News (1494)
A Graduate of financial management from Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech, he also conducted research in information and technology at Ryerson University in Canada. In 2012, he joined Avito.ma as Finance and Administration Manager. Following the merger between Bikhir and Avito in 2014, he held key positions in the startup, in finance as well as Product and Business Development Manager. In 2016, he was appointed Director of Operations and Strategy, and a year later, he became the new CEO of Avito.ma.
Now at the head of the company, Zakaria Ghassouli wants to make it the leading platform for classified ads in Morocco. In October 2020, Avito.ma was acquired by Malaysian Frontier Digital Ventures after 6 years under the control of Norwegian Adevinta. The new parent company made a group shot, spending A$56 million (more than $40 million), to acquire Avito.ma, Tunisian classifieds site Tayara.tn, and Colombian real estate portal Fincaraiz.com.
"It allows us to continue to execute our strategy and to pursue the mission we have set ourselves. We want to assist Moroccans in the search for the best opportunities at every stage of their lives," said Zakaria Ghassouli. True to his development ambitions, he announced last March 6, a new offer targeting VSEs and SMEs. Called avitoboutiques.com, the new service aims to facilitate the transition of companies to the digital space and expose their brands to millions of potential customers. The decision to launch a digital store platform was driven by a sharp increase in the number of stores created on the Avito.ma platform by 2022. In addition to this, avitoboutiques.com will provide data analytics to help business owners make better decisions to improve the customer experience.
Avito.ma claims more than 6 million unique visitors and more than 28 million visits per month. Already present in the automotive, real estate, and IT/multimedia sectors, the new avitoboutiques.com platform will allow the startup to reach other sectors.
"As the first marketplace in Morocco, we have decided to help professionals in their transition to the digital by offering them the opportunity to reach more than 8.4 million potential contacts per month," said Zakaria Ghassouli.
Aïsha Moyouzame
Almost seven years after launching, the online payment company has entered a fourth African market. Its ambition remains to make digital payments accessible to a larger number of people.
Paydunya, the Senegal-based online payment start-up, has recently started operations in Togo.
Already present in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Benin, and Burkina Faso, Paydunya is coming to Togo with the ambition to “make digital payments accessible, regardless of the payment method used, regardless of the area and region, and regardless of the sector of activity, whether public or private.”
The payment aggregator maintains that it wants to provide "real added value" with secure solutions for receiving and making payments via mobile money (T-money, Flooz) and bank cards.
“We want to facilitate access to digital payments to all businesses regardless of their size or sector of activity and thus participate and contribute to the vast financial inclusion project in Togo,” Aziz Yérima, CEO of PayDunya told We are Tech. “Our launch in Togo is a response to the needs of our customers," intended to "provide them with accessible payment solutions,” he added.
A growing fintech ecosystem
In Togo, Paydunya joins a growing fintech ecosystem that has welcomed in recent years, young "promising" startups such as CinetPay, Semoa, and Gozem, the super App specialized in e-transport and e-logistics.
Paydunya, which reached 65,000 transactions per day in 2021, intends to take advantage of this Togolese environment that fosters digitalization and financial inclusion. Data from the BCEAO shows that over 72% of the Togolese population holds at least one account in a financial institution or a mobile money account.
Given the greater use of Mobile Money in Togo, since it was adopted in 2016, more Fintechs have been eyeing Togo. Wave, a mobile money solution - which Paydunya integrates into its range of solutions - is among them; it revealed plans to come to Lomé. Due to its competitive fee structure, the U.S. unicorn, whose operational base is in Dakar, will surely shake the Togolese mobile money transfer ecosystem (which is presently shared between Moov and Togocel), and aggregators like Paydunya could gain the most from this digitalization-driven disruption.
An idea born on campus
Paydunya’s founders, Aziz Yerima, Youma Fall, Honoré Hounwanou, and Christian Palouki, came up with the idea in 2014 while studying at the École Supérieure Multinationale des Télécommunications (ESMT), in Benin, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Togo. They launched the fintech the following year.
In 2021, nearly 7 years later, the fintech claims to have processed more than 15 million transactions valued at CFA 110 billion. Its customer base is estimated at more than 1,200 B2B clients.
Fiacre E. Kakpo
The Congolese government has since 2019 stepped up initiatives to develop the digital economy in the country. Beyond connectivity infrastructure, it has also made the innovation industry – a major job generator- a priority.
The government of the Republic of Congo is working on a specific legal framework for startups. The related bill was approved by the Council of Ministers last March 2. The document was then submitted to Parliament for review by Léon Juste Ibombo (pictured), the Minister of Posts, Telecommunications, and the Digital Economy.
