The second largest mobile network operator in Nigeria said the programme’s primary objective was to reduce share capital which in turn cuts down Airtel’s debt obligations and cost of operations which has grown in recent times. 

Segun Ogunsanya, CEO of Airtel Africa, claims Airtel’s businesses have generated significant cash hence the decision of the board to launch a share buy-back programme. 

“The board believes that repurchasing its shares is an attractive use of its capital in light of the Group’s strong long-term growth outlook,” said Segun Ogunsanya, CEO of Airtel Africa. 

The buy-back programme kicked off on March 1, 2024, and involves the repurchase of $100 million worth of the company’s shares in 12 months. 

The programme is divided into two tranches with the first tranche worth $50 million running for a period of 7 months – from March to August 2024.

The latest transaction between Airtel and Citigroup involves the repurchase of 487,985 ordinary shares at a weighted average price of £103.94 ($131.70) per share. 

Airtel Africa has struggled to stay profitable due to macroeconomic challenges in Nigeria, its largest market on the continent. The company’s financial statement showed revenue dropped by 21.96% to $1.24 billion in December 2023, from $1.59 billion due to the fall of the naira affecting Airtel’s conversion rates. Airtel recently took steps to reduce its high operating costs like outsourcing most of its tower operations to IHS Towers. The buy-back programme also helps the company reduce its debt obligations as it seeks other ways to maintain profitability. 

Since its launch in 2020, Bamboo has announced $19.4 million in VC investment from investors like Greycroft, Tiger Global, Motley Fool Ventures, Saison Capital, Chrysalis Capital, and Y-Combinator’s Michael Seibel.

The co-founders are Richmond Bassey and Yanmo Omorogbe.  Bassey steers the ship as CEO, focusing on the long-term vision and strategic direction of the company. Richmond Bassey CEO. His direct reports aside from Omorogbe,  chief operating officer (COO),  include George Imoedemhe, head of product & engineering, and  Dubai-based Oleg Medvedev who is head of design.  Meanwhile, Omorogbe, chief operating officer (COO), is in charge of the company’s day-to-day operations.

All team leads: Damilola Akinyemi (head of finance), Ebi Wanapere (head of platform), Jennnifer Abah (head of customer experience), Misan Omagbitse (head of people), and Oluwakemi Idowu (head of legal) report directly to her.

This TechCabal Org Chart details Bamboo’s leadership.

If you would like to showcase the leadership structure of your startup in this way, contact the author of this article: ngozi@bigcabal.com.

International Financial Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group and a lead investor in Africa’s Talking (AT) 2018 $8.4 million series A round has denied suing its portfolio company in 2023 for rejecting an acquisition offer from Infobip. An earlier report from this publication cited a court case referenced by people familiar with the matter.

Certain aspects of their claims have now been determined to have been wrong.

IFC holds a 20% stake in Africa’s Talking and as part of the Series A deal, Wale Ayeni, who led IFC’s venture capital arm in Africa at the time of the investment, joined Africa’s Talking board. Marieme Diop has since replaced him.

“IFC does not discuss the business decisions of its clients,” the corporation told TechCabal via email.

“AT was viciously attacked by the IFC last year, continuing a pattern of abuse that started with their investment in 2018,” Gikandi told TechCabal via email. He added that the “attack” felt like a “cover-up” and claimed he was unaware of IFC’s motivation.

Gikandi did not answer any questions on the legal proceedings.

Orange Digital Ventures, a $350 million fund, and Social Capital, a $600 million fund looking to sell its stake in startups, also participated in Africa’s Talking Series A round.

Africa’s Talking is now caught up in at least two legal cases. On Monday, TechCabal reported that Africa’s Talking and Gikandi were sued by Africa’s Talking other co-founders Eston Maina Kimani and Bilha Ndirangu, and three others who allege that Gikandi pushed out Ndirangu as director after she called for an investigation into “workplace abuse.”

“The 1st Applicant (Ndirangu), who previously served as a CEO and until the irregular ouster held the position of an independent director, possesses a deep understanding of the 1st Respondent and its operations,” a court document read.

Zoho, the Indian cloud company that began expanding to Africa in 2019, will continue charging its African customers in their local currencies despite significant currency devaluation in those markets. The company will, however, not rule out price increases in the future.

“We are not going to change how we bill our customers at all,” Veerakumar Natarajan, country head, Zoho Kenya, told TechCabal.

With rising business costs, some companies have substantially reduced their expenses. However, per Zoho, which launched a local office in Kenya in May 2023, its partner network jumped by 212%, partly because customers continue to use its products since they pay in Kenyan shillings. “Customers are happy to stay with us because we charge in Kenya shillings. This is not the case with rivals, who bill their clients in US dollars,” Natarajan added.

