Triggerfish has existed since the ‘90s, but not with the African focus it has today. The business went through a redefining moment in the early 2000s, when advancements in technology began to redefine mainstream animation. The stop-frame animation technique, Triggerfish’s forte, gradually gave way to more sophisticated computer-generated (CG) animation, which almost forced the company out of business. 

This situation presented Forrest, then an employee, with the opportunity to buy the business to keep it afloat. He did, and later partnered with Mike Buckland, an animator who had been working in Africa at the time. The team would later relaunch the company as a CG animation studio with a focus on telling African stories. 

Following the money

Money is to dreams what gas is to cars, many have argued. For Forrest and his team, the move to double down on Africa was not—like many business owners in Africa would say—born out of some idealistic passion to “make the continent a better place”. Triggerfish wanted to tell big stories, and so they needed financiers with deep pockets. Some, like Disney, were clear: capitalise on the [under-tapped] African market, and get funded. That began Triggerfish’s Africa-wide expansion, birthing collaborations with creators across the continent to tell Africa-centred stories. The studio’s first call for submissions pulled in about 1,400 scripts/ideas from African writers. They finally selected eight, one of which was Supa Team 4. 

Before it expanded its lens across the continent, Triggerfish had focused mainly on the South African market, where it had recorded some success with feature films such as Adventures in Zambezia (2012) and Khumba (2013). But its major breakthroughs and co-signs with big streamers started after the company decided to explore stories and creators from the entire continent. This, for them, was the win-win strategy to tell stories across several cultures and access project capital. And this, they did, eventually landing a couple of their projects, including a feature film (Seal Team) and a series (Kizazi Moto), on global streaming site, Netflix.

“Africa is full of stories; storytellers just need more opportunities to tell them,” Forrest said to me from his home in Ireland, another country in which Triggerfish operates. 

Africa: huge market, small business

Africa has an estimated population of $1.4 billion people, a huge market for any business with a reasonable entertainment product. However, that number dwarfs the $6.2 million subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) users on the continent. While the market is projected to add about 9 million users over the next five years, and register a CAGR of 11.29%, the reality is that Africa’s current revenue-generating capacity is rather low. “Africa accounts for just 4% of Triggerfish income, despite comprising our largest audience,” Stuart Forrest said. “This is why we have to think globally.”

Triggerfish’s strategy involves getting its stories to audiences around the world. One major market they are keen on is the African diaspora, which is often described as the world’s third-largest country. With a population strength of about 350 million, and most living in highly urbanised climes, they represent an under-tapped market opportunity for afro-animation distribution. 

In addition, the commercial success of Afrocentric projects, including Marvel’s Black Panther and The Woman King, has contributed to an increased global appetite for such titles, marking an increasingly promising future for Africa-centred content. 

The journey ahead

Working with creators across the continent, Triggerfish will continue to export more African stories to the world, as it leads the fast-growing afro-animations industry. The last half-decade has seen companies like Youneek, Magic Carpet, Giraffics, Diprente, and Kugali Media launch projects that have captured global attention. Kugali Media’s Iwaju, an Afrofuturistic series set in Lagos, Nigeria, was commissioned by Disney. Youneek’s Iyanu is set to stream on HBO Max and Cartoon Network. Asked about how much of a competition these fledgling companies pose, Forrest said: “I don’t see these companies as competitors. We need more people focused on African stories and unlocking the continent’s potential for all of us.”

Triggerfish projects cost anywhere between $5 million to $50 million—the kind of money African startups raising venture capital would raise through series A to C funding rounds. And profits are recouped after the project’s distribution. Despite the evident traction and potential for returns, financiers and African governments have hesitated to invest significantly in the industry, hindering its full growth and limiting Africa’s emergence as a developed market for its own stories. Also, to solve what Forrest Stuart describes as a talent gap on the continent, Triggerfish runs a non-profit that trains Africans to be world-class animators. 

“We’ve come a long way in Africa, but the potential ahead is still huge. We are making sure the world sees Africa and its beauty; it’s something we won’t get tired of,” Forrest concluded.

Nigeria has raised over $500 million to boost its struggling food sector and bring security reforms to its Northeastern region, where insurgents have forced farmers out of their lands. But the government’s unclear intentions for the money raises questions about recycled promises. 

According to vice president Kashim Shettima, the $500 million will be used for “innovation finance for food system transformation, development of Nigeria’s agro value chain, and special agro-industrial processing zone programmes.”

While it is good news that the presidency has mobilised half a billion dollars for Nigeria’s agricultural sector, questions remain about the clarity of implementation processes for the proposed reforms. “Food system transformation” does not communicate, explicitly, the government’s intention for an agricultural sector in dire straits.

