African Second-hand Economy: The Billion-dollar Industry
Walk through any major African city, and you’ll notice something that looks chaotic at first but runs like a hidden machine. Piles of shirts folded on tarpaulins. Stalls stacked with laptops, car parts, and baby strollers. People bargaining, fixing, reselling. It’s noisy, messy, alive. This is the second-hand economy, a
Fintech 3.0 in Africa: What Comes After Payments?
It started with payments. Mobile money, digital wallets, and remittance apps changed how Africans moved money fast, cheap, and across borders. For nearly a decade, that was the heart of Fintech in Africa. Startups like M-Pesa, Flutterwave, and Chipper Cash built the rails that connected millions of people to the
State of Artificial Intelligence in Africa: Opportunities & Challenges
Not long ago, artificial intelligence felt like something far away from Africa, a high-tech idea from Silicon Valley that didn’t really touch everyday life here. But that’s changing fast. Today, AI is quietly becoming part of how Africans live and work. It helps banks make quicker decisions, doctors spot illnesses
Inside Twiga Foods’ Journey: From Rural Farms to Cities
What immediately stands out about Twiga Foods is helping smallholder farmers reach city markets while allowing urban vendors to avoid inflated costs driven by middlemen. Now imagine cutting out many of those intermediaries, using technology to fix the logistics, and connecting farmers directly to vendors. The potential is huge. So,
How Currency Volatility Impacts African Startup Valuations
When the Nigerian naira lost nearly half its value in a single year, many startups didn’t feel it all at once. It crept in slowly. First, infrastructure bills doubled. Then investor reports, once proudly showing $1 million in annual revenue, now displayed $600,000 for the same naira figure. The story
How Local Investors are Transforming African Venture Capital
At a co-working hub in Lagos, a Nigerian investment executive leans back and observes the room. “We’re not just receiving the leftovers from global funds now,” she says. “We’re writing our own tickets.” In much the same way, across other African cities, there is a subtle but growing shift. Local
Inside the Rise of Convertible Notes and SAFEs in African Venture Deals
On a hot Wednesday afternoon in Lagos, a young founder sits across from a potential investor at a café in Lekki. Between the hum of air conditioning and the clatter of coffee cups, they’re arguing, quietly but firmly, over a single clause in a document. “It’s just a simple agreement
How African Startups are Growing Without Burning Out
It’s 8 a.m. in Lagos. A small fintech team fires up their Slack channel, synchronises headsets, and begins their sprint. Yet the tone is calm. No all-nighters. No frenzied pivoting. They’re growing, but at a speed that doesn’t feel reckless. It’s a small scene, but it hints at a bigger
How to Turn Your Simple Idea into a Business in Africa
Every big company in Africa began the same way, with someone, somewhere, noticing a small problem and thinking, maybe there’s a better way to do this. That’s how it usually starts. A spark. A frustration that won’t leave you alone. Maybe it’s a local farmer who can’t sell her produce
Why African Startups Struggle with Scaling and How to Fix It
Somewhere between a founder’s first seed cheque and their big dream of expansion, something tends to break. It’s rarely a single thing. Sometimes it’s cash flow. Sometimes it’s regulatory quicksand. And sometimes it’s simply that what worked well in Lagos makes no sense in Nairobi. The result is a familiar
