Friday, April 26

Month: April 2019

Africa’s startup ecosystems are at a major turning point
17Apr By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments
ecommerce, Trends

Africa’s startup ecosystems are at a major turning point

It isn’t hyperbole to describe last week as a turning point for the African startup ecosystem. The obvious reason: The successful initial public offering of Jumia. Yet it’s bigger than the e-commerce company, and it’s a tide that had started to turn since the second half of 2018. Jumia, now listed on the New York Stock Exchange, may not represent the greatest of financial boons for a majority of African investors (though South Africa’s MTN is still its largest shareholder—for now). Getting the IPO—Africa’s largest e-commerce service, operating in 14 countries—off the ground represented a coming of age for a sector the world’s biggest capital markets and investors often have portrayed as a well-intentioned but fanciful dream. That was particularly clear for anyone with a perspective dr...
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Netflix Picks Up Its First Animated Series From Africa, ‘Mama K’s Team 4’
17Apr By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments
Streaming

Netflix Picks Up Its First Animated Series From Africa, ‘Mama K’s Team 4’

Netflix is adding to its growing slate of African content with its first original animated series, “Mama K’s Team 4,” produced by South Africa’s award-winning Triggerfish Animation Studios and British kids’ and family entertainment production company CAKE. The series follows four teenage girls living in a futuristic version of Lusaka, Zambia, who are recruited by a retired secret agent to save the world. It was created by Zambian writer Malenga Mulendema, who in 2015 was one of eight winners of the Triggerfish Story Lab, a pan-African talent search backed by the Cape Town-based animation studio and The Walt Disney Co. The series is designed by the Cameroonian artist Malcolm Wope. In the past decade, Triggerfish has become a powerhouse in South Africa’s burgeoning animation industry....
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Nigeria attains steady increase in internet subscriptions
17Apr By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments
West Africa

Nigeria attains steady increase in internet subscriptions

NIGERIA has recorded an 11 percent increase in internet subscriptions over the past year to 113, 9 million users. The figure indicates a density of 61 percent in a population estimated at 185 million, placing Nigeria well above the African average of around 16 percent, according to McKinsey, the management consulting firm. Statistics released by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) indicates there were 2,24 million new internet subscriptions recorded, compared with 3,18 million the previous month. MTN accounted for the biggest share (40 percent) of total subscriptions. Since June last year, MTN has recorded month-on-month (m/m) increases in its internet subscriptions. For January, it recorded an increase of 4,6 percent or 2 million new subs...
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Facebook is using AI to map exactly where Africa’s fast-growing population lives
11Apr By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments
AI, Social Networks

Facebook is using AI to map exactly where Africa’s fast-growing population lives

The population of Africa is growing rapidly. Today, one out of every six people on Earth live in Africa. In 2050, the United Nations “medium scenario” projections predicts one in four humans will live in Africa and in 2100, more than one in three. But in conversations about Africa especially about development, there are a few consistent talking points – an absence of data. This absence of data hurts African nations in their ability to make good policy and solve problems especially about a lack of infrastructure. To that end Facebook is using artificial intelligence to map population density around the world with a new type of world map as part of its Connectivity Lab project. Facebook first analyzed about 20 countries and covered 21.6 million square kilometers in 2016 to help d...
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What makes Africa’s largest e-commerce platform African?
11Apr By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments
ecommerce

What makes Africa’s largest e-commerce platform African?