Also, the imprecise plans for agro-chain development and the “development of agro-processing zones” raise concerns about the recycling of government intentions with new funds. In October 2022, former president Muhammadu Buhari launched special agro-processing zones in eight states across Nigeria. Then-vice president Yemi Osinbajo described the initiative as a game-changer that will boost food production in the country. But almost a year after the $538 million project, which drew in notable investors like the African Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Nigeria’s food problem has only worsened. 

“Nigerians deserve more transparency from the government, especially in matters like this that threaten their living standards. We need to know where we are as a country. The last thing we need now is recycled promises that inform us of new money but hardly make bring in changes,” said Chinweike Uche, an agricultural consultant in Lagos.

This report follows Nigeria’s declaration of a state of emergency last week, a move the government says will enable it to take urgent and important steps to tackle the country’s food problem. Food remains the highest driver of inflation in the West African country, which has seen its inflation rise to an 18-year high of 22.7%. 

The state of emergency came with some promised reforms such as clearing large areas for farming and introducing a commodity board. TechCabal has argued separately that the board is unlikely to succeed.

The sources of the $500 million inflow were not disclosed, but the presidency confirmed contributions from “international finance organisations”. Recall that earlier in July, President Tinubu asked lawmakers to approve $500 billion ($638 million) of spending to cushion the effect of subsidy removal. And according to Dele Alake, President Tinubu’s spokesman, cost-savings from fuel subsidy removal were going to be used in revamping the agricultural sector. It is not clear whether such cost savings contributed to the freshly mobilised $500 million. 

“The president has already approved the infusion of a huge quantum of funds towards the repositioning of our security architecture,” vice president Shettima said. “We are repositioning our security architecture to provide support for farms and farmers.”

inq. Group, a Pan-African edge technology provider backed by Convergence Partners, has announced its AI-powered solutions for the Nigerian energy market. According to the group’s chairman, Andile Ngcaba, the product will be integrated into the distribution network of energy distribution companies (DisCos), enabling real-time analysis of energy flow and tracking energy leaks. 

This announcement follows inq.’s recent reveal of two homegrown AI products it released for its 10 markets across Africa and Asia: DocAi and VisionAI. DocAI is a tool that digitises processes for businesses and allows them to use area-specific, deep learning optical character recognition (OCR) to upload scanned documents and extract valuable information. Vision AI allows enterprises to deploy AI-powered image recognition technologies across camera surveillance systems—enabling real-time analytics and alerts.

“We have locally built the continent’s leading intellectual property in artificial intelligence. Our products aren’t plug-ins to another man’s technology,” Ngcaba said in a media briefing on Tuesday. “We will lead the continent’s adoption of AI and bring it to real-life cases in agriculture, energy, and digital recognition,” he added.

inq. Group has operated in Nigeria for about four years, and in that time has provided enterprise-level cloud, connectivity, and IoT solutions for businesses in the country. The company says it has also built proprietary large language models that are powering its AI-solutions suite today. 

The media briefing also marked the introduction of Glad Dibetso, the new group CEO, to stakeholders in the Nigerian market. Dibetso takes over this role after leaving Deloitte Consulting as a partner, cloud computing and ICT operations. Before this role, he served as the CEO of the West African operations at Dimension Data, a data solutions provider backed by Convergence Partners.

“Electricity in Nigeria is powered by distribution companies. They collect monies from end users to pay the companies transmitting and generating electricity. But DisCos have struggled to remain profitable due to the lack of proper analytics to track the distribution and detect mass leakages. This is where we come in. We are already in talks with the government for adoption,” said Valentine Chime, inq. Nigeria’s managing director.

Andile Ngcaba shared strong optimism in inq.’s business in Nigeria. “Nigeria will be inq.’s regional hub, through which we will expand to several anglophone countries in the region,” he said. 

Four stakeholders in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem are being considered for key positions in President Tinubu’s administration, TechCabal can exclusively report. Bosun Tijani, Oswald Osaretin Guobadia, Olumide Soyombo, and Idris Alubankudi Saliu are reportedly among those who were considered for key positions—including a ministerial seat—in the Tinubu administration. 

While the comprehensive list is yet to be finalised, two sources close to the presidency have confirmed that these individuals have been considered for key roles at the federal level. “I can’t guarantee they will get it, but they’ve all been considered for the ministerial role. It’s possible they get other roles too,” an anonymous source shared. 

These four individuals have, at scale, demonstrated enterprising leadership in technology-related projects and earned repute within the African tech ecosystem. While it remains uncertain how their candidacies will shape the final composition of Tinubu’s list, their standing as technocrats holds promise for Nigerians who have long advocated for the appointment of industry-specific experts into key roles. 

Let’s take a closer look at their lives and work.

Bosun Tijani 

Bosun Tijani is the CEO and co-founder of CcHub, one of Africa’s leading technology hubs. He has led the expansion of CcHub across Nigeria, Kenya, and more recently, Namibia. From its humble beginnings in Yaba, CcHub has grown to become a significant catalyst of tech advancement in Africa by empowering young people with the tools, communities and capital they need to launch impactful ventures. CcHub hosted Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg in 2016. 