If it is validated, it will foster the implementation of various administrative, financial, fiscal, and measures that will promote the development of tech entrepreneurship in the country. Leon Juste Ibombo explained that the government decided to develop this tool due to "the absence of a specific legal framework for the digital industry, the lack of adequate funding, and the difficulties of access to public procurement as well as the absence of a strategy to promote innovation.” The law provides for a “startup” quality label that will only be issued to young companies that have met certain conditions.
Startups are increasingly gaining ground in Africa. Between 2015 and 2021, the amount they managed to raise increased from $277 million to $5.2 billion. Fintech, e-logistics, e-commerce, e-health, have gained value with Covid-19. As digital transformation has accelerated on the continent, the Congolese government wants to enable local innovators to also benefit from the growing business opportunities.
In its report "2021 Africa Tech Venture Capital", Partech reveals that Congolese startups captured $1 million from investment funds and other VCs in 2021. Senegal, which has been enjoying a startup law since December 28, 2019, saw the volume of funds raised by its startups reach $353 million in 2021. It was $6.50 million in 2016 according to Partech.
The new framework in Congo will facilitate the emergence of more tech innovators and entrepreneurs who will promote a dynamic local industry.
Muriel Edjo
Over the past five years, the Ghanaian government has developed various means of securing tax revenues from the exploitation of its subsoil resources. The measures have been reinforced with digital tools.
Ghana has digitized its national laboratory for the analysis of all precious minerals intended for export. The transformation of the facility managed by the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC), was unveiled last March 2 in Accra by Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia.
Nana Akwasi Awuah, MD of PMMC, explained that the digitization of assays will now make it possible “to generate assay certificates which have unique security features. These unique features will make it difficult for gold scammers to follow to facilitate their dubious activities.”
“Digitization has also now made it possible to monitor in real-time, gold exports passing through the National Assay Laboratory. At the click of a button, persons given access to the dashboard can see, in real-time, the amount of gold exported in both kilograms and ounces, where it was exported to, the value in Ghana cedis and dollars, the withholding tax, the exporter, and many other relevant data to aid national economic planning,” he added.
The transformation of the precious minerals analysis laboratory is part of the government’s strategy to secure tax revenue from this sector. Five years ago, the President of the Republic ordered the government to identify a means of independently verifying gold exports. The PMMC officially started operations in February 2018 following several engagements with the Ghana Chamber of Mines, the Association of Gold Exporters, and the Ghana Chamber of Bullion Dealers.
"President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo recognizes that our progress as a nation in the modern world is inextricably linked to digitalization and will, therefore, continue its adoption for enhanced service delivery. It is a critical path for our nation to remain competitive in the world of today and tomorrow," Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia said.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Moroccan B2B e-commerce and retail startup Chari.ma announced it has made an offer of $22mln to acquire consumer credit company Axa Crédit.
“We are thrilled to announce a cross-selling partnership between Axa Insurance Morocco and Chari. This partnership will allow Axa Insurance to keep growing on the Moroccan market and play a central role in financial inclusion,” commented Meryem Chami, CEO of Axa Assurance Maroc.
The offer comes less than a month after Chari.ma raised an undisclosed amount of funds. The company co-founded in 2020 by Ismaël and Sophia Belkhayat, had indicated the new capital valued it at $100 million. Chari.ma also announced it would, following this operation, test the Buy Now and Pay Later service with its customers, before considering an extension into the customer loan sector.
The new partnership will allow Axa to refocus on insurance, its core business. Chari.ma, for its part, could now offer credit to its customer base of consumer goods retailers. The company will use the Karny.ma platform, which it acquired in August 2021, to assess the creditworthiness of its unbanked customers with no credit history. These retailers will in turn be able to grant consumer products on credit to their customers.
Chamberline Moko
French banking group Societe Generale is ending its mobile money service YUP, created in 2017, in Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea, Ghana, and Madagascar. The information was disclosed in a letter sent on March 1, 2022, by Nicolas Pichou, CEO of Societe Generale Cameroon, to his employees.
"Dear colleagues, 5 years ago, anxious to promote financial inclusion and facilitate access to innovative fund transfer means by notably dematerializing companies’ payment flow, the AFMO (Ed.note: Africa and the Middle East) Business Unit launched an electronic money service and created a dedicated entity YUP. Despite all the efforts made by the YUP teams in the 7 geographic zones concerned, including Cameroon, to develop our market share and improve the experience, the service has not succeeded in creating a viable model and the market outlooks do not comfort us in planning for the continuation of this segment. In that circumstance, Societe Generale Group, in consultation with all its local subsidiaries, took the difficult decision to stop the operations of YUP in all the geographic areas where it was deployed,” explains the letter sent by Nicolas Pichou.
