Joining me on the African Tech Round-up this week is Riaan Graham, Ruck...
There’s no doubt Kenneth Nkosana Makate is celebrating Workers’ Day in style following a South African Constitutional Court judge ruling that Vodacom owes him a big fat cheque for profiting from his Please-Call-Me idea for well over a decade. This brings to a close Nkosana’s 15-year legal battle with the mobile network. Or does it? In this episode of the African Tech Round-up, Tefo Mohapi and I unpack this landmark case and speculate over just how much Nkosana’s legal team might gun for in terms...
There is so much hype around the potential of technological innovation to lift Africa out of poverty and usher the continent into an era of peace and progress. I get a little annoyed when such rhetoric is bandied about by corporate marketers who know better than to think that free WiFi and cheap mobile devices will solve the massive structural socio-economic problems plaguing the continent. Providing the backdrop for this week’s discussion on the African Tech Round-up is the news that the Malawi...
And so our First Birthday Celebration continues… Over the past year, our sister podcast, African Tech Conversations, has featured relaxed in-depth chats with leading entrepreneurs, innovators and thought-leaders from Africa’s tech scene. In place of this week’s discussion on the African Tech Round-up, we’re sharing memorable moments from the series. In this episode, you can look forward to hearing candid bits and insights courtesy of Mteto Nyathi, Alan Knott-Craig Jr, Matsi Modise, Ashley Veasey...