Tijani holds two degrees from the University of Jos, Nigeria: a Bsc. in Economics and a Diploma in Computer Science. He subsequently obtained an MSc. in Information Systems and Management from the Warwick Business School in England. In March this year, Tijani completed a PhD program in Innovation and Economic Development at the University of Leicester. 

Bosun Tijani describes himself as an advocate of social change, a title best captured by his work at CcHub. With a billion naira growth fund, CcHub has committed to impacting over 95 early-stage businesses including those bringing innovation to Africa’s education and healthcare systems. In 2017, New Africa Magazine named Tijani as one of the 100 most influential people in Africa. 

Oswald Osaretin Guobadia

Oswald Osaretin Guobadia was the Senior Special Adviser to Former President Muhammadu Buhari. In that role, he led the design and drafting of the Nigeria Startup Act (NSA), which to date remains one of the presidency’s most significant achievements for Nigeria’s tech ecosystem. He is also the co-founder of DBH, an African infrastructure and IT company that provides consultancy and specialised solutions in markets across the world. 

Guobadia obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Wesley College and a Master’s degree in Telecommunications and Computer Science from PACE University, a private university in New York. Post-graduation, Guobadia’s last job in the US was a 5-year stint at global advisory firm Goldman Sachs, where he was VP and Project Manager.

In an earlier interview with Techcabal, Guobadia shared that he got into government with the ambition of making business easier in Nigeria. After holding top roles at UBA and Renaissance Capital, he transitioned into policy-making, where he led efforts in the drafting of the NSA, an act that seeks to improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria and attract foreign investments. The startup act has been lauded globally and concerted efforts are underway to domesticate the act across Nigeria’s 36 states. Although, domesticating the act across the states has had a significant tussle so far. 

Guobadia held his role at DBH for over a decade, during which the company deployed banking infrastructure, trading floors, and tech solutions for government and corporate clients. This role placed Guobadia in relations with both private and public sectors, preparing him for the realities of leading a national policy drive.

Olumide Soyombo

Olumide Soyombo is an investment mogul in Nigeria. He is widely known as one of the earliest investors in Paystack, a pan-African payments company acquired by Stripe for $200 million. Beyond Paystack, Soyombo is described as one of Nigeria’s most prolific angel investors whose investments have shaped the evolution of the country’s technology ecosystem. In 2021, he launched Voltron Capital, an early-stage investment vehicle that has backed 48 startups in two years. 

Soyombo holds a BSc. degree in systems engineering from the University of Lagos. In 2006, he obtained an MSc. in Business and Information Technology from Aston University, Birmingham. Soyombo returned to Nigeria after completing his studies to launch Bluechip Technologies, a startup that provides data housing and business intelligence solutions for businesses, including Microsoft and Oracle.

Soyombo’s BlueChip Technologies offers data solutions and enterprise-level tech consulting services to banks and businesses across the world. The business, which has been at the forefront of Africa’s data warehousing growth, expanded to Europe last year to provide solutions to businesses in the region. 

Idris Alubankudi Saliu

Idris Alubankudi Saliu is a long-time entrepreneur, investor, and tech advocate in Nigeria. He is the former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Africa’s oldest unicorn, Interswitch Group. Saliu joined Interswitch through an acquisition. Vanso, his software and telecommunications company, which operated in Lagos, Capetown, and Wurzburg, Germany, was acquired by Interswitch for an undisclosed sum. Unconfirmed reports claim the exit was a dollar deal in six figures.

Saliu is a graduate of Columbia University, New York, where he obtained a BSc. in Computer Science. He is presently the co-founder of two fintech companies: Arca and UK-based Ceviant. Ceviant provides treasury and trade solutions for businesses across the globe. And has worked with mega-corporations like Dantata and Wakanow.

Saliu’s work in the Nigerian tech ecosystem spans over two decades, in which he has demonstrated deep expertise in telecommunications, payments, and scalable digital infrastructure. 

Digital portfolios in the Tinubu government

Throughout his presidential campaign, Tinubu expressed lofty goals for Nigeria’s tech ecosystem, including expanding broadband penetration, implementing blockchain policy reforms, and creating one million new ICT jobs within a two-year timeframe. Achieving these ambitions requires the appointment of individuals who have proven industry-specific competence—as is reflected by the work of these aforementioned stakeholders. However, as previously maintained, they could be recommended for other digital positions within the government. 

Technology brings efficiency, and, when optimised, can be the game-changer for any ministry. However, specific ministerial portfolios require digital technocrats. Some of these portfolios include the minister of communications and digital economy, minister of science and technology, minister of information and culture, minister of finance, and the minister of trade and investments.  

