This Week in African Tech 🌍

Author

Caleb Maru
August 06, 2023

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Morning! Welcome to This Week in African Tech.

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I’ll be in Dar Es Salaam next week and am hosting an event with Startup Discovery School and Ennovate Ventures. RSVP here.

Also, our friends at Raise are also giving away $200 and 6 months of their cap table product for founders who complete an Equity quiz. Check it out here.

Let’s dive in.

Tech Roundup

  • Sam Altman’s Worldcoin launched this week, and more than 350,000 Kenyans showed up to get their eyeballs scanned in exchange for $49 USD of World Coins.

    • The digital ID platform launched in 20 countries, choosing Kenya and Uganda as their first entry points in Africa.

    • Kenya becomes the first country to suspend Sam Altman’s Wordcoin. The government is taking a closer look at the safety and originality of Worldcoin.

    • It triggered great discussions in our Safari Club, I wrote a bit about it here.

      • Also, want to join the Safari Club? Refer 3 friends to Tech Safari for your invitation to join.

  • Olu Akanmu steps down as President and co-CEO of OPay Nigeria. He took the reigns in November 2021 and led Opay to amazing growth during Nigeria's cash crunch: 30 million registered users as of April this year.

  • Businesses claim losses as Senegal shuts down its internet again. This comes after the arrest of opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, on Friday. This is Senegal’s second internet shutdown in 3 months, and just two weeks after they got 5G internet.

  • Kenyan e-mobility startup BasiGo is expanding to Rwanda. They're partnering with AC Mobility, Rwanda's public transport fare collection company, to deliver electric buses to bus operators in Kigali. The first buses are expected in Kigali by October 2023.

  • Big Cabal Media (the parent company of TechCabal, Zikoko and Citizen) has cut its workforce by 19%. Unfortunate to see this.

    • If you’re ex-Big Cabal and looking for a role, we’re hiring right now. Email me back 🙂 

Deal Roundup

  • Traction, a Nigerian merchant solution platform raises US$6 million in seed funding to expand and grow across Nigeria. Traction offers payment processing, account management, retail POS, E-commerce, invoicing, and financing for SMEs.

  • Nigeria’s e-health startup, Remedial Health, raises $12 million in an equity and debt financing round. Remedial Health makes it easy for healthcare providers to get affordable medical supplies straight from the manufacturers. Congrats to Sam, CEO of Remedial Health and reader of Tech Safari

  • Seun Dania, CEO of TradeFada, invests an undisclosed amount in crypto company Patricia Technologies. Trade Fada is a crypto exchange app, while Patricia Technologies is one of Nigeria’s most popular crypto investment platforms.

Events + Opportunities

  • Founders! Are you on top of the latest fraud trends?

    I’m hosting a KYC 101 for Founders next week with Smile ID. Featuring:

    • Mark Straub CEO of Smile ID (Africa’s leading KYC Provider with over 75 million KYC Checks)

    • Henry Obiekea Managing Director of Fairmoney (a Nigerian neobank with over 5 million users). RSVP here.

  • Angel Fair Africa is hosting their 10th annual pitch event in East London, South Africa on November 29. The event will bring together accelerators, incubators, emerging businesses, and investors from across the continent.

  • B2B SaaS startup founders - the Startup Wise Guys accelerator is back with their latest accelerator. AUS$110,000) funding and a five-month mentorship program. Apply here by September 7th.

PS - do you have any news, announcements, or opportunities I should know about? Email me and if they’re a fit, I’ll feature them 👌🏾

And that's a wrap for this week! We will be back with a feature story later this week.

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Catch you soon!

👋🏾 Caleb