This Week in African Tech 🌍

Hey hey, Sheriff here 👋🏼, good morning.

Last week, Africa got its biggest undersea cable system yet. It’s so big that it could serve 30% of the world’s population.

At the same time, Google made a roadmap for African countries to help African countries upskill their youth in AI, and they’re opening up their wallet to fund some projects too.

Sadly, we didn’t see as many raises this week as we typically would. In fact, you could say this week was for big tech, big telco, and big government.

But before we unpack the details…

Tech Roundup

• Meta and a group of regional and global telcos just completed and activated the 2Africa subsea cable system, bringing more capacity to Africa than all the existing subsea cables combined. The system is open access by design, so multiple providers can connect and give customers faster, cheaper, and more reliable internet.

• Nomba, a Nigerian fintech providing people and businesses with financial services, has entered the Congo DRC with its remittance product and is hiring physical agents to handle inflows from high-volume corridors like China and Dubai. Nomba hopes to become a top banking choice for consumers in Congo, where 80% of people have never had a bank account.

• Google has unveiled its “AI Skilling Blueprint for Africa,” a new policy roadmap designed to help governments across the continent develop an AI-ready workforce. The blueprint focuses on three core talent groups: learners, implementers, and innovators. Google also announced $2.25 million to fund projects creating trustworthy public datasets for AI in Africa as part of the rollout.

• Starlink has signed a partnership with Vodacom Group, Safaricom’s parent company, to expand high-speed broadband across Africa. The partnership makes Vodacom an authorised seller of Starlink equipment and services for enterprises and small businesses, with a focus on remote schools, health centres, or communities where traditional infrastructure is too difficult to deploy.

• Resilience17 has officially launched its first venture studio product, Odysy, a new expense management platform built to solve the payment headaches facing African businesses and global travelers. Available now in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, Odysy allows companies to issue corporate cards (in both USD and Naira) and access local payment rails like M-PESA and bank transfers. The goal is to give finance teams total visibility over spending while ensuring employees can pay for everything from software subscriptions to local transport without transaction failures.

• Consumer loan performance in Nigeria weakened in Q2 2025. That’s why Zeeh Africa, an open finance startup, has relaunched a direct debit feature to allow businesses to debit their customers’ accounts on agreed dates.

• Standard Bank, South Africa’s largest bank by assets, has become the first African bank to directly integrate with China’s Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS). This unlocks a faster route for African businesses to pay their Chinese suppliers in Renminbi (RMB) instead of the US dollar.

• South African telco, Vodacom, is currently in talks to boost its stake in Safaricom beyond the 39.93% it currently owns. This move is timely, as Safaricom’s value has surged, hitting KSh 1.19 trillion ($9.2 billion) this year, and the government has floated the idea of breaking it into three pieces.

Deal Roundup

• Fusepay has raised $350,000 to help businesses in Seychelles handle their finances better and move away from slow, paper-based processes. FusePay is targeting other island economies in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean with weak digital payment systems.

• Plentify has raised an oversubscribed Series A round, bringing its total funding to $15 million. The company builds AI-driven hardware and software that connects household appliances to cleaner energy sources. Its smart energy network has helped save 9.9GWh and cut more than R40m in power bills, but the company will use the new funding for pilot deployments in Brazil, the UK, and Australia.

• South African digital lender, Lula, has raised $10 million (R170 million) in debt from the International Finance Corporation to expand access to working capital for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Lula says it will use the money to reach more MSMEs who have historically been excluded by traditional banks.
  

• Bluworks, an Egyptian HR-tech startup, has raised $1 million in seed funding to accelerate its growth across Egypt and expand into the Middle East and other North African markets. Bluworks digitises workforce management for businesses that employ informal workers and shift-based workers. The round was led by Enza Capital, A15, and Bentone Capital, with participation from a few others.

Events

• Latitude59 is bringing Africa's Boldest Innovation Conversation to the ASK Dome on December 4th-5th, and it’s time to move past the "startup hype" and start building real momentum. Join us for two days of honest connections with founders and investors, hands-on masterclasses, and a high-stakes pitch competition featuring the top 10 startups from across the continent, all focused on sustainable, revenue-driven growth. Come find your tribe and fuel your future; secure your spot today using code TECHSAFARIxL59 for a 35% discount! 👉 Get your tickets here.

• If you’re serious about scaling in Africa, you need to be in the room where the checks are actually being written. On December 2nd-3rd, AfricArena is bringing the Grand Summit 2025 to the Cape Town International Convention Centre, connecting the continent’s top startups directly with 200+ active investors and 50+ speakers who move the needle in tech. Whether you're raising capital or hunting for partnerships, come join the VCs, corporates, and LPs shaping the future of African tech; secure your spot today! 👉

Post of the Week

And that's a wrap!

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

Cheers,

The Tech Safari Team

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