This Week in African Tech 🌍

Hey hey, Darius here 👋🏼,

While Trump intensified plans to buy Greenland, the African tech ecosystem was running its own consolidation play.

From Paystack restructuring into a holding company to Nedbank’s $856 million bid for Kenya’s NCBA, this week was proof that in 2026, if you aren't scaling, you’re on someone else’s shopping list.

We’ll talk about all this in a sec.

Tech Roundup

• Kenya is back at the IPO table, after 11 years away. The government has kicked off a sale of a 65% stake in Kenya Pipeline Company, valuing the firm at $835 million in what would be the country’s biggest listing ever. If successful, it will fund infrastructure and could thaw Nairobi’s long-frozen public markets..

• Paystack restructured into a holding company. After hitting group-wide profitability, the Nigerian fintech reorganized under The Stack Group (TSG), a holding company that now houses Paystack, consumer app Zap, Paystack MFB, and its venture studio. Stripe, the CEO Shola Akinlade, and employees now share ownership, while each brand runs independently.

• The Kenyan diaspora remittances climbed to a record $5.08 billion in FY2024/25, helping steady the shilling and push forex reserves to $9.1 billion. Growth has cooled from post-pandemic highs, but the dollars are still doing heavy macro work.

• Chipper Cash posted its first-ever quarter of positive free cash flow in Q4 2025, a milestone achieved through cost cuts and discipline amid a brutal macro backdrop that included a >70% plunge in the Nigerian naira. After years of cash burn and funding slowdowns, the company is now covering its own operating costs.

• Nedbank is eying East Africa with an $856 million NCBA bid. The South African lender is targeting 66% of Kenya’s NCBA in a cash-and-stock deal, keeping the bank on the Nairobi Exchange and its brand intact. NCBA would keep its management, and operate as a Nedbank subsidiary.

• Zenith Bank is on its way to Kenya. The Nigerian banking giant got regulatory clearance to acquire 100% of Kenya’s Paramount Bank, with a key condition: all 78 Paramount employees must stay for at least a year. The deal positions Zenith to compete with UBA, GTBank, and Access Bank while shoring up Paramount’s capital and compliance.

• The Gates Foundation and OpenAI are teaming up on a $50 million initiative to deploy AI tools across African health systems, beginning in Rwanda. With sub-Saharan Africa short of an estimated six million healthcare workers, Gates says the tech could be a “game-changer” for access to care.

• Bolt for Business grew 38% year-on-year in South Africa, thanks to more corporate rides and new distribution partners. Peak trips hit mornings and afternoons, while integrations with Stellr and major banks put corporate mobility at employees’ fingertips.

•  Quidax has discontinued P2P trading, five months after launch, citing low demand and tight regulatory oversight. Verified merchants, marketplace chats, and escrow services are gone, but instant swaps and order-book trading remain.

Deal Roundup

• Andela, the African tech unicorn, acquired Woven, a human-powered engineering assessment platform, to better vet AI-native engineers. They aim to match top talent to roles building LLMs, RAG systems, and autonomous AI workflows, scaling the world’s AI-ready workforce one engineer at a time.

• KNOT Technologies has emerged from stealth with a $1 million pre-seed led by A15 to rebuild ticketing and access control, tackling fraud and resale leakage baked into legacy systems. The startup already counts 50+ enterprise customers, and thinks the real problem isn’t scalpers, but bad data.

• MyCredit, a digital lender, raised $3 million in debt from an international microfinance lender, bringing its total debt capital to $13.6 million. The funds will expand lending to microbusinesses, private schools, and entrepreneurs often left out of traditional banking.

• OneDosh, a fintech tackling global payment headaches, has raised a $3 million in pre-seed to build stablecoin infrastructure connecting wallets, cards, and markets. The startup’s first corridors run between the U.S. and Nigeria, with plans to scale, letting users send, hold, and spend money without the usual bank friction.

• ValU, Egypt’s leading BNPL‑turned‑consumer finance platform, raised up to $63 million from the National Bank of Egypt, bolstering its balance sheet ahead of a planned bond issue. The deal underlines the bank’s backing of fintech growth and ValU’s ambition to scale regionally.

Events

• Tech Revolution 2.0 kicks off January 30–31 in Lagos, bringing 5,000+ innovators, investors, and policymakers together. Expect deep dives on AI, payments, connectivity, and scaling startups, all aimed at putting Africa front and center in global digital innovation. Get your tickets here. 

• Africa Tech Summit returns for its eighth year in February 2026. The two-day event will pull in 2,000+ delegates across fintech, AI, and climate tech to debate how Africa finally builds interoperable payment systems. Get your tickets here.

• Baraza Lagos’ Legal & Tech Summit is convening founders, operators, and lawyers to unpack compliance, structure, and what investors actually look for, in partnership with the NBA Lagos Chapter. Consider it a crash course in building companies that survive due diligence. Get tickets to attend here.

• Africa Technology Expo lands in Lagos on June 26–27, 2026. A closed-door-style convening for people actively building across Africa’s tech and innovation economy, with attendance limited to vetted participants, media, and exhibitors. Register to attend here.

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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