Etop Ikpe and his team at the Nigerian vehicle marketplace, Cars45.com, are no doubt feeling great following the successful close of the company's $5 million Series A funding round a couple of weeks ago. Given the tough time Nigeria's e-commerce industry has been having of late, the significance of this achievement is not lost on us. Previously the Commercial Director of Konga-- one of Nigeria’s largest online shopping platforms, and formerly the CEO and Co-MD of DealDey, Etop is unquestionably ...
May 28, 2017•26 min
Scientists have found a way to remove the HIV virus from the DNA in mouse cells using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. According to the journal, Molecular Therapy, use of the technique has led to the complete elimination of infection in mouse organs and tissue after just one treatment. Now, that's the kind of international tech news that really gets us excited around here! And, yes! The team at the African Tech Round-up is back from a much-needed break, and we're super-stoked to catch up on news like thi...
May 15, 2017•52 min
Monica Brand Engel is a Peruvian American investor and entrepreneur who has been involved with a number of investment vehicles and products aimed at broadening financial inclusion. Monica spent her formative years in Silicon Valley and is a disciple of agile development and user-centered design. The financial inclusion businesses she helped launch include Quona Capital, Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund and its predecessor fund, Frontier Investments Group, Anthuri Catalysts (Cape Town venture capit...
Apr 25, 2017•16 min
Allard Luchsinger is the Director for Private Equity at the Dutch VC firm Velocity Capital Private Equity. Allard supports all of Velocity’s portfolio companies as an active board member for TradeKing, an innovative US online brokerage firm; 8 Securities, Asia’s next-generation online broker based in Hong Kong; Five Degrees, a progressive banking software provider from The Netherlands; as well as Cellulant, a leading mobile commerce and payment technology provider from Kenya. He joined Velocity ...
Apr 18, 2017•30 min
Andile catches up with Stephen Ozoigbo at the inaugural Enterprise Africa Summit that was recently hosted by the British Council in Accra, Ghana. Ozoigbo is the CEO of The African Technology Foundation. He has dedicated his energies to addressing the obvious gaps in Africa’s tech startup pipeline by championing some of the most high profile ecosystem growth initiatives on the continent— not least, by serving as Managing Partner of Lions@frica, being an key executive supporter of DEMO Africa and ...
Apr 16, 2017•23 min
We’re still in celebration mode for crossing 100 weekly podcasts in a row. And so as promised, this week, we’re sharing more awesomeness from that event. Enjoy this candid fireside chat with the talented digital specialist, marketing maven, author, former Africa Client Partner at Facebook, current Head of Brand at IAB South Africa, and Founder and CEO of a new adtech startup called Microtising, Musa Kalenga. In this conversation, Musa shares loads of insights on starting up in Africa, and talks ...
Apr 06, 2017•27 min
Jacques de Vos is the MD of the Vodacom IoT subsidiary, Mezzanine Ware. Mezzanine deploys mobile (GSM) enabled solutions and helps clients (primarily within the healthcare, agriculture and education services) develop innovative business models that harness IoT technologies to achieve cost efficiencies and improved accessibility.
Apr 03, 2017•36 min
This is our 100th episode! To everyone who's ever listened in to the show, interacted with us via social media, recommended the podcast to other people, made an audio contribution, emailed a comment or question, been featured as a guest, attended one of our live events, tuned in to a live stream on Facebook, or even come on board as a podcast/event sponsor, thank you. We all did this. The love is real, and we salute you! To celebrate this milestone, we're publishing live audio taped at the Afric...
Mar 29, 2017•1 hr 17 min
It's been barely a week since we hosted the African Tech Round-up LIVE: State of the Startup event in Johannesburg, and believe it or not, next week will mark the 100th podcast we'll have published in consecutive weeks. We've done our best to deliver the biggest digital, tech and innovation headlines from Africa and beyond while offering candid analysis and commentary, as well as useful insights gleaned from some of the Africa's leading entrepreneurs, executives, investors and technical talent. ...
Mar 22, 2017•22 min
The Tech Minute 17-03-2017 by African Tech Roundup
Mar 17, 2017•1 min
Mobile telcos on the continent are certainly having a rough time of it on the continent. In the same week that MTN South Africa CEO, Mteto Nyati, announced his resignation, a consortium of banks including Guaranty Trust Bank, Access Bank and Zenith Bank reportedly assumed control of Etisalat Nigeria over an outstanding $1.72 billion loan. Media reports suggesting that Etisalat Nigeria failed to meet its debt servicing obligations since 2016 have led to speculation over what might have contribute...
Mar 14, 2017•1 hr 6 min
In this Tech Minute, Brian Lupiya shares the latest on Etisalat Nigeria's $1.72 billion credit dispute with a consortium of banks including Guaranty Trust Bank, Access Bank and Zenith Bank, and reveals which international VOD subcription service has set its sights on seven African countries. Music credit: Muzikid
Mar 10, 2017•1 min
Oops... Amazon is still recovering from their embarrassing human error that caused a massive outage of their Simple Storage Service, leading to significant portions of the web to go down for several hours. For more on that story and one other major news item from the past week, listen in to this Tech Minute with Brian Lupiya. Music credit: Muzikid
Mar 08, 2017•1 min
Pule Taukobong is a Founding Partner at CRE Venture Capital (CRE VC), a seed-focussed fund which invests in technology-enabled startup companies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Their impressive portfolio includes stakes in startups like Andela, Esaja, Angani, Flutterwave and more recently, Yoco. Pule is responsible for the group's deal flow and performs industry and financial due diligence on both incoming business plans and targeted companies, while also sitting on several startup advisory boards. In th...