The first two portfolios mentioned above play a crucial role in shaping a nation’s digital future, making them ideal fits for the experts discussed in this article. However, the ministry which oversees the development of science and tech holds broader responsibilities, including championing advancements in Nigeria’s life and physical sciences. This may translate into a wider selection pool for its minister.  

What skills are needed for the job?

Ministries overseeing technology and the digital economy need leaders with experience driving large-scale technical projects—and working with technologies such as blockchain, AI, and cybersecurity systems. In Rwanda, a country that has gotten attention for its fast-improving business and tech ecosystem, the minister of information and communications technology is Paula Ingabire, an MIT graduate and pro-blockchain advocate. Paula attends the monthly meetings of the Rwanda Blockchain Community. 

For Nigeria, which may be on the cusp of reshaping its love-hate relationship with blockchain technologies and crypto, evidenced by a new CBN leadership and a pro-blockchain presidency, a deeply informed expert is needed at the helm of affairs. The shoes will fit an experienced executor who can steer the country’s evolving relationship with modern technologies and pave the way for future growth and innovation.

Ministries tasked with overseeing trade and finance require leaders that understand how to leverage technology to optimise trade and finance at all levels. Nigeria’s financial inclusion and digital entrepreneurship strategies are mostly private sector-led and could do better with some ingenuity from the government. Nigeria also has huge potential for e-commerce,  broadened by opportunities presented by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and Pan African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS). Here, a private-sector business veteran may be what the country needs, especially one with the “innovate and deploy fast” ethos of technology companies. 

Several local publications have reported that Tinubu’s ministerial list will be shared this week, barring any last-minute changes. One thing is certain in all of this: the eventual appointees will have to pull their weight around their offices and bring necessary reforms to Nigerians—whether they are leaders in the tech ecosystem or not.

Access Bank has completed negotiations to acquire the sub-Saharan subsidiaries of Standard Chartered Bank for an undisclosed sum. This acquisition is in line with Standard Chartered’s plan to divest its businesses in Africa.

The deal includes the sale of Standard Chartered’s stake in subsidiaries in Angola, Cameroon, Gambia, and Sierra Leone to Access Bank. Additionally, Access Bank will acquire Standard Chartered’s consumer, private, and business banking business in Tanzania. The deal, which is to be completed by 2024, excludes the sale of the bank’s Nigerian subsidiary.

“Access Bank will provide a full range of banking services and continuity for key stakeholders including employees and clients of Standard Chartered’s businesses across the five aforementioned countries,” Standard Chartered said in a statement.

Standard Chartered’s decision to exit these countries in Africa and the Middle East (AME) aligns with its strategy to enhance profitability by focusing on faster-growing markets in the region. The transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals in all five countries.

Sunil Kaushal, Standard Chartered’s regional CEO for AME, said the decision will allow the bank to focus on higher-growth regions. “This strategic decision allows us to redirect resources within the AME region to other areas with significant growth potential,” he said.

Access Bank, on the other hand, sees this acquisition as an opportunity to build a robust global franchise focused on “serving as a gateway for payments, investment, and trade within Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world”.

Commenting on the deal, Roosevelt Ogbonna, the Managing Director of Access Group, said: “With our recent European expansion and our deepened presence in key trading corridors across Africa, we will bridge the gap between cross-border and domestic transfers across all business segments.”

With this move, Access Bank, which is already Nigeria’s biggest bank by asset will see its value skyrocket as it takes a more prominent position in the African banking scene.

While this marks a boon for Access Bank, it underscores a growing trend of European Banks leaving Africa. In October 2021, Atlas Mara left seven African markets it was operating in. Credit Suisse followed in February 2022, the same month BNP Paribas of France reduced its African footprints. The common thread of excuse these banks give is that retail banking in Africa is high-risk and low-yielding. But it remains to be seen how deeply these assertions are affecting native African banks, like those in Nigeria, for example, with stock prices that have continued to go higher. 

“I’ll pay you with eNaira” was my colleague’s way of teasing me about repaying a loan. If he were to pay into my eNaira wallet, I’d have virtually no way of spending the money. Most merchants in Nigeria don’t accept the country’s digital currency, and not many tech-savvy folks are convinced that this blockchain-based money has what it takes for mainstream adoption. Despite the investments of the central bank of Nigeria, Nigerians do not care much about the eNaira, Africa’s first central bank digital currency (CBDC). Mr Tobi Aremotobi, a Lagos-based digital finance expert, refers to the venture as “an exercise in futility”.

Launched in October 2021, the eNaira became the world’s second public CBDC, after the Bahamas’ Sand Dollar project. Two months away from a second anniversary, the digital currency is still struggling with adoption. A recent IMF report showed that the average number of eNaira transactions is about 14,000 per week—only 1.5% of the number of wallets. This suggests that 98.5% of wallets, for any given week, have not been used even once. These numbers reflect a “disappointingly low adoption”.

