African Tech Round-Up

Last week, Africa’s early stage investor community came together for the 4th annual African Early Stage Investor Summit (#AAIS2017). At this exclusive investor-only event, hosted at Workshop17 in Cape Town, South Africa, key stakeholders in the ecosystem exchanged insights on best practice, shared lessons learnt, and debated what the roadmap for the future ought to look like. In this African Tech Roundup episode, Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga discuss some of the more contentious issues unpacked at the conference-- including whether or not the hunt for the "African Unicorn" is constructive and how Africa-focused investors might best go about investing with exits in mind. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Timothy Kotin ​was born and bred in Ghana. ​​He is the co-founder and chief executive of SuperFluid Labs​--​ an ambitious African data analytics firm which supports enterprise clients spread across multiple sectors. Superfluid has offices in Kenya, Ghana and Germany. Kotin holds an MPhil. in E​ngineering for ​Sustainable ​D​evelopment from the University of Cambridge and a B.Sc. in ​Electrical ​E​ngineering and ​Computer Science from Harvard University. Prior to co-founding Superfluids Labs, he worked as a research scientist at IBM as part of a team which developed financial services innovations for multinational enterprise clients in Africa. Before that, he worked for Dalberg’s New York and Nairobi offices— playing consultant to key public and private sector development actors such as the U.S. Government, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Open Society Foundations and the UN Foundation. In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Timothy relates how he and his team at Superfluid Labs have built a sustain

The Facebook-sponsored TechCrunch Startup Battlefield competition which took place in Nairobi recently brought together fifteen African startups for a glitzy pitch session that offered entrants the chance to win $25,000, as well as the opportunity to go on and compete for $50,000 at the Disrupt Cup, which will be held in Silicon Valley next year. After the Kenyan logistics startup, Lori Systems, won the Nairobi event murmurings of alleged tournament rigging started doing the rounds and eventually surfaced in media reports. This palava has got Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga wondering what, if any, value startup competitions are adding to Africa's emerging tech ecosystem, and has inspired them to interrogate the motives and modus operandi of various commercial interests who are looking to position themselves as enablers of Africa's tech industry. Also in this African Tech Round-up podcast, Musa and Andile discuss South Africa’s recent data breach-- the largest in the country’s history, ponder the merits of K

Electrical engineer, Yannick Lefang, is the Founder and CEO of Kasi Insight-- a research and advisory firm that provides African consumer data and actionable insights. Since 2013, Yannick's firm has been intent on empowering business leaders and entrepreneurs with the game-changing insight they need to tap into the continent's fast-growing markets. In this conversation with Andile Masuku - taped at Afrobytes Tech Conference 2017 - Yannick explains why even some of the most-quoted macroeconomic statistics published by leading NGO's and top-flight global consultancies can be misleading. He also gives some real-world examples of how research conducted by his firm has helped clients meet business objectives.

Sean Godoy is the Founder and Executive Director of Divercity Property Solutions. He has cross-sector experience in the property industry in both South Africa and the UK. In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Sean explains why he's excited about the global rise of real estate tech aka proptech. He believes that this trend could facilitate the democratisation of land and property ownership in Africa and help iron out the continent's complicated post-colonial land and property situation.

Adebayo “Ade” Alonge is the Nigerian co-founder of RxAll, a platform which provides patients in the developing world with authenticated and verified medicines. Prior to this, Ade was a strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, and before that, he spent eight years working a Sanofi, Roche, and BASF. In this absorbing, not-so-quick chat with Andile Masuku, Ade unpacks the state of play within Nigeria's pharmaceutical mass market, and explains how RxAll is enabling direct access to affordable, high-quality medicines while helping to reshape drug purchasing habits within markets rife with counterfeit product.

South Korea has reportedly become the latest notable nation to follow the likes of Nigeria and China by outlawing the use of cryptocurrency. Given these developments, policymakers all across the continent are no doubt mulling over the merits of banning Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). They are probably concerned that by shunning cryptocurrencies, they might end up being on the outside looking in on a lucrative financial trend that may well prove impossible to rein in regardless. In this episode of the African Tech Round-up podcast, cryptocurrency enthusiast, Simon Dingle, joins Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga to discuss the great Bitcoin surge that is fueling the world's current obsession with virtual money. Simon explains why some people are displeased with the likes of PR journalism outfit, Memeburn, and CBS's cable channel, Showtime, for allegedly taking advantage of their audiences to mine crypocurrency. And in the wake of all the recent moving and shaking by some African virtual currency exchanges such as