READ MORE: Nigerians feel the pinch as January headline inflation hits 29.90% and food prices soar

Zoho said it uses a local currency billing strategy in key African and Middle Eastern markets. The approach allows clients in Nigeria, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai to pay for Zoho’s customer relationship management software in their local currency. Natarajan said, “In Africa, our strategy is different because we charge in local currency and extend a discount as well.”

When it set its price for Kenyan customers, the exchange rate was KES 100 to the US dollar. Currently, the currency has depreciated to KES 146 to the US dollar. According to Natarajan, the weakening Kenyan shilling may compel Zoho to revise its product prices upwards, but there are no such plans soon. For now, Zoho said it can offset the weakening Kenyan shilling by attracting more customers who pay in local currency.

As the Kenyan shilling weakens, businesses are concerned about the safety of their dollar-based earnings. Fears include lower income, instability, and compromised livelihoods. Kenya Power, a power distributor, is facing KES 3.19 billion in losses and is considering switching to USD billing, raising concerns about the future of the local currency.

READ MORE: Ethiopia’s inflation jumps to 28.7% as central bank acknowledges alleviation difficulties

“Terms of the deal are not being disclosed at the moment,” Piggyvest told TechCabal in an official statement confirming the deal.

Two sources with knowledge of the matter put the investment amount at $3 million. Until this investment, Piggyvest had only disclosed $1.1 million in venture funding.

The fintech giant said it had received $5 million in venture funding since 2016, a detail that has not been previously reported. 

The recent investment by Flutterwave comes amid PiggyVest’s broader push to raise external funding, which has been in the works for more than two years, according to people familiar with the situation. Disagreement over valuation terms and the global economic downturn have affected fundraising, those people said. Flutterwave’s investment allows the payments company to have a deeper relationship with PiggyVest while the latter forges ahead with its investment round.

Flutterwave did not immediately respond to a request for comments. 

PiggyVest’s last major venture funding round was in 2018, when it raised $1.1 million from a roll call of angel investors. In 2021, Nigerian investment firm VFD Group said it had acquired a 12% stake in the company and became a major partner in the rollout of Pocket and Patronize. VFD Group’s acquisition of 12% in PiggyVest was a mix of cash investment and a merger of a competing VFD Group product, people with knowledge of the matter told TechCabal.

PiggyVest has maintained decent growth while claiming to be profitable. The holding company posted annual revenue of around $25 million in 2021, while its 2022 revenue grew slightly to roughly $27 million, said people familiar with the company’s finances. Those figures have not been previously reported. 

Founded in 2016, PiggyVest is as old as Flutterwave and was created by four co-founders as a savings platform for young Nigerians looking for a better way to stash their money and learn financial discipline. The app allows people to keep funds in their savings accounts on the app and accrue interest on their deposits. 

Customers can only access their funds four times a year or incur a fee penalty for early withdrawal. Since its creation, the platform said it has paid out over ₦1.1 trillion ($1.37 billion*) to customers by the end of 2022 through fixed withdrawal timelines. The platform disbursed ₦400 billion ($497.3 million) last year alone and claims it now has over 4.5 million registered users on its wealth management service.

However, PiggyVest’s business model has evolved over the last few years. The platform originally started out as a deposit holding service that invests consumer funds in government assets, such as bonds and treasury bills. Until the end of 2022, PiggyVest’s website claimed the company had a partnership with AIICO Capital, a licensed Nigerian fund manager, where customer deposits were “warehoused” and managed. The partnership helped PiggyVest navigate Nigeria’s regulatory environment, although it’s unclear how this partnership is structured. 

In recent years, PiggyVest has been reconstituted as a holding company called PiggyTech Global Holdings Limited, incorporated in the UK and Nigeria, according to information on the company’s website and B2B Hints, a business registration directory. 

The company operates multiple services, including PiggyVest, the wealth management app; Pocket, a consumer payments app; and Patronize, a point-of-sales product that allows retail stores to accept payments offline. Since mid-2023, PiggyVest’s website shows the holding company now has a fund manager license from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through an affiliate company, PV Capital, allowing it to manage customer assets as a fund manager.

*Exchange rate used is $1 = N804.4

At least four high-profile executives also left the company in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Cellulant confirmed the “departure of staff, including some at the senior level” because of the “execution of strategic initiatives.” The company said it would name new leadership in a separate statement on Thursday.

These departures and layoffs culminated in the exit of CEO Akshay Grover, which was announced on Thursday. Akshay joined as CFO in January 2021 and was named CEO three months later. He was handpicked to lead Cellulant through a fourth financing round, said two people with direct knowledge of the situation. 

In September 2022, the company said it would raise $100 million in a Series D round before the end of the year to “deepen operations, acquire more merchants, more customers, and ensure seamless and effective payment services.” Ultimately, Cellulant was unable to raise the $100m it targeted.  

