This Week in African Tech 🌍

Plus: Tech Safari's Nairobi Mixer is here 💪🏾

Author

Caleb Maru
October 09, 2023

Welcome to Tech Safari!

Your tour guide on African Tech 🧭

Hello to the 124 new folks who have joined the Safari since the last edition.

If you haven't subscribed, join 16,341 smart folks curious about Tech in Africa.

Hey hey! Welcome to This Week in African Tech.

Last week I planned to share a great story on Offline Airbnb as well as our next deal, but unfortunately last-minute blockers came up.

It’s still coming so don’t worry. And in the meantime I have two very exciting announcements: especially if you live in Nairobi.

First off..

Our Tech Safari Nairobi Mixer is a go 💪🏾

We’re bringing our community in Nairobi together to celebrate African Tech.

We have a few surprises incoming too 👀

Come by for a night of connection, fun, and good times. Capacity is limited so save your spot here.

And thank you to our baller partners joining us to make this happen, like: Paystack, Infobip Latitude59, and Founders Factory Africa.

Speaking of partners..

Want to grow with Tech Safari?

Over the past few months, we have worked with a handful of companies to help them grow, tell their stories better and get great engagement.

Now we’re ramping that up and looking for partners to join us to smash their growth goals in Q4.

I created this deck on how our partners grow with Tech Safari, but here is the quick rundown:

🤔 What even is a Tech Safari?

Tech Safari is a newsletter, a community, an investment syndicate, and a media company centered around African Tech.

We tell stories about the world’s most exciting continent and share them for the world to see.

💯 The Numbers..

Our readers are from around the world - with about 60% from countries across Africa.

They’re an impressive bunch who work in, invest in or are curious about Tech in Africa.

Our Partners

For a bit of social proof (and to flex our lineup of partner companies a bit) here is who we have worked with..

A stellar lineup, right?

Tech Safari has the numbers and some great partners. You’re probably wondering..

How do we actually work with companies? 

Great question. We work with companies in five(ish) ways 🛠

🏁 Ad Spots: Get top placement on our Tech Safari edition and get seen by our readers. This gets nice visibility for your product or service in front of our audience.

🎪 In-Person Events: We’re hosting a range of events this quarter in Nairobi 🇰🇪 Kigali 🇷🇼 and Cape Town 🇿🇦 with more planned for Q1.

🧑🏾‍💻 Virtual Events: Hosting an event diving into your area of expertise, and sharing what you’re building. Our events have ~200 attendees on the low end.

📖 Sponsored Editions: Working with Tech Safari to write an edition diving into your company and the problem you’re solving.

Example: It Costs to Get Paid in Africa with EBANX, plus our post on LinkedIn.

Heads up: We are picky about which companies we write about and only feature companies with a story that’s relevant to our audience.

🔨 Consulting: From growth consulting, user testing, building growth teams, starting and managing your own newsletters, or raising capital. Hit me with your growth ideas 💡

Partner Love

So what is it like working with Tech Safari? Let’s hear from our partners.

Ready to smash your Q4 goals with us? Fill out this one-minute form and I’ll loop back 💪🏾

Alright, let’s dive into what happened last week in African Tech.

Tech Roundup

  • Nigerian fintech OPay denies opening accounts for customers without consent. Allegations began on the social media platform “X”, where customers claimed unauthorized OPay accounts linked to their phone numbers. Opay’s website says they have over 35 million registered app users.

  • Netflix scraps its free plan in Kenya. From next month, Kenyans will need a paid subscription to keep streaming. Netflix is chasing more revenue due to tougher competition.

  • Elon Musk’s Starlink goes live in Zambia, their sixth African market. The internet service will cost 10,744 Zambian kwacha ($505) for the hardware and 507 Zambian kwacha ($24) for the monthly subscription.

  • Troubled Twiga Foods blocks liquidation push in court. The insolvency claims were filed by Incentro Africa Limited, a cloud services provider, seeking over USD 250K from Twiga.

Deal Roundup

  • Five Nigerian startups join Techstars Toronto. These are Oval, Cutstruct, Chimoney, Payfi, and Reeple.ai. They join a cohort of 24 new startups, bringing the Canadian accelerator’s total investments to 100.

  • South Africa's VC firm, Secha Capital, raises the first close of its second fund. They've closed $15.7 million of their $34 million target, led by RMB ventures, 27four, and Caleo capital.

  • Kenya's Buy Now Pay Later startup Lipa Later, raises US$3.4 million in private debt. The raise was supported by Rubicon Landing (transaction advisory experts) and legal guidance from KN Law.

  • Egyptian fintech MoneyHash, which provides an API and dashboard for checkouts, MoneyHash has raised undisclosed funding from GitHub founder, Tom Preston-Werner. This amount is part of a seed round they're announcing soon.

Events + Opportunities

  • Infobip is coming back to Lagos! Infobip provides global communication and customer engagement solutions for businesses. And this coming Thursday, October 12, they’re hosting their third Lagos meetup. They’ll be presenting local tech initiatives, and introducing their Developer Community Tools. RSVP here.

  • Apply now for the IGNITE SEED Innovation program in East Africa! Run by the World Food Programme (WFP) IGNITE Innovation Hub, Circle Innovation, and DTU Skylab Foodlab, they’re seeking research-backed food system ideas. Join the 10-month program to access their Human-Centered Design Lab and a network of partners if selected. Apply here.

  • Want to catch up with African tech? Africa Tech Festival is happening in Cape Town, on November 13-16. The event unites a dynamic African tech community of 15,000+ founders, investors, and policymakers. RSVP here.

  • Are you running a small or medium business in Nigeria? Apply to Google’s Hustle Academy SMB Fund and access a US$100,000 equity-free fund to boost your business. Apply here before October 12.

  • Hey, Agri-tech founders in Senegal! Apply to join the Green API: A Smart Agriculture Program by Make-IT in Africa and Orange. They’re offering an agriculture-focused capacity-building program and access to Digital Agriculture Platforms to scale your product. Apply here before October 16.

And that's a wrap for this week!

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