In 2020, Guy Futi left Jumia, where he ran Jumia Food in Nigeria, to launch Orda, a Lagos-based software company that aspires to be the operating system for small (and also large) restaurants across Africa. Great conversation about launching a business and raising money with a born entrepreneur. This is a free version of the podcast. To listen to the full episode, please subscribe at https://ctlaughlin.substack.com/
Episode 25 of the BIG5D Podcast features a conversation with Mike Smits, CFO and a co-founder of Ukheshe, a South African fintech that provides API-first fintech-as-a-service solutions to banks, telecoms, and other fintech companies.
This episode features an interview with Ezana Raswork, CEO of Africa 118 and Taskmoby. The latter company is an Ethiopean home services platform that was a 2021recipient of Google's Black Founders Award, an equity-free investment from the search giant.
Postpay is a player in the Middle East buy now, pay later space. And it hopes soon in the wider Africa, Middle East, and Asian markets. A former consultant, Sheikh launched Postpay in 2019, around the same time as several other regional competitors. The podcast covers the BNPL business model, competitive environment, future direction, and more. Episode sponsored by Matchcraft.com
Deepankar Rustagi founded Omnibiz in 2020 to help small FMCG retailers run their businesses more efficiently. He explains his business and his outlook on Africa's tech scene in this 30-minute interview. The company recently raised $3 million to build out its product and pursue international expansion. Episode sponsored by Matchcraft (matchcraft.com)
The episode features an interview with Kennedy Kamau, a startup veteran who is now managing director of Kune Food, a food-tech startup in Nairobi that has a unique business model, using its own cloud kitchen and a fully owned and operated distribution network. The company raised a $1M pre-seed round this year. This event sparked a brief controversy over supposed preferential treatment for ex-pat startup founders in Africa. Kune's founder is a French national. This episode is sponsored by MatchCr...
This episode features Martin Majlund, co-founder and CEO of Sky.Garden, an eCommerce that offers a Shopify-like solution to small businesses in East Africa. The company recently raised $4 million to grow and expand internationally. This episode is sponsored by Matchcraft.
This episode features a conversation about earned wage access with SmartWave CEO Simon Ellis. EWA is an increasingly common tool that gives employees access to wages before payday, usually for a small fee. EWA platforms are popping up all across Africa, where the need is acute. By some measures, nearly 80% of lower-wage workers in South Africa run out of money before payday, leaving them vulnerable to payday lenders. Simon walks us through the business model, detailing both its challenges and op...
Mohamed Al Fayed is co-founder and CEO of grubtech company that is emerging as a key infrastructure player in the UAE’s exploding ghost kitchen scene.Grubtech has built an operating system to address the friction points arising from running a high-volume food delivery business.
Tori Samples is co-founder and CTO of Leaf Global Fintech, a company based in East Africa that offers a blockchain-based digital wallet for refugees and migrant workers. The podcast focuses on whether a mission-driven business can also be a scalable fintech. And why blockchain can transform the African small business fintech space. Note: The interview with Tori begins at the 6:45 mark.
This episode features Firas Ahmad, /CEO of AxamPay, an East African fintech that is a division of Azam Group, the East African conglomerate. Firas is a thought leader on African fintech in addition to running a payments platform. His view that mobile money is not sufficiently innovative forms the nucleus of our conversation.
Katharine Budd and her business partner Ian Dillon spotted a huge underserved community in the Gulf Region. The millions of lower-wage migrant workers are largely unbanked and send billions of dollars back to their families in their countries of origin. NOW Money has created a digital banking solution, including remittances. for this population. The TAM is huge, but so are the challenges facing this business model.
We engage Zapper CEO Brett White on the stage of small business in South Africa one year into the pandemic. We also discuss innovation, fintechs vs banks, and the technologies that will drive the payments space in the years to come.
Lauren Kagori works with Pezesha, a financial inclusion platform in East Africa that is trying to solve to problem of poor access to capital for small businesses through crowdfunding.
Flutterwave's head of global partnerships chats with the BIG5D Podcast about her company's meteoric rise to become of just a few tech unicorns in Africa. Among the topics covered include Flutterwave's $170 million Series C round, its new deal with PayPal, and the complexities of simplifying payments in Africa.
Dana Buys is a longtime software entrepreneur who had a vision for creating a technology that allows restaurant owners to manage their businesses through a mobile device. Cloudone's TallOrder point of sale solution is designed for a mobile-first present and self-service future in the retail, dining, and hospitality industries. His company's newest product VerPay, adds a needed trust layer to take payments over a voice call. This episode also features a discussion of the battered state of South A...
This is the first in the BIG5D Podcast's Fintech Founders Series, This episode features OZÉ CEO Meghan McCormick. Meghan explains her journey from American Peace Corp veteran and management consultant to founding a small-business fintech based in Ghana that helps SMMEs get organized with SaaS tools and get access to capital on fair terms. Meghan comes to everything with a core mission of creating jobs by helping small businesses thrive. This episode is sponsored by Mono Solutions. (https://www.m...
The pandemic has created challenges for the region’s logistics players — ride-hailing services, food delivery apps, and others. But there is also a tremendous emerging opportunity to offer an ever-widening array of services. We will explore this landscape with Uber’s Kartik Taneja. Episode sponsored by MatchCraft (www.matchcraft.com)
This episode of BIG5D.TV features an interview with Samantha Naidu, CEO of Volt Africa. We discuss the optimal digital solution set for African SMEs, particularly in times of crisis. This episode was sponsored by Duda: https://www.duda.co/
Today’s guest is Colin Timmis, the South Africa country manager for Xero -- the global cloud accounting platform. We had a great conversation about what it takes to get SMMEs to overcome their anxiety about technology and use it to their advantage. This episode is sponsored by Duda
Cape Town entrepreneur Grant Greeff shares his experience of trying to save one company, EHire, while launching another, OpenRoute, in the midst of a global pandemic.
This is the podcast version of the BIG5D.TV video series. This episode features a conversation about sales during the COVID-19 pandemic with Wayne Bischoff, CEO of Mediamark, a media sales house in South Africa, and George Lieth, EVP Sales at Vendasta, a Canadian martech company. The original interview was conducted in July 2020.
