Inside Wave’s Journey: Francophone Africa’s First Unicorn
StoryLab
28 min read
42

Inside Wave’s Journey: Francophone Africa’s First Unicorn

October 28, 2025
0

Wave Mobile Money (known as Wave) has rapidly rewritten the rules of mobile payments in West Africa. Launched in Senegal by Americans Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk, Wave set out to fix what they saw as a broken system, mobile money run by telecom monopolies charging high fees for cumbersome

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Inside Sendy’s Journey: The Startup that Tried to Rewrite African Logistics
StoryLab
26 min read
64

Inside Sendy’s Journey: The Startup that Tried to Rewrite African Logistics

October 21, 2025
0

In the early 2010s Nairobi’s roads were familiar terrain for Meshack Alloys. At just 13 he was coding, once teaching himself at Laser Hill Academy, and later at the University of Nairobi’s College of Architecture and Engineering. His first startup, Merlloyds Technologies, came in 2008; followed by MTL Systems in

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Inside PiggyVest’s Journey: How an Idea Changed How Nigerians Save
StoryLab
23 min read
83

Inside PiggyVest’s Journey: How an Idea Changed How Nigerians Save

October 16, 2025
0

There was a time when saving money in Nigeria felt like a test of willpower, or worse, a gamble. Banks weren’t exactly built for young people trying to set aside a few thousand naira at a time. Hidden fees, clunky systems, and a general sense of mistrust made it easier

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Inside Flutterwave’s Journey: From Bright Idea to an African Unicorn
StoryLab
27 min read
97

Inside Flutterwave’s Journey: From Bright Idea to an African Unicorn

October 7, 2025
0

In 2016, a small group of Nigerian technologists and entrepreneurs set out to solve what felt like an invisible but deeply frustrating problem – “African businesses could not move money easily”. Not within the continent, not across it, and certainly not beyond it. For a continent with talent and trade

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Inside M-KOPA’s Journey: Unlocking Energy and Financial Access in Africa
StoryLab
21 min read
153

Inside M-KOPA’s Journey: Unlocking Energy and Financial Access in Africa

September 30, 2025
0

Across Africa, millions of households remain excluded from both reliable energy access and formal financial systems. This double exclusion has historically limited productivity, slowed educational progress, and perpetuated cycles of poverty. In response, a new generation of enterprises has emerged to bridge these gaps by leveraging technology, mobile money, and

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Inside LifeBank’s Journey: Building the “Amazon for Blood” in Africa
StoryLab
19 min read
156

Inside LifeBank’s Journey: Building the “Amazon for Blood” in Africa

September 23, 2025
0

The LifeBank story is not merely about a startup; it is about the power of one entrepreneur’s vision to reshape healthcare access across Africa. Giwa-Tubosun, inspired by her personal encounters with maternal health challenges, built LifeBank as both a business and a mission. Today, the company stands as one of

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Inside Zipline’s Journey: Redefining Medical Drone Delivery Across Africa
StoryLab
23 min read
198

Inside Zipline’s Journey: Redefining Medical Drone Delivery Across Africa

September 16, 2025
0

In less than a decade, Zipline has transformed from a Silicon Valley robotics pivot into the world’s leading drone logistics company, reshaping how essential goods are delivered in some of the hardest-to-reach communities. What began as an experimental effort in Rwanda in 2016 has since evolved into a multinational logistics

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Inside Andela’s Journey: How Six People Rewrote Africa’s Tech Future
StoryLab
24 min read
216

Inside Andela’s Journey: How Six People Rewrote Africa’s Tech Future

September 10, 2025
0

Andela has gone from a bold experiment in Lagos to one of Africa’s most recognized technology companies, reshaping the way the world perceives African talent. What began in 2014 as a fellowship program to train and place software developers quickly grew into a global talent marketplace connecting skilled engineers from

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Inside Chipper Cash’s Journey: Redefining Cross-Border Payments in Africa
StoryLab
17 min read
250

Inside Chipper Cash’s Journey: Redefining Cross-Border Payments in Africa

September 2, 2025
0

Chipper Cash has grown from a bold idea sketched by two African students in the U.S. into one of the continent’s most influential fintech startups, redefining how millions send and receive money across borders. It emerged at a time when African consumers and businesses faced fragmented, expensive, and unreliable payment

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Inside Paystack’s Journey: From Lagos Startup to a $200M Stripe Acquisition
StoryLab
20 min read
273

Inside Paystack’s Journey: From Lagos Startup to a $200M Stripe Acquisition

August 26, 2025
2

Paystack has evolved from a scrappy Lagos startup to one of the most influential fintech companies in Africa, redefining how businesses accept and process payments across the continent. It emerged at a time when Nigerian merchants faced broken digital infrastructure: payment integrations were slow, expensive, and riddled with failure. By

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