Mar 08, 2017•16 min
Whatever you think of Nokia's re-introduction of the legendary 3310 device, you've got to hand it to HMD Global for completely owning Mobile World Congress 2017 in terms of capturing headlines. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to recall any other major announcement made at the world's premier mobile showcase this year. In this week's African Tech Round-up, Andile Masuku is joined by Zambian author, speaker and marketer extraordinaire, Musa Kalenga, to work out how much of the hype surrounding Noki...
Mar 06, 2017•38 min
In this Tech Minute-- media reports have surfaced alleging SAP South Africa Managing Director Lawrence Kandaswami's involvement in a kickback scandal linked to the Department of Water and Sanitation. For more on this and other leading tech news from the past week, be sure to spare a minute to listen in. Music credit: Muzikid
Mar 02, 2017•1 min
Katlego Maphai is the co-founder and CEO of the South African mobile payments startup, Yoco. Yoco launched out of beta in October 2015 and the venture has since acquired over 6 500 merchants, has gone on to process approximately $76,7 million (R1 billion rand) in annualised transactions. The company has recently announced the conclusion of a Series-A funding round (sum undisclosed) led by two foreign, fintech-focused institutional investors-- US-based Quona Capital (manager of Accion Frontier In...
Mar 02, 2017•22 min
In this Tech Minute, Brian Lupiya unpacks how Kenyan banks have teamed up to take on the disruptive threat posed by M-Pesa, and touches on two other leading stories from the latest African Tech Round-up podcast. Music credit: Muzikid
Feb 22, 2017•56 sec
We're often asked what informs our opinionated take on the biggest tech and innovation headlines each week. Our secret is having five to ten times as many conversations per week than most people. From established tech entrepreneurs and high-flying C-suite types to striving startup founders, career tech-heads, VC’s, business angels and everyday Africans who are leveraging tech to make a better life for themselves, we talk to everybody. On this week's African Tech Round-up we've decided to let you...
Feb 21, 2017•43 min
While at the World Business Angels Investment Forum 2017, Chris Campbell, co-founder of both the African Business Angels Network (ABAN) and the South African Business Angels Network (SABAN) catches up with Nigerian angel investor and president of ABAN, Tomi Davies, to get his thoughts on how readily the world is starting to think of Africa is a serious tech investment destination.
Feb 21, 2017•5 min
In the same week that Neotel officially became part of Liquid Telecom (a subsidiary of the Econet Group), Anglophone Cameroon clocked a month of going without internet access. Brian Lupiya shares the details in this Tech Minute. Music credit: Brian Lupiya Image credit: Edouard Tamba
Feb 15, 2017•1 min
Alison Treadaway is a director and shareholder of the South African eBilling and eMarketing software and services company, Striata. In this chat, Alison unpacks the noble aims of South Africa's imminent enaction of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI), and highlights some of the pain points that this ground-breaking piece of legislation is expected to address-- gaps that other African countries will no doubt seek to plug through passing personal data laws of their own.
Feb 14, 2017•22 min
The continent's two most prominent central banks-- the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), have decidedly different attitudes towards the notion of adopting virtual currencies. While the CBN has recently warned the country's financial institutions and citizens that virtual currencies are not legal tender, the SARB has displayed a willingness to emulate Tunisia by launching a blockchain-based digital version of the South African Rand. With bitcoin showing sign...
Feb 14, 2017•41 min
In this Tech Minute, Brian Lupiya gives the lowdown on an impressive large-scale green project in Cape Town, South Africa and touches on two other leading stories from the latest African Tech Round-up podcast. Music credit: Muzikid
Feb 08, 2017•1 min
Lionel Chmilewsky is the CEO of Cambridge Broadband Networks (CBNL), a UK-based, privately-held multipoint microwave tech firm which has an impressive client list that includes seven of the world’s top ten mobile operators-- among them, African biggies like MTN and Vodacom. Lionel shares insights on the state of play on the continent’s wireless network scene, and explains why recent advances in multipoint microwave tech are potentially game-changing.
Feb 06, 2017•34 min
The Indomitable Lions of Cameroon are probably still celebrating their win against The Pharaohs of Egypt in the AFCON final. How ironic that roughly 20% of the Central African country’s population was unable to celebrate their national team’s win on social media thanks to the government’s ongoing broadband blackout following anti-government protests in the north-west and south-west regions of that country. No doubt some Cameroonians-- particularly the tech heads who make up the nation’s “Silicon...
Feb 06, 2017•42 min
Got a minute? This brisk, energetic podcast presented by Brian Lupiya delivers the top three digital, tech and innovation stories featured in the latest episode of the African Tech Round-up (AfricanTechRoundup.com). Music credit: Brian Lupiya
Feb 01, 2017•1 min
Africa's 'high-end' VOD scene is hotting up, and for home-grown heavies, ShowMax and Kwesé, the race to achieving critical mass is on. ShowMax is on the prowl for mobile telco partners that can help it hack growth while leveraging the enviable stash of international licensed content that its mothership, DStv, has in its vault. Meanwhile, Kwesé has the benefit of being part of the Econet Group-- a huge potential advantage in that they might exploit Econet's established mobile distribution network...
Jan 30, 2017•30 min
Got a minute? This brisk, energetic podcast presented by Brian Lupiya delivers the top three digital, tech and innovation stories featured in the latest episode of the African Tech Round-up (AfricanTechRoundup.com). Music credit: Brian Lupiya
Jan 24, 2017•1 min
Several well-respected voices we featured on the show last year predicted that we would see some major agtech plays happen in 2017. Sure enough, Mastercard made headlines last week for launching a digital marketplace platform called 2KUZE which connects smallholder farmers, agents, buyers and banks in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The app allows farmers to buy, sell and receive payments for agricultural products via their feature phones. If this initiative works half as well as we hope it will, it...
Jan 23, 2017•38 min