A use case, please?

Many Nigerians have stressed that the eNaira lacks a use case compelling enough for them. According to the CBN’s master plan, the low transfer fees should drive eNaira adoption among Nigerians, especially among the youth demography who have demonstrated market potential for startups offering digital-first financial services. However, as it turns out, low-cost transfers take less priority than the form in which the money gets moved. 

Money can be either cash or digital. And when it’s digital, it can be either centralised fiat or decentralised cryptocurrency. The eNaira—like all CBDCs—doesn’t fit into either category. It introduces a new class of digital money that most Nigerians are only just discovering, right as they are being urged to adopt. The corollary effect, therefore, is hesitation. 

“I still can’t wrap my head around why we need another digital means of keeping money that takes away some banking perks,“ Aremotobi said. “If the eNaira remains a means to transfer value or pay my bills online, it is welcome to queue behind the one thousand options I already have.” Aremotobi’s point highlights a conversation crypto evangelists are familiar with: a monetary asset must have compelling use cases beyond being a value store. 

Perhaps, the CBN’s response to this line of thought would be in its three-point motivation for the eNaira. Through the digital currency, the apex bank wants to increase financial inclusion, reduce informality, and tap into Nigeria’s expanding remittance markets. The remittance play remains in the works, but the CBN has doubled down on its eNaira-powered financial inclusion agenda. That, however, is yet to demonstrate reasonable traction. 

ENaira versus mobile money

According to the IMF report on the eNaira, “Nigeria has a large informal economy….Once the eNaira becomes more widespread and embedded into the economy, it may bring greater transparency to informal payments.” This position highlights the ambitions of the eNaira to simultaneously penetrate the informal market as it strives to power financial inclusion nationwide. Essentially, the eNaira wants to operate with established mobile money frameworks.

To do this, the CBN can take either of two routes: leverage established mobile money networks to onboard CBDC users, or go all out to construct a retail access network. The former model will prevent the apex bank from providing retail banking services, and will require users to route their monies through their mobile money accounts to their eNaira wallets—a model that will come at an extra service cost. The bright side to this model, according to the IMF, is that it de-risks users’ mobile money balances—as the cash typically leaves the accounts of the financial institutions powering the mobile money services.

This strategy, despite being the eNaira’s best shot at bagging some financial inclusion laurels, shows a lack of understanding of Nigeria’s mobile money market. Unlike Kenya’s MPESA or Senegal’s Wave, mobile money in Nigeria is not primarily used to hold balances. The country’s leading players—Paga and Opay—are extensively adopted for cash-in cash-out transactions. Payments and transfers come second, and are mostly completed by cash-full customers. Even the option to convert from cash to CBDC wallets is likely to face hesitation as such behaviour is not in line with prevalent consumer trends.   

So far, the CBN’s drive to put eNaira on the streets has churned out initiatives like USSD-powered eNaira operations and account tiers for the unbanked. As an added incentive to proselytise the digital currency adoption, thousands of CBN’s staff receive stipends into their eNaira wallets. The apex bank also claims that it has encouraged major supermarkets to adopt payments in eNaira, but big names like Shoprite, Spar, and Addide are yet to demonstrate nationwide adoption. From a financial inclusion lens, these moves by the CBN seem laudable, but the struggling adoption suggests that there’s something still amiss in the strategy mix. 

Nosa Oyegun, who leads the product team at Kuda, describes the eNaira’s mission to capture informal markets as an uphill struggle. “Given how it [the eNaira] was rolled out, it’s tall order now. it’ll be hard because of how it stumbled out the blocks. [The rollout] should have been USSD-driven if that was the goal. 

From a product perspective, Oyegun believes the eNaira has all the elements needed to be dominant. ”The government is behind the eNaira, there’s hardly any bigger moat than any competitor could ever have,” he said.

Is trust the missing piece? 

The CBN and its eNaira have a trust deficit they must overcome. Actions such as the ban on crypto, closure of crypto-linked bank accounts, forex manipulations, and more recently, the naira redesign, have left a negative impression of the apex bank and its policies on most Nigerians. Tech and blockchain enthusiasts who were affected by the crypto crackdown scoff at the idea of a CBN-controlled blockchain currency, and decidedly avoid it. “I am not going to put my money under the full watch of the CBN, not after everything they’ve done to us. I can wake up and realise my money is all gone,” says Tage Okogu, a crypto enthusiast based in Lagos.

As Abraham Augustine argues in this piece, banking in its simplest form is the aggregation of trust transactions. The risk-averse saver trusts in the ability of the bank to keep the money while the bank trusts in its ability to keep the money safe and grow it by taking on risks. When the trust piece is missing on either side, banking collapses. Or—like is the case for the eNaira—fails to go beyond “a wave of limited adoption”.