Bertil van Vugt is Business Development Lead at the Amsterdam-based organisation, VC4Africa. In this quiet chat with Andile Masuku, taped at Afrobytes Tech Conference 2017, Bertil gives us a sense of the mind space tech industry business opportunities occupy in the average European. Given his vantage point, he's also well-placed to factor in on how Africa's tech ecosystem is coming along in terms of growth. Finally, Bertil also unpacks the noble rationale behind the recent launch of VC4Africa's online startup academy (https://academy.vc4a.com), and explains why he's bullish on the e-learning trend.

Michuki Mwangi is the Regional Development Manager for Africa at the Internet Society where he has worked in the African Regional Bureau to promote Internet growth and sustainability since 2008. As the Internet Society is celebrating its 25th year anniversary in 2017, Michuki reflects on the progress being made to enable more and more Africans harness the life-changing potential of the internet. Among other things, Andile Masuku asks him who can be trusted to help bring Africa online given the numerous political and commercial interests around the world who are keen to exploit the internet to advance selfish ambitions.

A few weeks ago, Africa's richest man, Nigeria's Aliko Dangote, baffled many pro-African investment proponents by telling Bloomberg that if things go the way he plans, come 2020, a significant chunk of his wealth will be deployed abroad. In this African Tech Round-up episode Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga are joined by Bitmari co-founder and self-proclaimed "pre-racial thought leader", Sinclair Skinner, for an unfettered family-style straight-talk session which literally went all over the place-- including reacting to Mr Dangote's recent revelation. Beware the scorching candid views and unintentional hot takes on everything from Naspers' problematic links to South Africa's apartheid past and Tanzania's new drone delivery program, to the big ticket maneuverings happening in South Africa's fintech scene courtesy of South Africa's wealthiest black man, Patrice Mostepe. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

**Apologies for the poor sound quality** Adedana Ashebir has recently been tasked with heading up Village Capital's business on the continent. In this conversation, Adedana walks Andile Masuku through some of the thinking behind and the findings published in Village Capital's implicatory Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded report called Breaking the Pattern: Getting Digital Financial Services Entrepreneurs to Scale in India and East Africa. Among other things, this fintech-focused research highlights the fact that more than 90 percent of funding for East African fintech start-ups typically goes to expatriate founders (European or North American), and the fact that despite East Africa posting a record haul in terms of start-up investment ($84.7million or R1.13billion) over the last two years, a whopping 72 percent of that funding has gone to just three companies - namely, M-Kopa, Off-Grid Electric and Angaza. Adedana factors in on the lively debate that's ensued in the wake of the report being publish

George Asamani is an exceedingly well-traveled 39-year-old Ghanaian who currently calls Addis Ababa home. He is the co-founder of a music and messaging app called DooWapp-- an alumnus of Telefónica's Wayra startup accelerator in the UK. In this conversation, taped at the Enterprise Africa Summit 2017 hosted by the British Council in Accra some months ago, George gave Andile a sense of the positive innovation vibes that he's absorbed while living and working in various African markets over the years. They also chatted about the importance of responding readily to market feedback when iterating a passion-driven 'nice-to-have' software product.

The last few weeks have seen three promising African tech startups land significant investments-- namely, the Nigerian digital payments firm, Flutterwave ($10 million), the Kenyan mobile-driven food supply platform, Twiga Foods ($10.3 million), and the South African fractional investments service, EasyEquities ($7.5 million). In this installment of the African Tech Round-up, Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga discuss the merits of the Flutterwave and Twiga deals, but somehow, we forgot to chat about the EasyEquities transaction on this episode (our bad). That particular transaction stands out somewhat, owing to the fact that 30% of the company was acquired by the South African financial services giant, Sanlam. Here's to hoping that the Sanlam-EasyEquities deal signals a trend towards African institutional investors becoming savvier at identifying and financing home-grown start-ups before their overseas counterparts swoop in to snap up promising businesses from right under their noses. Music Credits: Music by K

Charlene Chen is the Chief Operating Officer of BitPesa-- an online payment platform founded in Kenya that leverages Blockchain settlement to lower the cost and increase the speed of business payments to, from and within sub-Saharan Africa. In this chat with Andile Masuku, Charlene explains how BitPesa helps clients, that range from African businesses and multinational companies paying suppliers as far as China and Dubai to international remittance companies, use their API services for white-label payments to dozens of bank networks and mobile money operators across Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Senegal, and the DRC. She also unpacks why BitPesa hasn't gotten caught up in speculation regarding Bitcoin and sheds light on the company's prospects following the successful close of their $2.5 million Series A in January 2017.

