We Tested M-PESA’s Latest Feature Shiriki Pay. Here’s How It Works.
Safaricom is piloting Shiriki Pay, a mini‑app inside the M‑PESA super app that lets a sponsor delegate up to two beneficiaries a monthly spending allowance drawn directly from the sponsor’s wallet. The feature caps usage, supports Buy Goods, Paybill, Pochi la Biashara and peer‑to‑peer transfers, and does not create a separate sub‑wallet. By keeping funds centralized, the sponsor retains risk while granting controlled spending power. The test aims to replace traditional cash transfers with real‑time, permission‑based payments for household budgeting.
Spiro Raises $50 Million to Scale Battery Swapping Network
Spiro, an African electric‑motorcycle operator, raised $50 million in debt financing from Afreximbank, Nithio and the Africa Go Green Fund to accelerate its battery‑swapping network across six countries. The deal follows a $100 million equity raise in October 2025, underscoring the capital‑intensive nature of...
Fintechs May Finally Get Regulatory Clarity as Kenya’s Central Bank Reviews Laws
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...
After P2P Pause, Nigeria’s Quidax Turns to Lisk for Regulated Stablecoin Rails
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...
A New Index Wants to Prepare African Startups for London IPOs
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,...
Kenya’s BasiGo Enters Fixed-Route Commuting Once Targeted by Swvl
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 Marcello Schermer Says the Next Test for African Fintech Is Smarter Tools
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...
‘We Had to Learn to Be Global From Day One’: Day 1-1000 of GoNomads
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...
Foreign VCs Warn Nigeria’s New Capital Gains Tax Could Slow Investment
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...
35 Million Nigerians Live with Disabilities. This Startup Is Building the Web for Them.
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...
Why Verifying a Business in Africa Is Harder than Moving Money
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...
Quick Fire 🔥 with Feranmi Ajetomobi
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....
Africa’s Loyalty Programmes Are Siloed. This Ghana-Based Startup Wants to Unify Them
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...
Kenya’s Arc Ride Secures $5 Million IFC Commitment for Regional Expansion
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...
With New Subsidiary, Chams Joins Nigeria’s Growing AI Infrastructure Race
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...
Nigerian-UK Startup Launches AI Tool Translating Sign Language to Speech and Text
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...
“I Had No Assumptions. I Was Just Building:” Day 1-1000 of Selar
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 Pauses Consumer Business to Refocus on Corporate Clients
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...
Can Prediction Markets Fix a Multi-Billion-Dollar Information Gap for African Startups?
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...
Kenya’s WapiPay Targets Billions in Diaspora Cash to Unlock Credit for Households
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...
This Kenyan Startup Promises School Pickups Digital Paper Trail
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...
North Africa Rises on Deals as MENA AI Funding Hits $858 Million
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,...
Regulatory Conditions Block Access Bank’s Bidvest Bank Acquisition
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...
What You Need to Know About M-PESA’s Ziidi Trader
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...
Calling App Talk360 Secures $1.4M Secondary Investment as It Reaches Profitability
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...
South Africa’s Nedbank Promises to Retain NCBA Staff in Kenyan Takeover
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...
Only 26 African Startups Raised $174 Million in January. Here’s What It Signals
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 –...