Mastercard, a leading global payment services provider, has partnered with SomBank, a Sharia-compliant bank in Somalia, to launch the SomBank Card, a Mastercard-branded debit card. The collaboration aims to enhance financial inclusion in Somalia by providing customers with access to digital payment options. In the initial phase of the partnership, 100,000 SomBank customers will receive the SomBank Card in 2023, with the potential for further expansion in subsequent years.

By offering digital payment services, this collaboration seeks to address the growing demand for convenient and secure transactions in Somalia. Customers will be able to make purchases, withdrawals, and online payments using the SomBank Card at Mastercard-accepted merchants and ATMs. The partnership represents a significant step towards improving financial access and empowering more Somalis to participate in the digital economy.

“As a global technology company with a deep commitment to financial inclusion, Mastercard is proud to partner with SomBank to bring digital payments to Somalia. This also supports our commitment to work with financial institutions to bring more people into the digital economy,” said Shehryar Ali, Country Manager for East Africa at Mastercard. “By providing access to secure and convenient payment solutions, we believe that this partnership will help drive economic growth and improve the lives of millions of Somalis.”

This strategic collaboration aligns with Mastercard’s broader strategy to expand its presence in regions with strong digital growth potential. Somalia, with its increasing (yet low)  internet penetration and smartphone usage, offers a promising landscape for digital development. In 2021, Mastercard entered into partnerships with MyBank and Premier Bank in Somalia to further promote the digitalization of financial services.

The Mastercard-SomBank partnership marks an important milestone in Somalia’s journey towards financial inclusion. The introduction of the SomBank Card will offer a convenient payment solution for everyday transactions and provide access to essential financial services. As digital payment solutions become more accessible, the collaboration aims to drive economic growth and empower more Somalis to participate fully in the economy.

With the launch of the SomBank Card, Mastercard and SomBank are working together to accelerate the adoption of digital payments in Somalia, bringing the benefits of secure and convenient transactions to individuals and businesses alike. This partnership represents a significant stride towards a more inclusive and digitized financial ecosystem in Somalia.

“This is a truly remarkable day for us, as we take another step towards making banking more accessible for our customers. We are excited to partner with Mastercard to bring digital payment solutions to our customers,” said Abdullahi Aden, CEO of SomBank. 

Somalia has been trying to rebuild its digital payments rails since most of its financial institutions crumbled in the aftermath of its 1991 wars. In June 2022, Techcabal reported the national launch of SOMQR, a standard QR code for the country. The move was criticised by several industry watchers, who cited the country’s low internet and smartphone penetration. For these experts, the bet should be on cards—exactly what Mastercard and SomBank are driving with their latest partnership. 

In a bid to become profitable, pan-African ecommerce platform Jumia has turned its focus to rural markets in Africa. This means convincing rural dwellers that they can buy anything with their mobile phones, and Jumia will bring the product to them. Since 2022, the Nigeria arm of the e-commerce giant has doubled down on rural and semi-rural markets in Africa’s most populated country. “This is in line with the master plan to be profitable,” says Massimiliano Spalazzi, CEO of Jumia Nigeria.

Modaleke in Osun, Nkpor in Anambra, Owo in Ondo, Offa in Kwara, and Keffi in Nassarawa are some of the towns that are now being touched by ecommerce with Jumia as a first mover. Jumia is partnering with third parties in these towns to set up fulfilment centres to serve as pick-up stations (PUS) for the customers. In its recently released Rural Area Report, Jumia shows that it has established over 250 PUS across the country, even in the remotest parts where it is striving to plant its ecommerce roots.

“To be profitable, you must boost gross merchandise value (GMV). And to do that, you must record more sales or have more customers. Our rural drive is bringing more customers on board. It’s positioning us better towards profitability,” Spalazzi shared, maintaining that the logistics costs associated with its rural markets are marginal. At an average shipping cost of $1.5 per item, Jumia claims it does not record losses in fulfilling orders for rural customers.

JForce is the team behind the dream

Over the years, Jumia has consistently splurged on marketing and advertising costs as it continues to position itself in the African market. But billboard ads don’t do much to convert middle-class Nigerians who provide the largest market opportunity for B2C ecommerce in the country. Jumia realises this. Now, the company has taken deliberate steps to prune its advertising spend, cutting it down by 40% in Q4 2022, and concentrating its marketing efforts on its 43,000-strong independent sales consultants, JForce.

JForce represents the company’s approach to rural area marketing. Through on-the-ground campaigns, activations, and door-to-door canvassing, JForce teams across the country educate and onboard users on Jumia, including those with limited exposure to education or technology. In return, Jumia pays them commissions for every order they facilitate. These commissions range from 1.5% to 8% and are based on the locations from which the orders are completed. “[JForce have] been instrumental in expanding ecommerce to previously underserved areas [in Nigeria],” the Jumia Rural Report reads.