“The funding was a struggle, even though the company kept pushing towards it in 2022,” said one source who asked not to be named because they are not authorised to speak on behalf of Cellulant.

“The company maintains an active dialogue with potential investors. In 2024, we currently don’t plan to raise funds,” Cellulant said in an email to TechCabal.

The fintech company raised $54.5 million in three funding rounds between 2014 and 2018 from investors like The Rise Fund—a private equity firm owned by TPG Growth—and Velocity Capital. 

Unable to raise funding, Cellulant began restructuring its business in 2023. At the start of 2023, it laid off 27 employees, and in a second round of layoffs in August, it reduced its headcount by 20% and said it was “moving towards a leaner product-focused strategy.” 

Most of the changes the business made in 2023 were geared towards cutting costs, and one ex-employee claimed Cellulant had been spending significant amounts of money without specific growth goals.

“We undertook strategic operational adjustments designed to enhance operational efficiency and support our ambitious growth goals,” said Cellulant. “As part of these measures, we adopted a product-led structure in August and aligned our business into three core business units – banking, collections, and payouts – in December.”

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Editor’s note: This article has now been updated to reflect comments from Cellulant on their growth goals.

Njonjo founded Twiga in 2013 and led the company until December 2023, when he abruptly announced that he would take a six-month sabbatical. 

At the time, TechCabal reported that the timing suggested Njonjo was likely being pushed out by Creadev and Juven. Both investors participated in a $35 million funding round that helped cash-strapped Twiga pay its obligations to vendors it owed.

“Currently, the strategic direction and daily operations are now firmly in the hands of Juven and Creadev, and there is very little value I can add from this point on,” Njonjo’s letter to his firm’s board, dated January 4, 2024, said. Njonjo said he had agreed to work through a six-month transition at the board’s request after his initial “resignation” to allow the board to recruit a new CEO. 

By describing his sabbatical as a resignation, Njonjo’s latest letter seems to confirm TechCabal’s earlier reporting that investors and long-time players in Kenya’s technology ecosystem privately speculated that his sabbatical was a cover for his eventual exit.

Peter Njonjo has not replied to TechCabal’s request for comments enquiries at the time of this report.

Njonjo closed a $35 million convertible bond to help Twiga repay vendors it owed two weeks before announcing his 6-month sabbatical in December 2023.

Njonjo told Business Daily, the Kenyan publication that published excerpts of Njonjo’s resignation letter, that he had contributed $1 million in that round led by Juven and Creadev. The additional funds were supposed to be used to pay vendors and suppliers Twiga owes. At least one supplier Twiga is locked in litigation with says they have not been paid or notified of a payment plan (despite Twiga saying it notified around 100 vendors). The company is now in informal talks with Twiga representatives, TechCabal learned.

Njonjo says he will be a supportive shareholder after his exit from the board and is already considering other opportunities that will take up his time. 

Njonjo is not the only Twiga leader who has departed the struggling company. According to his LinkedIn profile, Yebeltal Getachew, a former managing director for the Nigerian office of Coca-Cola who was hired in 2021 as the head of Twiga’s East Africa business, also left the company in December. Getachew was hired when the company prepared to pursue an aggressive expansion strategy.

Juven did not reply to enquiries sent to them by the time of this report. Messages sent to Creadev’s Africa managing director have not been replied to at the time of this filing.

Cellulant confirmed his departure in an email to TechCabal and said, “The company is committed to maintaining its momentum and continuing its growth trajectory.”

Peter O’Toole, the company’s CFO, has been named Acting CEO. According to the company’s communications, new names will be added to its leadership team in the coming months.

Grover joined Cellulant in January 2021 as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). He was appointed Acting CEO in May 2021 after Cellulant’s longtime CEO and co-founder, Ken Njoroge, stepped down, commenting, “Cellulant’s next phase requires an ‘enterprise runner’ rather than a ‘venture builder.’”

Cellulant has a storied history, and the tale of how its cofounders scribbled the original idea for the company on a napkin in 2003 is now lore. With an initial $3,000 investment from its cofounders, Cellulant began as a ringtone-selling platform. Its business model soon came under pressure after Safaricom, Kenya’s leading telco, began offering the same music service to customers for free.

Cellulant then pivoted from its B2C model, connecting banks to the M-PESA payments ecosystem. It would later expand to Zambia, Ghana, and Botswana as it sealed payment partnerships with international partners such as StanChart.

Before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, it had 13 offices across the continent and raised $1.5 million, $5.5 million, and $47.5 million across three funding rounds. In 2022, Cellulant was pursuing a $100 million series D round, but the raise was put on hold.

Like most digital businesses in Africa, Cellulant was also affected by a challenging business environment in 2023. At the start of 2023, it laid off 27 staff members, and in August 2023, it fired 20% of its staff, consolidated some roles, and created new ones. These changes and trimmings were effected for “leaner and efficient operations,” per a statement shared with TechCabal at that time.