In short, despite all the resources deployed over the past five years to capture shares of the highly dynamic mobile money market, YUP has proven unprofitable for Société Générale. In the case of Cameroon, the reason for this failure is the undisputed supremacy of the country's two main mobile operators (MTN and Orange namely) in this market. Those operators entered the local market almost ten years before YUP and have had the opportunity to establish a network that leaves almost no room for newcomers.
Over 19 million active mobile money accounts
In July 2021, when celebrating its 10th anniversary in the Cameronian mobile money market, Orange Cameroon claimed it was controlling 70% of the market share, with cumulative transactions amounting to CFA800 billion yearly. "When I say cumulative transaction values, I mean deposits and withdrawals, money transfers, bill payments, salary payments, and everything else that is merchant payment, etc. Our daily cumulative transactions amount to CFA3 million,” explained Emmanuel Tassembedo, director of Orange Money Cameroon.
MTN Cameroon is a bit cautious as far as its mobile money market share is concerned. Its executives claim MTN Mobile Money had 5.6 million active subscribers in the second quarter of 2021, at least 168,000 points of presence across the country, including 108,000 merchant points and 60,000 distribution points.
Both operators offer innovative services like insurance subscriptions and tax payments. According to the Ministry of Finance, in Cameroon, close to CFA10 billion of taxes were paid through the two mobile money operators.
Let’s note that Cameroon is CEMAC’s leader in the mobile money segment. According to data published by the central bank BEAC, in 2020, there were 19.1 million active mobile money accounts in Cameroon. This was 64.8% of the 30.1 million mobile money accounts active in the CEMAC region whose membership includes six countries (Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Chad, the Central African Republic, and Equatorial Guinea). During the period, mobile money service providers active in Cameroon carried out 73.13% of the transactions recorded in the community space.
Brice R. Mbodiam
Over the past five years, Gabon has performed well in the UN e-government development index. Despite this progress on paper, not much has changed on the ground.
Société d'incubation numérique du Gabon (SING), a private company providing digital innovation services, announced the launch of the SmartGov program last February 25. The initiative is part of the government’s ambition to digitize public services and make the administration more collaborative and efficient.
"Services need to communicate with each other so that they are faster and more efficient," said Yannick Ebibie (pictured), MD of SING. "Even though the country is the highest-ranked in terms of e-government in the Central African region and among the best on the continent, people still have to queue for hours at ministries to access services. And sometimes not everything on the website is updated," he said.
Gabonese authorities have made digital transformation a priority since 2009. The ambition is to make Gabon a model of digitalization in Africa by 2025. To support the migration of Gabon from e-Government to Smart Government, the SING also launched a three-day hackathon. During this event, SING will select and fund the best ideas, capable of facilitating the entry of public administrations into a more collaborative vision. CFA1 million (nearly $1,700) will be granted to the winners with a three-month technical assistance period.
Brice Gotoa
South African cryptocurrency exchange platform valr.com announced yesterday it has raised more than R750 million (about $50 million) in a Series B round to finance its expansion strategy. This deal represents the largest cryptocurrency fundraising ever in Africa, according to the company, which is currently worth $240 million,
Under its plans, VARL wants to expand into India, while strengthening its presence in Africa. “We believe that Africa’s future is bright for the adoption of cryptocurrencies for both asset diversification and payments. VALR brings an amazing product and service to onboard both retail customers and institutions,” said Paul Veradittakit, partner at Pantera Capital, the company that led the transaction.
Two years ago, in July 2020, VARL benefited from a $3.4 million Series A funding. The resources were used to develop new products and expand into new African markets. The cryptocurrency exchange platform claims to have processed more than $7.5 billion in transaction volume since its launch in 2019. It also claims more than 250,000 retail clients and 500 institutional clients on the continent.
According to an August 2021 study published by research platform Chainalysis, the African cryptocurrency market grew by 1,200% in value between July 2020 and June 2021. Despite this growth, the continent represents the smallest cryptocurrency economy of all regions studied by Chainalysis.
Chamberline Moko
Agritech investment remains low in Africa despite great successes by some startups. Egyptian agritech startup FreshSource Global announced last February 28 it has secured seed funding to finance its expansion. The B2B platform, which connects farms to businesses in Egypt and provides last-mile solutions, said it has raised an undisclosed “seven-figure” round in dollars from Wamda Capital, 4DX Ventures, and some angel investors.
