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Tastemakers Africa CEO Cherae Robinson Gives Us A Sneak Peak On Her 10-Year Plan and I’m Here For It Marketplaces are powerful and have a track record of disrupting industries and building. See eBay and Airbnb. Look out for what Safaricom could build on its Mpesa platform if regulators don’t make the two break up.…
Apologies for missing yesterday’s post. My body is making it clear I need to sleep more. The big market news yesterday was Ford CEO Mark Fields retiring, making room for Jim Hackett to take over at the home of America’s best selling vehicle. The news was surprising because Fields had done a pretty good job…
Microsoft Announces First Public Cloud in Africa Microsoft announced today that it was going to stand up two data centers in South Africa, the first public data centers on the continent. Let that sit with you for a bit. Hopefully, this is the beginning of public clouds proliferating across the continent. The benefits of this…
Africa Finance Corporation CEO Makes Case for Infrastructure Investment Andrew Alli is one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter. He is witty and always provides forthright analysis. During the celebration of the Africa Finance Corporation’s 10 years in business, Alli shared some observations on the importance of infrastructure in Africa. His admonishment to…
CcHub Pushes to Keep Yaba’s Startups Clustered Together I struggled to parse out whether there’s really cause for concern for Yaba’s future as Lagos’ tech hub, or whether this piece was a veiled branding for CcHub. Perhaps, it was some of both. All the same, it’s cool to see CcHub making plans for the long-term…
Investor Highlights African Financial Services Opportunity Despite Headwinds Kurt Davis surveys the financial services industry across Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cote d’Ivoire as ones where investors will find an upside though the current state of the industry isn’t the prettiest to look at. His projection of Cote d’Ivoire becoming the centerpiece…
Nigeria’s Bank of Industry Provides Interest-Free Loans to National Youth Service Members Nigeria’s Bank of Industry has developed a Graduate Entrepreneurship Fund in partnership with the country’s National Youth Service Corps. The program provides NYSC members with loans they can use to further establish their businesses, and it seems like a nice program. Nigeria requires…
Author Calls For African Entrepreneurs to Talk About Failure Idril Abshir penned this interesting piece arguing that African entrepreneurs should talk about failure more, indicating that they will find resilience in discussing failure. She cites the culture among Western entrepreneurs of acknowledging failure. While the stories in the piece were compelling, I don’t know that…
Black Market Naira Trading Cheaper Than Official Naira Nigeria’s currency situation has been a mess of late, and I’m blaming it on Billions (read my thoughts in Issue No. 24). Sure enough, hedge funds are sniffing around for a deal. This week has felt like something of a perfect storm for Nigeria with telecoms having…
MTN Signs Non-Binding Agreement to Invest in Iranian Net South Africa-based MTN Group continues to set its sights on participating in Iran’s fast growing telecoms industry, with this preliminary move to place nearl $40M in Iranian Net for a 49.5% stake in the company. MTN has growing stakes in Iran, with its minority ownership of…
The Case for Private Equity to Play a Bigger Role in Supporting Africa’s Entrepreneurs Yemi Laludi, TPG Growth Africa’s Managing Director argues that private equity can tailor its approach to various markets in Africa in efforts to fill the financing vacuum that has stymied Africa’s entrepreneurs in their efforts to take their ideas to the…
Short and sweet this morning! Africa’s Women Innovators Honored at World Economic Forum These 6 are just a sample of the millions out there. Also, shout out to Cherae Robinson for winning 20,000 CHF at the World Tourism Forum for what she’s building at Tastemakers Africa. 2U Acquires South Africa’s GetSmarter for $103M Maryland-based 2U…
Report Touts Investment Opportunity for Private Education Across Africa DC-based Caerus Capital put together a report on the investment opportunity in private education across Africa. The authors project that 25% of school age children – 66 million children – across Africa will be in private education by 2021, up from the 21% who are currently…
Kwame Som-Pimpong 