Nigeria – Africa Tech Digest

Norwegian tech company exits Nigerian venture

1Sep

By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments

West Africa

Norwegian tech company exits Nigerian venture

Norwegian software company, Opera, announced it has made a $6.1 million divestment from a Nigerian subsidiary. The disclosure was made during the company’s second quarterly report for 2020. Opera did not mention the name of the company it exited. In Nigeria, Opera operates a few companies alongside a partnership in portfolio company OPay. The European company owns the Opera browser, one of the most popular browsers in the country thanks to its data saving features. Opera also operates OList, the classifieds listing platform, Opera News and OKash, the lending service. OKash exits as both a separate app and on OPay through a partnership. So which Nigerian venture did Opera divest from? Obviously, it’s not OPay. Opera considers the Nigeria-based fintech to be a s...

Are tech companies Africa’s new colonialists?

8Jul

By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments

Opinion

Are tech companies Africa’s new colonialists?

Foreign-owned start-ups are driving an African tech revolution — and prompting old fears of exploitation Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.comT&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here. https://www.ft.com/content/4625d9b8-9c16-11e9-b8ce-8b459ed04726 In 1886, barely a year after Europe’s great powers met in Berlin to carve up the continent of Africa, Queen Victoria granted Sir George Goldie a charter for his Royal Niger Company. The charter gave Goldie, a moustachioed, waistcoated gentleman of Scottish descent, the ri...

Can Nigeria’s tech community contribute to solving the country’s energy crisis?

9Jun

By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments

Energy, Opinion, West Africa

Can Nigeria’s tech community contribute to solving the country’s energy crisis?

Two weeks ago, I tried renewing energy credits online via my bank’s website. I got debited instantly and immediately proceeded to check if power was restored. It wasn’t and I didn’t receive a refund until a week later. Although in the past, I have successfully used the system a few times, the unreliability of the service is a problem for many. At least 30,000 electronic payment transactions fail every day, according to one Nigerian commercial bank. Nigeria is a nation where its citizens live with limited power daily. Last month, the power supply droppedfrom 4,000 megawatts to 2,039 megawatts, grossly insufficient for a nation of 180 million people. The power generated dropped due to a shortage of gas supply to power stations. If all the country’s power facilities work to the...

8Jun

By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments

Nigeria, West Africa

New innovation centre launched in Lagos

Governor of Lagos state, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has unveiled the Eko Innovation Centre, a tech hub that is private sector-driven. The initiative was developed to strategically increase entrepreneurial and technological capacity across the state. Speaking during the launch of the centre located at Ikoyi, Sanwo-Olu, who would be sworn in today as Governor of Lagos State, said the location of the innovation centre used to be one of his campaign offices. “It used to be a place where I had lots of young people who used to spend long nights to develop a lot of concepts around my manifesto. “So, we said to ourselves, what is the best thing we can use this place for and so we decided to turn it into a tech hub, where people can come here to develop ideas. “So, it is for Lagosians t...

Motorcycles Enter Ride-Hailing App Industry in Nigeria

7Jun

By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments

Ridehailing, West Africa

Motorcycles Enter Ride-Hailing App Industry in Nigeria

When a customer scrolls through the options on a ride-hailing app in Lagos, Africa’s largest city, cars are no longer the only things that show up. Over the past 18 months, motorcycle-hailing startups have become players in the city’s tech ecosystem, all competing for traction and market share in a city beset with some of the continent’s worst transportation challenges. By itself, the idea of an on-demand, flexible transport service to get around Lagos’ hours-long traffic jams and congestion is an appealing proposition for millions of Lagosians. It’s also cheaper compared with established car-hailing services like Uber and Taxify. To be clear, commercial transport motorcycles, known locally as okadas have long existed in Lagos, like in many other African cities where they ...

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...

Techabal Releases New Report on Health Tech in Nigeria

9Apr

By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments

West Africa

Techabal Releases New Report on Health Tech in Nigeria

TechCabal is pleased to introduce its first paid report, The State of Health Tech in Nigeria. This deeply researched report examines general health indicators and challenges in Nigeria, and then dives into the health tech industry, profiling the innovative startups working to find technology solutions to Nigeria’s health-related problems. The report profiles 75 active and 15 inactive health tech startups across 12 subsectors. It further examines the challenges these startups face, the opportunities in the space and makes actionable recommendations for entrepreneurs, investors and regulators to consider. This report was prepared using both primary and secondary data. We started with publicly available information about the healthcare system and health tech industry in Nigeria. We...

African tech startups raised $1.163B in equity in 2018

9Apr

By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments

Start-ups

African tech startups raised $1.163B in equity in 2018

African tech startups raised $1.163B in 2018 according to Partech Africa’s 2018 annual report on the financing on the continent confirming the attractiveness of African entrepreneurs and their ability to transform the continent into a global powerhouse. The report covers equity deals in tech and digital spaces, and funding rounds higher than US$200K and lower than US$100 Million. Deals covered are includes African startups only i.e. companies with their primary market in Africa itself. In 2018, 146 African startups raised a total of US$1.163 Billion in equity through 164 rounds, this is a +108% growth YoY, compared to +33% in 2016 and +53% in 2017. This represents x4.2 growth multiple over the last 36 months. “It’s quite simply astonishing. When we started our journey to create t...

Nigerian motorcycle taxi app Gokada to open driver training school

14Mar

By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments

Apps, West Africa

Nigerian motorcycle taxi app Gokada to open driver training school

Lagos-based on-demand motorcycle taxi app Gokada has celebrated its first birthday with the launch of its new office in Ilupeju, which will house a state-of-the-art driver training school to train and verify up to 500 riders at a time. Gokada customers can order a motorbike ride through the company’s website, or by using its geo-location -based smartphone app. In 12 months of operation, the startup has secured close to 1,000 bikes and completes around 5,000 rides across Lagos’ Mainland each day. It has now launched its new office, which will house its driver training school. The school, which is due to open in April, will assist with the smoother, more efficient training of more Gokada drivers. “Gokada was built on a super simple premise; moving Lagos citizens around the traffi...

Microsoft to open office in Lagos dedicated to developing mixed reality and artificial intelligence

11Mar

By Africa Tech DigestNo Comments

AI, West Africa

Microsoft to open office in Lagos dedicated to developing mixed reality and artificial intelligence

Alex Kipman, a Microsoft Technical Fellow and the co-creator of HoloLens, announced on Twitter Microsoft is opening an engineering office in Lagos, Nigeria. The Cognition Africa engineering team is looking for a software engineer to assist with the building of Mixed Reality Cloud Services that bring those technologies to a wider range of devices. For more information, click here. https://twitter.com/akipman/status/1104062105844559878