“We are planning to use the funds to expand our team and invest more in our technology. Also, we are going to be covering all of Egypt’s governorates by the end of 2023. By 2024, we will start considering a global expansion plan,” said co-Founder Farah Emara. She believes the new resources will help "accelerate our mission to create more sustainable fresh food systems through data and technology to transform the lives of producers, businesses and consumers and improve the planet."
FreshSource acts as an intermediary between agricultural producers and businesses such as supermarkets. The company founded in 2018 and launched in 2019 relies on a digital platform through which it centralizes supply from farmers and demand from retailers. It ensures that customers' needs are met by reducing the number of intermediaries through which agricultural products pass. It also ensures the safety of agricultural products, particularly in terms of preservation and transportation to the buyer.
By 2020, FreshSource was already claiming 300 local farmers as users of its service, creating 1,500 jobs and also having prevented 200 tons of food loss. According to Farah Emara, "By reducing food waste, you reduce the cost of fresh food and enable a segment of the population that couldn't afford it before to live a healthier lifestyle. Also, this method increases producers’ income and thus improves their quality of life.”
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Demand for broadband connectivity is growing in Africa. So are the risks of cybercrime. Improving supply while protecting access has become a necessity to ensure the region's development.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced yesterday it will soon deploy two root server clusters in Africa. One is confirmed to be installed in Kenya. The two technical infrastructures will allow Internet queries from Africa to be processed locally, without depending on networks and servers located in other parts of the world. It will also improve network quality by reducing latency throughout the region.
According to the international non-profit organization - which coordinates the domain name system and plays a key role in maintaining a global, interoperable and secure Internet – the clusters “will reduce the time it takes for a website to load, particularly when there are spikes in Internet usage. This will bring immediate benefits for everyday Internet users across the continent.”
The root servers will also reduce the impact of a potential cyberattack on the continent. Distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyberattacks aim to overwhelm servers with a flood of queries. The technical infrastructure will allow for greater bandwidth and data processing capacity, reducing the risk of Internet downtime due to a cyber-attack.
ICANN's investment in Africa is part of the ambitions of the Partner2Connect digital coalition launched on September 20, 2021, by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The goal is to drive meaningful connectivity and digital transformation globally in line with the African Digital Transformation Strategy (2020-2030).
Currently, only 33% of the African population has access to the Internet, according to ITU. With the digital transformation accelerating and inducing high Internet consumption, the Union believes that the rate will increase rapidly in the coming months.
Muriel Edjo
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E-commerce company Jumia has unveiled plans to upgrade its payment solutions in Egypt and Nigeria, where it is the most active. In the first country, the company said it has reached an agreement with vaIU, a financial technology services company, to develop a solution that will allow its local customers to buy goods and pay for them over time (BNPL, Buy Now and Pay Later).
In its main market, Nigeria, Jumia said it has added new services to its payment app. “On the JumiaPay app, we continued adding more relevant everyday services. In Nigeria, we set up an integration with Quickteller, the largest billing aggregator in Nigeria. This partnership allows us to offer over 70 additional billers on the JumiaPay app, including Government services, internet service providers, airlines, and many more,” the company said.
To comply with the Central Bank's requirements, Jumia agreed to partner with a third-party payment service provider to process card transactions via JumiaPay. “This change, which is expected to take effect in March 2022, may temporarily affect the payment experience in Nigeria and negatively impact payment volumes on the platform,” Jumia warned.
JumiaPay's technology enabled the group, now listed on Nasdaq (the main U.S. tech stock market), to channel $263.3 million worth of payments for more than 12.1 million transactions. This represents 34.7% of overall customer payments, up from 33.1% a year earlier. The value of goods purchased through the Jumia platform approached $1 billion in 2021, up 3.21% compared to that of 2020.
Jumia continues to grow its customer base, which was nearly 4 million in 2021. The improvement of its payment systems and compliance with regulatory requirements are important steps in its development.
Building on the general-purpose e-learning platform -Atingi- that it launched in November 2020, Smart Africa has announced the launch of a new platform dedicated to technology and digital literacy.
On the sidelines of its 5th ICT Ministers’ Council held last February 25 in Kintélé, in the Republic of Congo, the Smart Africa Alliance announced the launch of its academy designed to improve the digital skills of Africans. The Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA) offers free online courses accessible on https://sada.atingi.org/.