The merger is already being touted as the largest private tech deal in Africa. Wasoko was last valued at $625 million after it raised $125 million last year. The firm says it has received $113 million out of that investment. El-Megharbel of MaxAB declined to disclose the valuation at which his firm raised $40 million in October 2022. Both executives declined to comment on their valuation expectations for the new company.

“This is not a new discussion; this is really about a friendship and partnership that has been ongoing for years, and for us, it’s about taking things to the next level,” Yu said, adding that the combined company will have more “runway with tens of millions of dollars on the balance sheet.”

The deal will be structured as an equity consideration, which means that existing shareholders simply get a share of the new company upon completion of the merger. It gives wiggle room for investors who backed both companies and potentially allows VC firms to preserve most of the valuation at which they purchased their stake in either of the firms. According to Daniel Yu of Wasoko, independent investors and board members on both sides are part of the talks. Wasoko and MaxAB have raised almost $245 million from venture capital investors.

“This is a super tough business to crack. It requires a specific type of talent and well-capitalised companies to be able to crack it,” MaxAB’s El-Megharbel told TechCabal. “Before 2001, over 10 companies were trying to do what Amazon was doing. After a crisis hits there usually emerges a clear winner,” he added. Bringing both firms together would help them maximise their chances to come out tops.

Between 2019 and 2022, venture capital investors poured money into entrepreneurs building tech companies that focused on bringing Africa’s informal wholesale market for consumer goods online. Dubbed ‘B2B e-commerce’ as opposed to the direct-to-consumer e-commerce model of Jumia and Souq.com (acquired by Amazon), B2B e-commerce was described as more suited for the African experience because its primary customers were street shops and small retailers in African cities and towns.
More recently, B2B e-commerce has struggled, and to startups in the space, including Wasoko have laid off hundreds of staff and paused expansion plans.

In social media chatter on X (formerly Twitter) and private conversations on WhatsApp and Telegram seen by TechCabal, investors and founders speculated that one or both firms were struggling, hence the merger.

El-Megharbel and Yu dismissed those concerns. “The market is used to these deals happening in these specific incidences, so this is they just haven’t seen another way of doing this,” El-Megharbel said, “We and Wasoko have approached this at a point when we did not have to do it because once you have to do it, the companies are struggling at that time. Daniel and I are mature and humble enough to figure out that if we wait longer than this, it would probably be uglier for both companies or at least for one of them. The sooner, the merrier for this deal to happen.”

“Shareholders on all sides are extremely excited about what is happening,” Wasoko’s Yu said. “This is a 1 plus 1 equals 3. This transaction will establish us as the clear B2B e-commerce leader in Africa.”

Sandbox is a talent-matching platform built for product managers in the African tech ecosystem to find work locally and internationally. “It’s like Toptal, but for product managers,” Khadijah Atere, who works as product operations manager at Sandbox, told TechCabal over X (formerly Twitter) while trying to explain their unique offering.

Founded by Samuel Tobi, Princess Akari, and Ijaola David, the company started as a product within the People in Product (PIP) community, “a volunteer-driven community of product managers making a measurable impact and helping one another grow,” according to the PIP website. Ijaola David, Sandbox’s product lead, told TechCabal over a video call that a lot of the support for the company has come from the PIP community.

David, a project manager with over five years of experience, said he saw the need for Sandbox when he was starting professionally. “The issue was there weren’t a lot of jobs for product managers. I was lucky to stumble into this role that has become my career,” he said.

While the platform is still new, having only officially kicked off in 2023, David says they are “Africa’s first core product management matching platform.”

TechCabal asked how Sandbox matches product management talents with companies that need them and David explained that Sandbox has an assessment for all PMs on the platform. The assessment helps them segment entrants by experience, skill set, and specialisation.  “So anyone that wants to hire, all you have to do is go on our website, fill out the form, tell us what the JD looks like, and we will now go to our talent pool and find matching talents,” David said. 

Sandbox does not currently train newbies to become PMs, according to David and Atere. Their first phase of operations is focusing on helping existing talents to match with companies that need their services. Nonetheless, the platform currently hosts talents with as little as zero years of experience to as much as 10.

Although it’s still in its infancy, David confirmed to TechCabal that they are already a revenue-generating entity from companies that are hiring the PMs in their network. The revenue comes in the form of service charges and consultation fees at the moment, with plans to introduce other models in the future. 

Meanwhile, Sandbox is taking a slow approach to raising external funding. David said that because of the PIP community, operational expenses are low. “If we ever need to raise [money] from institutional investors, it should be because we’ve seen that there’s a potential revenue point that we need to invest in and we need to expand there. Maybe we need legal and compliance issues, or we need to expand into a market and they have compliance requirements and we know, once we are in there, we will blow up. Then it’ll make sense to raise money for such expansion.”