Rural seems to be winning

Jumia’s concentration on rural marketing through sales agents may mark the early stages of a gradual shift in the B2C ecommerce spectrum from an Amazon-styled structure to something more Copia-esque. Copia Global is one of the most successful B2C ecommerce companies in Africa. Based in Kenya and Uganda, the company recruits small business owners and trains them to be agents and Copia evangelists in their regions, with their local stores serving as pick-up locations for customers. This hyperlocal model reinforces trust in Copia and enables the company to deliver goods profitably despite its free delivery. Jumia has an advantage here: its delivery is not free, and the addition of a $2 fee to most items will make little difference in remote towns, where traditional commerce and logistics spike the pricing of several items. 

Another advantage for Jumia lies in the marginal costs of its logistics to these stores. On Nigeria’s map, the remote towns that Jumia operate in can be traced within a radius of Lagos. According to Spalazzi, most of the rural markets Jumia currently serves are situated on the road route to bigger, urban cities, such as Benin, Warri, Aba, and  Abuja, where Jumia reports consistently increasing order volumes. “It makes sense to us to take advantage of our logistics routes to better serve areas where ecommerce lacks presence,” the CEO said.

Playing the long game

Experts agree that Jumia’s move to deepen its rural market may not immediately fruit the kind of changes that radically upturns its balance sheet towards a positive EBITDA. But it holds a promise to boost Jumia’s average orders and GMV values recorded from Nigeria. 

Between the last quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, orders on Jumia dipped by 3 million units, which is reflected in its reduced GMV and quarterly revenue. To prevent these business-altering kinds of dips, Jumia must increase its presence in new markets and gradually plug into more markets where middle-class Africans can purchase items. There are over 50 million Nigerians in this category, according to data from Resource Recycling. And as Jumia remains the dominant B2C ecommerce player in the Nigerian market, there’s hardly any justification for its quarterly active customers to keep oscillating around 3 million customers. 

Jumia is playing the long game by building a capillary network among rural and semi-rural towns in Nigeria. A good number of the so-called rural towns—including Ilaro, Offa, Nkpor and Keffi—already have tertiary institutions, electricity, and other markers of urbanisation. This means that other things being equal, they could transform into semi-urban or urban cities within the next half-decade. This could translate into an explosion of market size for the ecommerce first movers, which Jumia is striving to be in these towns. 

Jumia Nigeria is putting to test the words of Francis Dufay, the group’s CEO: “We [Jumia] have great business cases in smaller cities close to rural areas, where we know for a fact that we have a good market.” 

It will be interesting to see how this good market plays out in the company’s 2023 financials. 

Like many other markets worldwide, Europe has a demand for software developers that its local market cannot meet. This has driven demand for technical talents to markets like India and Africa where tech-savvy youthful populations are filling positions at global firms. According to a 2021 report by Africa Developer Ecosystem, 38% of Africa’s 716,000 developers work for at least one company headquartered outside Africa. This trend benefits the Netherlands, a European country where the shortage of developers is fuelling the demand for skilled technical talents. “We are trying to fix this shortage,” says Michel Deelen, the Dutch Consul General. “This is why we have eyes on Africa.”

Deelen was at an event in Lagos last month where he spoke about Tech Impact Academy (TIA), a new project that trains software developers in Nigeria. TIA’s goal is to train African developers and serve as a talent pipeline for Tunga, an Andela-like Dutch initiative that connects African software developers to global clients. Tunga has operated in Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya for about six years, and claims to have over 1500 software developers in its community.

“Tunga was founded with the mission to create attractive jobs for African youths,” says Jori Gerritsenn, Tunga’s program manager. “We are creating a win-win situation: helping the EU/US markets to meet its enormous software developer demand by facilitating African developers to reach their potential and gaining access to sustainable jobs on the international market.” The Africans involved get to work remotely for global firms, gain significant experience, and plug into global networks.

Why Africa?

Perhaps, the real question is why not Africa? Technical talent on the continent has continued to grow as more young people, seeking better opportunities, plug into the global demand for technology skills. From Lagos to Rwanda, alternative learning platforms like AltSchool have helped build a continental ecosystem of tech talents with globally competitive skills. Additionally, sourcing talent from Africa is cost-effective. The conversion of hard currency to local currency makes talent more affordable, creating a favourable environment for foreign businesses seeking skilled developers.

Also, senior developers in Africa often face challenges in finding financially rewarding jobs within the continent due to the limited number of companies that can offer globally competitive salaries. As a result, they often explore job opportunities outside Africa. This aligns with the growing demand for skilled developers in Europe, making Africa an ideal talent pool to source from.