News of Jumia’s filing to go public on the New York Stock Exchange last week is stirring questions about what defines a startup as African. While the company runs the largest e-commerce business across Africa with operations in 14 countries including Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco and Egypt, it is incorporated in Germany, has its headquarters in Dubai with its central tech team based in Portugal, and as its IPO filing shows, will be listed in New York. Being a “German stock corporation” probably means it will pay the majority of its corporate taxes in Germany, but its subsidiaries will also pay local taxes in most countries. “There isn’t sufficient clarity on this matter,” says Aly-Khan Satchu, a Nairobi-based financial and investment analyst. “It’s basically called African because its bus...
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Media must help unite Africa’s tech startup scene, but also act as watchdog – Buckland
11Apr By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments
Opinion, Start-ups

Media must help unite Africa’s tech startup scene, but also act as watchdog – Buckland

While the media has a role to play in uniting the continent’s fragmented tech startup scene, it also has a duty to perform the role of a watchdog, argues Burn Media founder and publisher of Ventureburn, Matthew Buckland. In an interview that appeared today in Seedstars’ 2019 booklet distributed at the Seedstars Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland, Buckland says the role of media is to unite the ecosystem and tell a “cohesive and realistic” story about the tech startup sector. Seedstars runs one of the largest emerging markets startup competitions of its kind, which culminates in tomorrow’s annual summit, where startups from about 75 countries will this year compete to be named Seedstars Global Winner and get a chance at clinching $500 000 in equity investment. The media must both hel...
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The New Tech Era: job-killer or job-creator?
11Apr By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments
Trends

The New Tech Era: job-killer or job-creator?

At a time when Jumia, Africa’s biggest e-commerce company, is preparing to raise several hundred million dollars on the New York Stock Exchange, and the Mauritius-based IHS Towers communications giant is doing the same, it seems beside the point to ask whether “Tech” is good for the continent. Like Kenya-based Safaricom and the pioneering M-Pesa mobile money service, these companies are at the vanguard of Africa’s technological revolution. They are making money for their shareholders but more importantly they – and a generation of start-ups across the continent – are putting African engineers, innovators and mathematicians on the world stage, showcasing ideas and systems that other regions are rushing to copy. Norway is trying to keep up with Kenya in the mobile-money stakes. Ye...
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Siemens and Ethiopia collaborate to address urgent energy and infrastructure challenges
10Apr By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments
East Africa

Siemens and Ethiopia collaborate to address urgent energy and infrastructure challenges

Siemens is currently helping to increase the reliability of energy supply through an interconnector being built between Kenya and Ethiopia Siemens today announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia to support the government’s objective of becoming a low middle-income country by 2025. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) addresses the country’s energy and infrastructure sectors. Other key aspects of the agreement include financing concepts that will ensure the long-term sustainability of these infrastructure initiatives; and creating opportunities for local upskilling and job creation during construction and operation. Siemens can make a significant contribution to Ethiopia’s development Ethiopia’s Growth and T...
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Africans In Tech: One Woman’s Quest to Provide Resources to Women in Tech
10Apr By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments
Africans in Tech

Africans In Tech: One Woman’s Quest to Provide Resources to Women in Tech

Dada holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer and Information Sciences and real estate certification from Temple University. She is also a certified Scrum Master. Her technical experience includes corporate work as an application developer, business/ systems analyst, quality assurance tester, and technical project manager. As the principal of Signature RED, she offers tech consulting services to companies and creates tools and resources for women interested in careers in technology. In 2017, she created the Tech Women Network – a searchable, online platform and community for women with technical skills. Dada has a growing passion to empower women who typically work behind-the-scenes in STEM fields to be seen and heard. Over the years she has hosted several educational events and work...
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The billion-dollar IPO of Africa’s biggest e-commerce player is happening this month
10Apr By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments
ecommerce

The billion-dollar IPO of Africa’s biggest e-commerce player is happening this month

If you’re looking to get a slice of the biggest e-commerce operator in Africa, get the checkbook ready: there’s finally an established timeline for the initial public offering (IPO) launch by Jumia. Quartz Africa can now confirm the company’s listing on NYSE will happen in April. After long-running speculation over the past year, Jumia filed its S1 documents to list on the New York Stock Exchange last month. That timeline, as confirmed by a Jumia spokesperson, is at par with typical listings on the NYSE following recent events. Indeed, in updated S1 documents, Jumia has set a price range of $13 to $16 per share last week. Like most companies intending to list, after setting a share price range, Jumia will now commence an investor roadshow during which its final share price will be s...
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