Eunice Baguma Ball is the Ugandan Founder and Executive Director of the Africa Technology Business Network (ATBN). For over 10 years, Eunice has worked at the intersection of tech and social enterprise - leveraging her engineering background to build an impressive reputation as a tech and innovation specialist. In this chat with Andile Masuku, Eunice gives her take on the state of African women in tech, comments candidly on some of the cultural hurdles women continue to face in what is still largely an unwelcoming, male-dominated industry, and gives us the low-low on a ground-breaking book she hopes to publish in December 2018, called Founding Women. Founding Women will put the spotlight on African Female founders who are building technology businesses across Africa and the Diaspora-- with the aim of creating visible role models to inspire young African women to reach their full potential as innovators and tech leaders. Listen in to hear how you can contribute to an ongoing Indiegogo crowd funding campaign

Eric Mugendi is the Managing Editor at PesaCheck.org. In this chat with Andile Masuku, taped on Monday, August 7th, 2017 - a day before Kenya's General Election - he factors in on how fake news has influenced public sentiment in the lead up to the highly-contested polls. We deliberately asked Eric to weigh in on the fake news situation before his insights were clouded by the election results. We've also been intentional about waiting for the official outcome to be declared before releasing this podcast, in respect for Kenya's democratic process.

A couple of weeks ago, a think piece by Andile Masuku entitled "We simply must not allow investor bias to persist" - featured in African Independent and Business Report - caused a bit of a stir on Twitter. The hubbub surrounded the article's tackling of the sensitive issue of investor bias that appears to be prevalent in Africa's startup finance scene. Cited in Andile's piece are research findings published in a recent Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded report by the American VC outfit, Village Capital. According to the report, more than 90% of the funding that's gone into East African fintech startups over the past year or two has benefitted firms with expatriate founders. This has lead to some local founders complaining that their ventures aren't being fairly appraised for investibility in terms of their potential and financial viability. In this episode of the African Tech Round-up, Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga are joined by Tapsnapp founder and CEO, Vije Vijendranath, to unpack some of the impass

Barbro Mutombo Ciakudia is VP for Business Development at Invest Africa. Invest Africa is a private members club based in Mayfair, London and was founded by Rob Hersov in 2013 as a means for business leaders, private investors, and entrepreneurs to gain insight into Africa and to be exposed to the continent's vast opportunities. They offer a multi-service platform for access and investment into Africa which aims to be a link between capital and expertise into Africa, and information and opportunity out of Africa. In this chat, Babro gives us a sense of how bullish members of their network are about investing in Africa and talks about what sort of investor support they typically need to act on their enthusiasm.

Jean-Paul Melaga is a recovering finance professional who's had a successful career in top-tier international banking. Jean-Paul worked for the likes of Standard Chartered Bank and Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi before becoming co-founding the mobile market research startup, Smart Phorce. In his last banking gig before pursuing a more personal entrepreneurial agenda, Jean-Paul served as Head of Africa at the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, where he was tasked with turning powerful people within that organisation on to Africa's investment potential-- basically, turning sceptics into believers. In this chat with Andile Masuku, Jean-Paul reflects candidly on his corporate experience and reveals how his banking background set him up for his second career in tech.

Naija Beta is a documentary that follows a team of Nigerian and Nigerian-American MIT students who dream of shaking up education in Nigeria and head to Lagos one summer to teach technology to high-schoolers through a competitive robotics camp. As they seek to contribute to a new and better Nigeria, their ideals are tested by reality. Arthur Musah is the film's director and hails from Ghana and Ukraine. Naija Beta premiered in 2016 at the Pan African International Film Festival in Cannes, and won Best Documentary Feature at the Urban Mediamakers Film Festival in Atlanta, an Achievement in Documentary Film Award at the Silicon Valley African Film Festival, and the High Output Director Award at the Arlington International Film Festival. Naija Beta was also screened at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, where it won Best Documentary Short Film at the Roxbury International Film Festival. Arthur continues his exploration of African identities in a globalised age through his upcoming feature One Day I Go Fly. Arth