Africa is rising to the challenge of churning out skilled talents for the world—although, the argument of whether the continent is meeting its own demand for software developers remains. Last year, Kenya introduced a national coding curriculum for its primary and secondary school students. And, in partnership with Microsoft, the East African country launched a digital talent program to build a workforce of tech talents. Issues with Nigeria’s academic sector have also prompted widespread interest in tech skills, altogether shaping a technically-skilled continent. 

Deelen, the Dutch Consul General, explained that Africa—and Nigeria especially—is showing a different sequence from the standard economic development theory that puts agriculture first, followed by industry then services like ICT. “Nigeria’s [technology] sector has sort of bypassed certain other sectors. The country is leapfrogging areas of slow growth and moving into something that is working.” 

“We’re happy about this,” he adds, maintaining that the Dutch government will continue to support impactful projects like Tunga across Africa. 

Google has listed 25 African startups as beneficiaries of its annual Black Founders Fund. Now in its third year, the $4 million fund seeks to help tackle systemic racial inequality in venture capital (VC) funding by providing equity-free grants and mentoring to early-stage, Black-led, and high-growth businesses across Africa and Europe. 

The diverse cohort of 40 startups includes 25 African startups, 72% of which are led or co-founded by women. This demonstrates Google’s commitment to ensuring gender equity with its support for African entrepreneurs. Last year, the initiative achieved gender parity with its fund distribution. 

Google notably drew back in the reach of its 2023 cohort, reducing the number of beneficiaries from 60 to 40. The number of African startups also noticed a first-time cut. Nigerian startups, for example, which took up 23 spots in the 2022 cohort, still dominate the pack but with only 10 startups represented. In Africa, Kenyan and South African startups are next represented with five and three startups respectively. Startups from Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, and Rwanda make up the rest of the 2023 list. 

Google’s equity-free money of between $50,000 and $100,000 is spread across various sectors including food, construction, and legal services, but the majority of beneficiaries are in fintech, logistics, and healthcare. The fund will empower the businesses to expand into new markets and drive job creation.

According to a statement seen by TechCabal, each selected startup will receive up to $150,000 in non-dilutive cash awards, up to $200,000 in Google Cloud credits, Ad support, mentoring by industry experts and connections within Google’s network. 

Folarin Aiyegbusi, Head of Startups Ecosystem, Africa at Google said, “Startups play a major role in advancing Africa’s digital transformation. We look forward to working with this group of innovative founders who are using technology to solve some of the most pressing challenges in Africa. The Google for Startups Black Founders Fund is committed to addressing the stark inequality in VC funding by providing Black founders with the resources and support they need to succeed.” 

Meet the Black Founders Fund 2023 cohort 

1. Akoma Health (Nigeria): Tech platform for accessible, culturally conscious mental health services in Africa.
2. BezoMoney (Ghana): Digital banking for Africa’s underbanked via mobile/web platforms
3. Chargel (Senegal): Digital trucking platform connecting shippers/carriers in Francophone West Africa.
4. Charis UAS (Rwanda): Provides 3D geospatial data via drone technology.
5. Evolve Credit (Nigeria): SaaS for digitising and managing banking services.
6. Excel At Uni (South Africa): Supports student funders via digital services.
7. EzyAgric (Uganda): AI-powered mobile technology to enhance Africa’s farming sector.
8. Fez Delivery (Nigeria): Last-mile logistics platform for various industries.
9. Fleetsimplify (Kenya): Monetization platform connecting gig drivers & vehicle owners.
10. HealthDart (South Africa): Digital HMO providing end-to-end health services with insurance.
11. Herconomy (Nigeria): Female-focused fintech aiming to be Africa’s first women’s bank.
12. Jumba (Kenya): Improving Kenya’s construction sector supply chain via B2B platform.
13. MDaaS Global (Nigeria): Tech-powered diagnostic centres for affordable healthcare.
14. My Pocket Counsel (Nigeria): Legal tech platform for contract generation and management.
15. Orda (Nigeria): Pan-African neobank for restaurants, offering cloud-based software.
16. Periculum (Nigeria): Data company aiding in credit assessment, fraud/churn risk.
17. Raenest (Nigeria): Fintech offering global financial services to freelancers/startups in Africa.
18. Ridelink (Uganda): E-logistics platform providing shipping and real-time tracking.
19. Susu (Côte d’Ivoire): Health platform providing healthcare services/insurance funded by African diaspora.
20. Talamus Health (Ghana): Tech solutions targeting healthcare inefficiencies in Africa.
21. TruQ (Nigeria): Streamlining mid-mile logistics across Africa with third-party vehicle connectivity.
22. Tushop (Kenya): Tech platform for group buying of daily essentials in Kenya.
23. Uzapoint (Kenya): Mobile/web POS for digitising bookkeeping in Africa’s informal sector.
24. Zinacare (South Africa): Online platform for accessible, affordable healthcare services.
25. Zydii (Kenya): Localised digital training solutions for African SMEs.