
Kenya’s Central Bank announced a consultancy to review the Central Bank Act and the Banking Act. The overhaul targets ambiguous provisions affecting digital banking, fintech regulation, consumer protection and cybersecurity. The current legal grey zone has delayed operating licences for fintechs such as Chipper Cash, allowing banks and telcos to dominate. Aligning the laws with international best practices could unlock growth for Kenya’s vibrant fintech ecosystem.

Quidax, Nigeria’s newly licensed crypto exchange, has teamed up with Swiss blockchain platform Lisk to deliver regulated stablecoin and ether trading on Lisk’s layer‑2 network. The partnership arrives just weeks after Quidax halted its peer‑to‑peer service, signaling a shift from...

African electric‑mobility firm Spiro announced it has secured $50 million in debt financing from Afreximbank, Nithio and Africa Go Green Fund to scale its battery‑swapping stations across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Benin and Togo. The funding will support the rollout...

In January, African investors and executives launched the Africa Tech 50 Index (AT50) at the London Stock Exchange to benchmark how prepared African startups are for public listings. The index uses a six‑pillar framework covering valuation momentum, revenue strength, liquidity,...

Kenyan electric‑bus startup BasiGo is piloting a scheduled, fixed‑route commuter service in Nairobi, integrating electric mid‑size buses with existing matatu cooperatives. The three‑bus trial offers nonstop links between estates and business hubs at KES 150‑200 per seat, with 80% of...

Yoco’s international expansion chief Marcello Schermer says African fintechs must evolve from passive transaction recorders to proactive financial partners. After a decade of digitising payments, the continent now hosts over 5,000 startups and attracted $1.37 billion in 2024, with fintech capturing...

Uke Enun founded GoNomads to solve African firms' cross‑border trade hurdles after a failed e‑commerce experiment. The B2B consultancy launched in 2021, iterating its MVP and securing a Payoneer partnership that gave clients multi‑currency accounts and a Mastercard. Early revenue...

Nigeria’s 2025 Tax Act replaces the standalone Capital Gains Tax regime with a unified system, raising the corporate CGT rate from a flat 10% to as high as 30% and introducing an economic‑nexus rule that taxes offshore share sales tied...

Adaptive Atelier, founded by Toyosi Badejo-Okusanya in 2023, is building an accessibility infrastructure for Africa’s 35 million disabled citizens. The startup offers two core products: AdaptiveWiz, an API that lets users personalize website experiences in real time, and AdaptiveTest, a diagnostic...

Cross‑border payments in Africa now settle in seconds, but verifying the counterpart business can take weeks. The delay stems from fragmented, offline national registries and a lack of cross‑border data harmonisation, creating a “registry gap” that hampers the African Continental...

Feranmi Ajetomobi has spent a decade driving growth across Nigerian fintech, consumer goods, and web3 ventures, from Cowrywise’s savings habits to Flutterwave’s rapid scaling. He leverages behavioral psychology, community‑led tactics, and data‑driven nudges to turn dormant users into active transactors....

African loyalty programmes are fragmented, with points locked to individual brands such as telecoms or supermarkets. Ghana‑based fintech Points Africa is building Sub‑Saharan Africa’s first shared loyalty network that lets merchants issue and redeem a single reward currency. The startup...
Kenyan e‑mobility startup Arc Ride has secured a $5 million equity commitment from the International Finance Corporation to fuel its Series A round and regional rollout. The funding will accelerate the deployment of battery‑swapping stations across East Africa, complementing earlier debt deals...

Chams Holding Company Plc announced the formation of a new subsidiary, ChamsCorp Plc, to focus on AI infrastructure, data‑centre design, and digital device manufacturing. The move marks a strategic pivot from its legacy payments and identity services toward the foundational...

Ghana‑based fintech Points Africa announced a $2 million seed round led by early‑stage VC firm VestedWorld. The funding will support rollout of its shared loyalty platform across Ghana and expansion into other African markets.

Talksign, a Nigeria‑UK AI startup, unveiled Talksign-1, a foundation model that converts American Sign Language (ASL) into speech and text in under 100 milliseconds and vice‑versa. The system recognises 250 ASL signs via a standard webcam, achieving 84.7% accuracy on...

Selar, the African creator‑commerce platform founded in 2016, paid out over ₦18 billion ($12.8 million) to users in 2025, nearly double its 2024 payouts. The growth stemmed from relentless product iteration, a shift toward disciplined distribution, and a strategic pivot after the...

Eden Life, the Lagos‑based home services startup, has temporarily halted its consumer‑facing food, cleaning and laundry subscriptions to concentrate on higher‑margin corporate catering and industrial food contracts. The strategic reset follows an internal audit that flagged weak unit economics amid...

African tech startups repeatedly waste capital because founders lack reliable market data, leading to costly pivots and failures. The continent’s ecosystem raised $4.1 billion in 2025, yet 54% of startups still collapse, reflecting a multi‑billion‑dollar information gap. Prediction markets—already familiar through...

WapiPay, a Kenyan fintech founded in 2019, has introduced a Remittance Credit Scorecard (RCS) that lets banks and SACCOs incorporate diaspora money‑transfer data into loan underwriting. The AI‑driven tool analyzes payment frequency, size and stability, converting these patterns into a...

TerraGO, a Kenyan startup, has launched an NFC‑based platform that records school transport handovers through wristbands or bag tags and readers at buses and gates. The system creates time‑stamped, location‑specific logs of boarding, arrival and pickup events, providing parents and...

AI venture capital in the Middle East and North Africa surged to $858 million in 2025, representing 22% of total regional VC and 29% of all deals. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia dominated funding, absorbing 87% of AI capital,...

Access Bank's planned acquisition of South Africa's Bidvest Bank has collapsed after the Nigerian lender failed to satisfy regulatory conditions by the Jan 26, 2026 deadline. The deal, announced in Dec 2024, would have given Access 100 % ownership of Bidvest Bank, expanding its...

Safaricom launched Ziidi Trader, integrating NSE share trading into the M‑PESA app for its 37 million users. The service eliminates the need for separate CDS accounts and brokerage paperwork, using a pooled account managed by licensed brokers while settlements occur instantly...

Talk360, the African‑focused international calling app, closed a $1.4 million secondary investment led by its lead backer HAVAÍC. The funding arrives as the company announced profitability and $12 million in annual revenue from over six million users. It will be used to...

Nedbank Group, South Africa’s fourth‑largest bank, announced it will retain all 3,712 NCBA employees after completing its proposed acquisition of a 66% stake in the Kenyan lender. The pledge, detailed in NCBA’s additional information filing, aims to ease typical post‑deal...

Talk360, the African‑focused international calling app, announced a $1.4 million secondary investment led by its lead investor HAVAÍC, with support from Universum Wealth. The capital will fund product development, including the launch of Shop360, a feature for sending airtime and data...

African startups raised just $174 million in January 2026, $102 million less than the same month last year and far below the 12‑month average of $263 million. Only 26 companies secured more than $100,000, the lowest January count since 2020. Two deals –...