Dominique Collett-Antolik and Brandon Doyle Talk 2015 African Fintech & Telecoms Trends

Over the next four weeks the we are taking a much-needed break.

Cue peaceful ocean sounds

But while we’re away, in place of our regular programming, we’ll be sharing exclusive content from the Annual Round-up 2015 event we hosted at the Wanderers Club, Johannesburg on November 26th 2015. The Event was powered by the good people at Opera Africa, who are totally all about helping us “do more” (on the web).

This week, we kick things off by sharing a stimulating panel discussion around tech in enterprise facilitated by Tefo Mohapi— featuring Senior Investment Executive, RMI Holdings and former co-founder of the hugely successful fintech startup Tyme, Dominique Collett-Antolik and CEO & Founding Partner, Convergence Partners, Brandon Doyle.

Another great reason to listen in is to find out if you’re one of the two lucky people who’ve won a Google Cardboard virtual reality viewer in last week’s competition, sponsored by Google.

Mbwana Alliy Talks About Startup Governance & Funding Tech Startups In Africa

I attended Afrikoin Johannesburg last week. One of the stand-out interactive panel discussions hosted at the conference saw participants enthusiastically promoting the merits of bitcoin and various other applications of the blockchain.

However, a question I posed led to a very lively debate about whether improved “access” to seamless, more affordable financial services does in fact equal “inclusion” for Africa’s poorest— especially given how centralised the world’s computing power is, and how huge stashes of bitcoin are held by a relatively few well-resourced interests.

I put the same question to founder and managing partner at Savannah Fund, Mbwana Alliy— who Tefo Mohapi and I caught up with for a chat after the conference. We were lucky enough to get his response to my question on tape, in a recorded conversation that ended up being over an hour long.

In this week’s episode of the African Tech Round-up (the last full-length episode of 2015), you can not only look forward to listening to our impromptu chat with Mbwana in its entirety (including him sharing his thoughts on the Angani debacle), but you can also look forward to hearing two leading Zimbabwean startup founders enlighten us as to why Zimbabwe might be the perfect use-case for disruptive fintech innovations.

Then heads up, folks! For the next four weeks starting next week, in place of our regular podcast programming we’ll be sharing exclusive content from the Annual Round-up 2015 event we hosted at the Wanderers Club, Johannesburg 2 weeks ago.

We’ll kick things off next week by sharing a conversation we had with Senior Investment Executive, RMI Holdings, Dominique Collett-Antolik and CEO & Founding Partner, Convergence Partners, Brandon Doyle around tech in enterprise. Don’t miss it!

From Punk Rocker To Tech VC With Brandon Doyle

After manning the helm of Africa’s largest Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) sector focused fund manager for nearly a decade, Brandon Doyle seems to have thoroughly shed any visible trace of his punk rock past.

Since co-founding Convergence Partners in 2006, Brandon and his team (many of whom are Charted Accountant types) have built an impressive track record of developing new investment opportunities and adding value to existing investments across the entire life cycle of ICT assets in Africa.

In the latest instalment of African Tech Conversations, the Convergence Partners CEO shares some highlights from his stellar career in finance— which features lengthy stints at firms like Nedbank and Anglo American. He also hints at elements of the “secret sauce” that’s allowed his company to lay claim to the title of “impact investor”, and be widely considered a leading player within Africa’s ICT infrastructure venture capital scene.

Brandon also gives us an update on how well Convergence Partners’ legacy business portfolio is doing— which includes hugely successful investments like SEACOM and Dimension Data, and talks about how he’s planning to invest the $200 million Convergence Partners has managed to woo into its recently-closed Communication Infrastructure Fund.