Second time’s a charm

Welcome to Tech Safari - Your tour guide on African Tech. 🧭

Hello to the new folks who have joined the safari since the last edition.

If you haven’t subscribed, join thousands of smart folks curious about tech in Africa.

Caleb here, jumping in before today’s edition with a quick message.

You’re about to read Mercy’s experience at Latitude59 - an event we co-hosted in Nairobi last month.

But first, a quick shoutout to our partners and the startups that joined us — Pindo, Digitax, CloudPlexo, Sling Money, Yaga, Infobip, Roam, Green Rising, AWS Startups, and so many others.

I just heard one exhibitor potentially secured $1m in contracts at the event.

We’re now planning our events calendar for 2025, starting with our first mixer in February.

We’re signing up partners, panelists, and sponsors for each event, and demand is higher than we’ve ever seen.

If you want to join in, shoot me a quick reply to this email and we’ll lock something in before the holidays.

Looking forward to chatting! And now… I’ll let Mercy take it from here.

Hey 👋🏽 Mercy here.

I had a ball at the second edition of Latitude59 in Nairobi, so I had to share a few gems with you.

Let’s get into it!

Two years ago, fresh out of school, I was part of the tech team at Diamond Trust Bank in Nairobi.

That’s where I first saw how tech is changing one of the oldest industries: banking.

Then Tech Safari happened, and I dove into telling stories about startups across Africa solving big problems with tech.

When I started, raising millions wasn’t rare for founders with cool ideas.

Tech felt like this exclusive club for founders, VCs, and engineers.

And fintech was the golden child, getting all the love, hype and funding.

Things look very different now.

The funding winter hit, and VCs got a lot pickier about where their money goes.

New sectors like climate tech are catching up to fintech in funding.

And African tech is not just for VCs and operators anymore.

Governments, academics, and everyone else are stepping in, reshaping the space in ways we couldn’t have imagined.

We’ve grown. And being at Latitude59 last week made it even clearer.

Estonia and Kenya’s second date

Estonia is a small, unassuming country in Northern Europe with just 1.3 million people.

But it’s home to ten billion-dollar companies - familiar names like Skype, Bolt, Wise, and Pipedrive.

Last year, we picked apart the startup playbook that got them there.

Since 2012, Latitude59, Estonia's biggest tech event, has been the heart of its startup scene, attracting over 3,000 founders, investors, and tech enthusiasts annually.

Two weeks ago, Latitude59 returned to Nairobi, uniting 2,000 founders, investors, and innovators.

 And Tech Safari was proud to be a partner in making it happen.

The day was packed with insights from top African and global tech minds.

As someone who’s been in both traditional industries like banking and now gets to tell startup stories, three big lessons stuck with me.

1) Academia is finally stepping up

In June this year, I wrote about how universities can become Africa's biggest pipeline for tech.

Students have time, energy, and each other, making it easier to experiment.

And we’ve seen founders who grew their tech curiosity in uni create a ripple effect in the ecosystem.

Startups like Jobberman and HeyFood kicked off in dorm rooms, and Co-founders of Piggyvest all met while at university.

My article was a call for academia to step up and be more involved in African tech.

So, sitting at Latitude59 and seeing this come to life was a full circle moment.

This time, lots of university students came through.

I sat next to four students from Strathmore University - one of Kenya’s top universities.

And after talking to one of them, I learned that the university had sent a whole bus of them to the event.

Some of them were volunteering—helping set up stages, guiding people, and networking while at it.

Kevin Lumuli, a second-year engineering student, told me, “This is my first tech event in Nairobi, and I had no idea it would be this big.”

The part that excited him most, he told me, is watching young founders, almost at his level, take the stage to pitch.

Why does it matter that universities pulled up?

Because when they get it right, African universities can do for our tech ecosystems what Stanford did for Silicon Valley.

Take the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa - Africa’s top-ranked university.

They’ve minted 74 tech CEOs in Africa, including Katlego Maphali from Yoco and  Thando Hlongwane of Lipa Payments.

How?

By doing two things really well:

1. Backing student research

2. And connecting them with the right funding to turn those ideas into real businesses

I’m sure other African universities could use this playbook too.

2) The African supermodel: Localizing AI for Africa

A tech conference without AI can as well be an email.

At Latitude59, one of the best panels of the day was all about AI—The African Supermodel.

The speakers? Three founders making AI work for Africa:

• Tonnie Ndung'u, founder and CEO of Kytabu (an edtech startup)

• Remy Muhire, founder and CEO of Pindo (a voice AI startup)

• Rositsa Zaimova - CEO of Dalberg Data Insights (DDI)

The mood was clear: AI’s the equalizer, and Africa must hustle to secure its spot at the table.

We need to use AI in a way that makes sense for us. Our languages, our contexts, and our needs.

Tonnie Ndung’u pointed to Iceland, a small island with just 330,000 people, as a great example of how we can make this happen.

Five years ago, Icelandic was almost disappearing from the digital world.

Almost everything online was in English.

And one startup saw a chance to do something new.

In 2020, Miðeind, an Icelandic startup, launched Embla, the first voice assistant to truly speak and understand Icelandic.

The mobile app can:

• Answer questions about local stores

• Give you weather updates

• And even look up info on Wikipedia that it doesn’t already know

The work paid off.

Last year, Icelandic became the first language, after English, to be part of OpenAI’s GPT-4 development.

Lesson for us?

Africa can build its own AI table.

Tonnie’s startup, Kytabu, is working with Kenyan teachers to record lessons in local languages.

They’ve already racked up over 9,000 hours of recordings—prime material for building AI-driven teaching assistants in those languages.

Then there’s Pindo, a Rwandan startup leading the way in Voice AI for African languages.

Their tech helps companies deliver education, healthcare, or financial services automatically—no human agents needed. 

3) The Kenyan startup scene is evolving

Nothing beats a good pitch competition, and Latitude59 didn’t disappoint.

Out of 382 applications from 37 countries, ten startups earned their spot in the final round.

Some standouts were:

• NoMa: A Kenyan platform making school transportation easier by going digital

• Eco Nasi: A Kenyan startup turning pineapple pulp waste into vegan leather that lasts five times longer than traditional hide

• Afya Mama: A Tanzanian startup helping women access maternal and reproductive health info via SMS and a web app

   

But only one startup won a ticket to pitch at the main Latitude59 stage in Tallinn next year.

VunaPay

Nearly 80% of Kenya’s agricultural output comes from smallholder farmers—around 7.5 million of them.

But despite their contribution, many remain stuck in poverty.

Here’s why:

• Farmers delivering to co-operatives often wait months to get paid.

• Those who can’t wait turn to middlemen, who buy cheap and sell high, leaving farmers with scraps

In 2022, Gatwiri Njogu left her job at Oracle to change this.

She started VunaPay, a platform that ensures farmers get paid on time.

VunaPay tracks how much produce a farmer delivers to a co-operative and provides an instant partial payment.

And since launching, they’ve served over 9,000 farmers.

They're preparing to pitch to a 3000-person global crowd in Tallinn in May.

And Tech Safari will be there to cheer them on.

Big kudos to the amazing Latitude59 team for taking a leap and bringing this to Kenya.

Shoutout to Liisi Org, Dolores Daniel, Kaspar Kitsing, Kai Isand, and Caleb Maru for an amazing event and a fun afterparty.

I had a blast.

Did you go to Latitude59? How did you find it? Let me know here

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