Banking

Across the world, digital banks or neo banks as they are fondly called are giving traditional banks a run for their money. These banks provide similar banking services like their traditional counterparts but with more flair and swag. The ease of opening accounts with these neobanks and speed of transactions also make them more appealing than their old neighbours. 

While Nigerians are spoilt for choice on the different neobanks to choose from, Egyptians now have something onebank to cheer about. 

Onebank: Yesterday, Misr Digital Innovation (MDI), a subsidiary of banking giant Banque Misr, received preliminary approval from the CBE to launch Egypt’s first digital bank, stylised Onebank. The bank will launch later this year—Q4 2024—after completing the second phase of its licensing. 

Egypt’s journey to having its first neobank started last year when the country’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) released a regulatory framework for establishing digital banks in the country. The rules look eerily similar to the guardrails for traditional banks, including anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules

Onebank was Egypt’s first company to submit an official application for the licenses. Per local media, its parent company Banque Misr has nursed the ambition of launching a digital bank since 2021 before banking regulations were in place. 

Onebank, but not for long: As Onebank inches close to getting its full approval, several banks and financial institutions—National Bank of Egypt, Emirates NBD, Orascom Financial Holding (OFH), Ostoul Securities Brokerage—across the country have signified interest in launching their own digital banks. 

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Telecoms

If you’re an MTN user in Nigeria and you’ve found yourself without any network over the past couple of weeks, you may be one of the 8.6 million phone lines the telecoms disconnected over the past quarter. 

The news: In its first quarter financial report, the telecoms reports that it disconnected 8.6 million phone lines which were unlinked to the country’s identification system, the National Identity Number or NIN for short. 

The barred lines belonged to users who either never linked their NIN or had more than five lines linked to an unverified NIN.

Nigeria wants to put a face to every number: Since 2020, the Nigerian government has been pushing citizens to link their phone lines to their NINs. The Nigerian government says linking NIN to SIM cards will help it fight fraud, track kidnapping which has been on the rise since 2020, and allocate resources better. 

While a two-week timeline was given for the exercise in December 2020, the government has been forced to postpone the deadline over 10 times as its citizens struggled to meet up with the short timeframe and poor planning. Since the exercise began, at least 40 million SIM cards—out of the country’s 225 million active SIMs—have been barred at various times. 

In January 2023, the communications watchdog, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) ordered all telecoms in the country to bar all unlinked SIM cards or face withdrawals of their licences. 

Even the telecoms are losing out: Following the disconnection of 8.6 million of its subscribers, MTN Nigeria noted a decline in its overall user base across voice, data, and financial technology services. The telecom giant experienced a net decrease of 2 million subscribers in Q1 2024. Its active data subscribers also saw a marginal decline of around 78,000. This suggests some users who were disconnected were previously active subscribers.

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Startups

Startups that offer agricultural and logistics solutions across the continent have almost everything stacked against them. These startups often struggle with finding the right product fit for the market, and then fight tooth and nail against over regulations of those products by the government. As a result, many of those startups wither away. Worsening macroeconomic conditions and a dried-up funding environment make matters more complicated.

In the last 3 years, at least 10 Kenya-based startups have shut down. Last year Twiga, a platform that connects Kenyan farmers to food vendors, had its fair share of troubles, reneging on a cloud bill, and conducting multiple rounds of layoffs.

Kenyan startup, iProcure is the latest ailing agritech startup. 

The news: The startup, backed by Safaricom’s Spark Fund, is now under administration after failing to settle undisclosed debts. KPMG advisory arm has appointed Makenzi Muthusi to turn the fortunes of the company around.

Side bar: A startup enters an administration when it’s facing serious financial difficulties and can’t pay its debts.

iProcure set up shop in 2013 to help distributors of agricultural inputs like fertilisers source products from manufacturers. The startup which raised $17.2 million from investors to expand and develop its technology stack will now be run and managed by Muthusi. 

Muthusi, will take charge of the company’s offices, assets, operations and manage all the claims from other undisclosed creditors. If revival efforts by KPMG prove unsuccessful, liquidation will be considered as a last resort to ensure creditors are compensated.

Internet

African internet users can breathe a sigh of relief as repairs progress on subsea cables. 

Following major fibre cuts in mid-March 2024 that disrupted internet connectivity, three out of four affected cables have been successfully restored.

What’s the update? The South Atlantic 3 (SAT-3) cable that stretches across the South Atlantic Ocean, linking Portugal and Spain with South Africa was reported to have been repaired in early April. 

The Africa Coast to Europe(ACE) cable repair was finished on the 17th of April. The ACE cable runs along Africa’s west coast and allows more than 450 million people to connect to the internet. This includes people in coastal and landlocked countries like Mali and Niger. 

