African Tech Roundup Podcast

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Cellulant's Ken Njoroge & Velocity Capital's Allard Luchsinger on 2018's biggest fintech deal so far Jun 28, 2018

Show notes

A couple of hours before the recent #VillageDiariesAmsterdam event went down, Andile Masuku managed to land a sit-down with Cellulant Founder and CEO, Ken Njoroge, and Director of Private Equity at Velocity Capital, Allard Luchsinger, in order to glean insider perspectives on what went into closing Cellulant's historic round of funding. A few weeks ago, digital payments firm, Cellulant, announced the close of a $47.5 million investment round led by TPG Growth— a deal which included Endeavour Catalyst, Satya Capital as well as Velocity Capital. Listen in to hear Ken explain why landing investment is a demanding full-time job, shed light on the toll fundraising has taken on him and his team, and most importantly, how Cellulant plans to deploy the fresh funds they've reeled in.

#VillageDiariesAmsterdam Pt 1 - A fireside chat with HYBR Founder & CEO Charles Ojei Jun 22, 2018

Show notes

On Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 the international African Tech Roundup LIVE Tour launched with a live event in The Netherlands dubbed #VillageDiariesAmsterdam. For the first part of the evening's programme, hosts Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga were joined by headline guest, Nigerian Partner and CEO of HYBR, Charles Ojei. Prior to founding HYBR, Charles was Director of Enterprise Business at Samsung Electronics West Africa and earned nearly two decades of sales, business development, strategy and technology professional experience while embedded at Procter & Gamble, General Electric, Samsung, and DuPont. He implemented projects in Africa, Americas, Asia and Europe across multiple industries such as retail, healthcare, food, agriculture, technology, education, hospitality and financial services. Charles has completed the Executive Leadership Program at THNK School of Creative Leadership in Amsterdam and holds a B.Sc in Industrial Relations & Personnel Management from the University of Lagos, as well as a Masters in Social Entrepreneurship (with Distinction) from Hult International Business School in San Francisco and Boston. He currently serves as a faculty member at the Enterprise Development Centre at the Pan-African University in Lagos, Nigeria. In this candid chat with Andile, Musa and the #VillageDiariesAmsterdam live audience (which has been edited for listenability), Charles shares practical insights into the necessary mindset and relevant approaches required to do business in Africa.

HEADS UP: Andile and Musa are going to Amsterdam and Paris Jun 01, 2018

Show notes

Look out, Amsterdam! We're coming!

Joel Macharia of Abacus on creating access to African financial markets via micro investments May 28, 2018

Show notes

Joel Macharia is the Founder and CEO of Abacus (https://abacus.co.ke), a Kenyan fintech firm that builds web and mobile software designed to help people anywhere in the world gain access to African financial markets. Joel previously founded and headed up the consumer financial news publication, PesaTalk.com, and prior to that, he served as the Africa Head of Product Development for the Mobile Money team at the Kenyan mobile commerce and payment technology provider, Cellulant. In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Joel provides insights into Kenya's dicey financial services regulatory environment and explains how Abacus is doubling down on providing safe, affordable micro investment options both for Kenyan citizens who might otherwise have been excluded from participating in securities markets, as well as more affluent Kenyan investors based abroad.

Edmund Olotu of TechAdvance on building out digital payments infrastructure in Nigeria May 21, 2018

Show notes

In this conversation with Andile Masuku, TechAdvance CEO, Edmund Olotu, sketches Nigeria's digital payments infrastructure landscape and explains why he feels the time is right for his company to participate more actively in the discourses around the next wave of data analytics-driven tech in Nigeria. Listen in to hear Edmund unpack TechAdvance's ambitions to take the game to competitors like Interswitch and position to be the platform partner of choice for big corporate and government-owned enterprises looking to reduce payments friction, as well as newer fintech startups looking to deliver digitized financial services to the masses.

Interoperability, Data Ownership & Steward Ownership feat. Oliver Sauter of WorldBrain May 13, 2018

Show notes

In this episode of the African Tech Roundup podcast, Oliver Sauter— Co-founder and Head of Strategy, Product & Operations at https://WorldBrain.io, joins Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga for a meandering conversation that explores the link between the trend towards interoperability and idealised notions of individual data ownership. As Africa grapples with the reality of large swathes of its population being either digitally "invisible" or completely oblivious to the commercial value of the personal data they are palming off so freely, Oliver, Musa and Andile discuss how interoperability might contribute towards private citizens wielding control and commercial agency over their personal data. Also, listen in to hear why Oliver and the rest of the team at WorldBrain have chosen to embrace the non-mainstream "stewardship-ownership" model of corporate guardianship - as unpacked in Armin Steuernagel's recent TEDxZurich talk(http://bit.ly/stewardownership) - as they attempt to solve the global fake news problem. And heads up— look out for an unexpected conversation rabbit hole regarding "genetically modified organics".

Boomplay Music's Chinasa Udeala on delivering Africa-relevant music streaming services May 10, 2018

Show notes

Chinasa Udeala is Regional Director for East Africa at Boomplay Music. The music streaming platform is a subsidiary of the Chinese firm Transsnet Ltd which also owns TECNO Mobile. In this quick chat with Andile Masuku, Chinasa explains how Boomplay is attempting to outsmart the likes of Spotify and Apple Music to deliver localised digital downloads and streaming service offerings that are relevant to key consumer markets on the continent. Listen in to hear Chinasa unpack Boomplay’s revenue streams and speak to some of the challenges they have to overcome in terms of building a solid catalogue of local music and delivering on differentiated curation.

Helen Anatogu of Nigeria's iDEA incubator on how African founders should position to land funding May 02, 2018

Show notes

Helen Anatogu is the Chief Executive and Programme Director of the Information Technology Developer Entrepreneurship Accelerator (IDEA) in Nigeria. In this throwback conversation with Andile Masuku – taped at the African Angel Investor Summit 2017 - Helen shares her thoughts on the startup investment landscape and factors in on how African founders ought to position themselves to land much-needed funding.

YegoMoto's Karanvir Singh on surfing the mobility wave to launch an ambitious platform play Apr 24, 2018

Show notes

Kigali-based Singaporean, Karanvir Singh, is the CEO and MD of Yego Innovision Ltd— a company which has launched a cashless transport service called YegoMoto in Rwanda, which is essentially an 'Uber for motorcycle taxis' or "motos" as they are commonly called. In this conversation with Andile Masuku – taped at the Africa Tech Summit Kigali 2018 (www.africatechsummit.com/kigali/) – Karanvir fields questions about surfing the global mobility wave to launch an ambitious platform play with the potential to become a ubiquitous part of Rwandan civic life— a prospect that has some people worried about issues like data privacy, given YegoMoto's pretty cosy relationship with the Rwandan government.

Facebook's Breach of Trust + Blockchain Straight Talk feat. Marvin Coleby of Raise Impact Apr 12, 2018

Show notes

It's fair to say that Facebook is the elephant in pretty much every room at the moment. In this month's instalment of the African Tech Roundup podcast, Marvin Coleby joins Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga to factor in on some of the biggest tech and innovation headlines that have trended over the last month or so— not least, Facebook's diabolical data privacy gaffes. Marvin is a venture lawyer who hails from The Bahamas and his startup, Raise Impact (http://raiseimpact.io/), is harnessing blockchain technology to build a tokenized impact exchange to democratise private investments made in companies based in emerging markets. Listen in as Andile, Musa and Marvin wade through some of the more promising Africa-relevant blockchain and crypto developments happening around the world and grapple with the potentially problematic concept of “impact investment” concept. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Image Credit: Thought Catalog

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