SADA's courses are focused on seven areas: digital skills and transformation, management and leadership, agriculture, career guidance, entrepreneurship, health, and governance and decentralization. Currently, three courses are already available on the platform. These are "Economic Foundations of Regulation" developed by Laurent Gille, economist, professor emeritus of Télécom Paris; "ICT Infrastructure" developed by UNESCO, Cetic.br/NIC.br and the SDG Academy; and "Dimensions and Causes of the Digital Divide" developed by GIZ and Atingi.
Smart Africa has also scheduled a webinar for September 22 to discuss the "Agile Regulation for Digital Transformation" in Africa. The workshop will feature Patrick Njoroge, the head of the Central Bank of Kenya, Anna Pietikainen, senior policy advisor at the OECD, Edmund Fianko, the deputy head of the National Communications Authority of Ghana, and Roslyn Docktor, director of government and regulatory affairs at IBM Corporation.
"The Smart Africa Digital Academy – SADA for short – provides the courses, webinars, and opportunities for exchange to policymakers and regulators to promote digital transformation in Africa. With its various learning programs and formats, SADA wants to improve participants’ skills for drafting inclusive, gender-sensitive, and climate-smart ICT regulations,” according to the information available on the Atingi platform.
“SADA also reaches a wider audience from entrepreneurs to engaged citizens to improve their digital literacy, so that they can fully benefit from the new potentials offered by digital technologies.”
SADA’s access platform is fully responsive and adapts to a variety of screen sizes, including desktop, tablet, and mobile. Training courses are available in English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Portuguese. Courses are downloadable.
Muriel Edjo
The Rwandan Parliament approved last February 21 the signing by the government of an €86.5 million loan agreement with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Rwanda wants to accelerate the use of ICTs in public administrations. The agreement was presented in detail by the Minister of Finance, Uzziel Ndagijimana (pictured), and discussed with MPs.
“The aim is to promote the use of technology in development, increase service delivery, and use of big data. This will also enable the innovation agenda and increase job creation in technology but also attract investments. The fiber didn’t reach all areas but this time it will be expanded to reach sectors, more government offices, and other organizations including religious organs,” Ndagijimana said, stressing that the 28-year loan will also be used to provide subsidized access to technology equipment for government agencies. This will make public services faster, more transparent, and more efficient.
The project will be piloted by the Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA).
Muriel Edjo
The startup environment in Africa has been booming in recent years. Investments attracted by this sector continue to grow steadily, but several regional and national weaknesses still prevent the continent from unlocking its full potential.
Over the past seven years, the lion's share of investment attracted by startups in Africa has been captured by the Anglophone region of the continent. In its "Francophone Africa. State of Technology and Investment" report published in May 2021, Briter Bridges – a research firm focused on data on innovation and technology ecosystems in emerging markets- revealed that of the $8.8 billion raised between 2015 and 2021, Francophone Africa only captured $417.9 million.
"Our interviews showed that lack of clarity around regulations, scarce capital pools, language barriers, and limited networking opportunities remain some of the greatest challenges to consider when entering the francophone African market," the research firm said. Also, the majority of poor performers for the World Bank’s 2020 Doing Business report were Francophones. Although the continent continues to experience a lack of qualified human resources, governments and several international partners are working to close the gap through digital skills development programs. This issue is, therefore, less of an obstacle to attracting investors, especially since startups can recruit from other countries if there is a real need.
However, in the absence of a credible business framework that fosters the emulation of entrepreneurs, investors will venture very little in markets where the risk of loss largely outweighs the chances of gain. Even if the innovative community seems dynamic, its ease to organize and create wealth will always prevail in the decision of businessmen, venture capital funds, and other business angels.
Senegal has demonstrated the positive impact of a regulatory framework tailored to technological innovation. In 2018, the country ranked 140th in the Doing Business. Senegalese startups attracted $6 million the same year, according to the Partech report on the level of funding attracted by startups in 2018.
In 2021, after the government passed a Startup Act, a law that facilitates the framework for creating, funding, and growing startups, Senegal's rank in Doing Business 2020 improved significantly to 123rd. The 2020 edition of Partech's report found that the credibility of its startup ecosystem has strengthened the interest of tech investors, who have invested $353 million.
According to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, “tech ecosystems drive economic growth. The digital economy will contribute an estimated $300 billion to African GDP by 2025, providing much-needed employment on a continent where three to four times more people enter the job market than actual roles are created."
In its report "Supercharging Africa's Startups: The Continent's Path to Tech Excellence" published on February 15, 2022, the research center estimates that African startups can raise $90 billion by 2030. It also emphasizes the creation of an appropriate business environment as one of the strategic reforms needed to avoid missing this opportunity.
Muriel Edjo