Repairs on the two breaks on the West Africa Cable System (WACS) linking South Africa with the United Kingdom along the west coast of Africa were also completed on the 30th of April. The MainOne cable, which runs from Portugal down to South Africa and provides internet access to various West African countries, is left to be repaired; repairs are expected to be completed in the second week of May. The company had earlier said, in March, that it may take about five weeks before it could be fully restored. 

How were they repaired: Two ships namely Orange Marine’s Léon Thévenin and Global Marine’s CS Sovereign were called into action to repair the underwater cables. Léon Thévenin headed for the SAT-3 cable location while CS Sovereign was assigned to fixing breaks in three separate cables: ACE, MainOne, and WACS.

The cause of the cable cut: The cause of the damage to the cables isn’t confirmed yet. MainOne, who investigated the fault, believes an external incident caused a cut in their undersea cable. 

It ruled out human interference because the cable is far from land and very deep underwater. MainOne’s current theory is that some kind of movement on the ocean floor, possibly an earthquake, caused the damage. The company plans to gather more information when they finish the cable for repairs.

The not-so-bright picture: African internet users faced significant disruption due to the undersea cables. MTN Group, the continent’s leading telecom provider, experienced service connection issues affecting customers in South Africa, Ghana, and Nigeria.

Also, banks in Nigeria like Sterling Bank reported breaks in network connections leading to disruption in services. In South Africa, Vodacom’s data network suffered a two-hour outage, leaving many users disconnected. Additionally, Microsoft’s locally hosted cloud services were taken down, potentially affecting businesses that rely on them.

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TC Insights

This week, Kubik, an Ethiopian sustainable tech startup, raised $5.2 million in seed funding. Investors in the funding round include African Renaissance Partners, Endgame Capital, and King Philanthropies. (Apr 30)

Here are the other deals for the week:

• Renda, a Nigerian logistics startup raised $1.9 million in pre-seed funding. The funding round was led by Ingressive Capital, with participation from Techstars Toronto, Founders Factory Africa, Magic Fund, Golden Palm Investments, Reflect Ventures, SeedFi and Vastly Valuable Ventures. (May 2)
• Nigerian on-demand food delivery startup Chowdeck secured $2.5 million in seed funding. The funding round included investment from YCombinator, Goodwater Capital, FounderX Ventures, Hoaq Fund, Levare Ventures, True Culture Funds and Haleakala Ventures. Simon Borrero and Juan Pablo Ortega (co-founders of Rappi ), Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi (co-founders of Paystack), Sudeep Ramani (Sportybet), Ayo Arikawe (Thrive Agric) and Karthik Ramakrishnan (Amazon) also participated as angels. (Apr 30)
• Kenyan agri-tech startup Farm to Feed, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Renew Capital. (Apr 30)

Before you go, our State Of Tech In Africa Report for Q1 2024 is out. Click this link to download it.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more funding announcements. You can also visit DealFlow, our real-time funding tracker.

GITEX Africa returns a second time on May 29–31, 2024, to Marrakech, Morocco, discussing ways to accelerate the continent’s digital health revolution. GITEX is the continent’s largest all-inclusive tech event renowned for uniting the brightest minds in the technology industry. 

Grab your tickets here.

Crypto Tracker

Source:

Coin Name	Current Value	Day	Month
Bitcoin	$59,683	+ 3.93%	– 10.11%
Ether	$3,003	+ 2.75%	– 9.41%
Ethena	$0.80	+ 2.42%	– 3.97%
Solana	$140.23	+ 7.16%	– 25.60%

* Data as of 05:50 AM WAT, May 3, 2024.

Events

• The second edition of TechCabal’sMoonshot Conference is set for October 9–11, 2024, at the Eko Convention Centre, Lagos, Nigeria. Moonshot will assemble Africa’s biggest thinkers, players and problem solvers on a global launchpad for change. If you want to join the stakeholders in Africa’s tech ecosystem for three days of insightful conversations, then get an early-bird ticket at 20% off. 
• Attention all music lovers! On Saturday, May 11, 2024, Zikoko wants you outside for a day of link-ups, games, drinks and live performances at Muri Okunola Park, Lagos. Strings Attached is an opportunity for friends to reconnect, lovers to bond and individuals to make friends and build community. To get a free ticket, download the Onebank by Sterling App and sign up using ZIKOKO as the referral code. You’ll get your ticket in your email once tickets are available. Click here to get the app.

Here’s what you should be looking at

• Wave is Africa’s only startup on Y-Combinator’s list of top earners
• The Economist unveils The World Ahead 2024 with a spotlight on West Africa
• Canal+ stake in MultiChoice climbs to 42.5%
• South Africa greenlights R4.9-billion of independent solar power

Written by: Faith Omoniyi, Stephen Agwaibor & Towobola Bamgbose

Edited by: Timi Odueso

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