This Week in African Tech 🌍

Hey hey, Darius here 👋🏼, good morning.

In the African tech ecosystem everyone was busy tallying spectacular results this week. 

MTN Nigeria raked in ₦750 billion ($518 million) profit, Airtel Africa posted a whopping 375% jump in half-year profit, and Yellow Card won a major global award for solving cross-border payment headaches.

But before we unpack the details…

Tech Roundup

• MTN Nigeria is back with ₦750 billion ($518 million) in profit and a 57% jump in service revenue. Data usage climbed 36%, MoMo revenue soared 72%, and broadband hit 4 million users, giving the company its cleanest growth story in years. The board capped the comeback with a N5.00 interim dividend for shareholders.

• Airtel Africa has posted a 375% jump in profit for the first half of 2026, powered by booming data use and mobile money. Data is now its biggest business, pulling in $1.16 billion, while mobile money payment volume crossed $193 billion. The company added millions of new users and now runs 38,000+ sites, 98.5% of them on 4G.

• Nigeria’s Access Holdings has agreed to pay $109.6 million for the National Bank of Kenya, giving it a ready-made network in East Africa’s biggest banking market. The lender is still finalising payment, with AFREXIM stepping in to guarantee most of the bill, while its Kenyan arm continues to post losses.

• DStv’s new owner, Canal+, is wasting no time tightening the screws. The company has reportedly frozen supplier payments and asked for 20% invoice cuts, leaving hundreds of bills sitting unpaid. MultiChoice says it’s all part of a long-running efficiency push, but the Competition Commission is already eyeing whether the new regime is breaching merger conditions.

• Off-grid solar giant Sun King is bringing production home, starting with a new Nairobi plant that’ll assemble hundreds of thousands of solar TVs and phones annually. The move trims long supply chains, lowers costs, and builds on the company’s rapid growth; it now ships 330,000 solar kits a month, up from 10,000 in 2017. A $156 million loan package is fueling the expansion, with Nigeria slated for the next factory.

• Western Union is rolling out USDPT, a Solana-based stablecoin designed to win back ground in Africa’s $95 billion remittance market, where fintechs and crypto apps have been nibbling at its fees. The company moves over $100 billion globally each year and says stablecoins are simply “the next evolution” of money movement.

• Flutterwave, which processes $40 billion+ across 34 markets, is making a big blockchain swing by adopting Polygon as its settlement rail for stablecoin payments. The partnership promises instant, low-cost transfers in a region where cross-border fees are among the world’s highest. If it works, stablecoins could quietly become the plumbing behind Africa’s business payments, starting with enterprise clients like Uber and Audiomack.

• Safaricom-backed M-Tiba has reportedly been hit by one of Kenya’s biggest-ever data breaches, with hackers claiming they stole over 17 million medical and personal files. A group called Kazu posted a 2GB sample that appears to show patient names, IDs, diagnoses, and billing records from more than 700 health facilities.

• Yellow Card picked up the Grand Prix Payments Award at Money20/20, putting the African fintech company in the same winner’s circle as Mynt, ZeroHash, and Ant Group. The company was recognized for its work making cross-border payments less of a headache across the continent.

Deal Roundup

• Novastar Ventures secured a $200 million boost from the Green Climate Fund to scale climate-tech solutions across Africa. The new fund will target early and growth-stage companies working on clean tech, adaptation tools, and other planet-friendly innovations. It’s a small but meaningful dent in Africa’s $2.8 trillion climate funding gap, and a push to turn the continent into a climate-tech powerhouse.

• Enzi Mobility secured $3.5 million from Kula PCC to speed up its e-motorbike rollout and expand its battery-swap stations. Alongside the funding, Enzi will introduce two blockchain tokens—$ENZI for governance and $BODA for rider perks—to give its community more ownership in the company’s growth. The startup calls it a win for cleaner, cheaper transport across the region.

• Velents.ai raised $1.5 million to launch Agent.sa, an Arabic-speaking AI “employee” that can answer calls, chat on WhatsApp, analyze data, and handle customer requests like a human colleague. The Egypt-born startup pivoted from recruitment tech to enterprise AI last year and now claims Agent.sa plugs into 20+ systems across industries. Investors include execs from Google and BCG, betting that Middle Eastern businesses might soon hire silicon staffers alongside human ones.

• Kenya’s Synnefa secured a $300,000 grant from P4G to deploy connected solar dryers that speed up crop drying from weeks to 2–3 days. The move is set to support 800+ farmers in Makueni County, reducing losses and boosting yields across coffee, grains, fruits, and vegetables. With ambitions to reach 150,000 farmers by 2026, Synnefa wants smart farm tech to be the region’s new defense against food waste.

• Nedbank has gotten the all-clear to buy iKhokha, the Durban-based fintech that helps small businesses accept card payments and access cash advances. Regulators approved the deal with zero conditions, saying it won’t dent competition. The move gives Nedbank a stronger foothold in South Africa’s fast-growing digital payments space, and puts extra pressure on rivals like FNB and Standard Bank.

Events

• Be part of the conversation shaping the future of Artificial Intelligence in Africa. The Nairobi AI Summit will be held on Thursday, November 6, 2025, and will bring together tech leaders, innovators, and enterprises exploring how AI is transforming industries, driving efficiency, and unlocking new opportunities across the continent. Register Here.

And that's a wrap!

That’s it for this week. See you on Wednesday 😃 

Cheers,

The Tech Safari Team

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