Kenyan Agritech Startup WeFarm Secures $1.6 Million In Funding

How much of an over-achiever is Elon Musk fixing to become, though? In the last week, he’s added providing global internet coverage via a massive satellite network to his audacious To-do List. In this week’s African Tech Round-up, I reflect on how Musk’s latest ambition might upset net neutrality watchdogs around the world who might not trust SpaceX to responsibly execute on something they don’t trust the likes of Google and Facebook to do.

Also on this week’s show is more about perhaps the most publicised tech investment news of the past week, the $1.6 million investment haul made by the Kenyan agritech startup WeFarm. It’s exciting to see agritech startups start to excite the global VC community. It’s absurd how millions of people on the continent go hungry every year despite how well-endowed Africa is in terms of natural resources. It’s about time we harness tech to work smarter, improve our yields, and get food to hungry people not just on the continent, but wherever it’s needed around the world.

Finally, listen in to hear my conversation with Milena Taieb, Head of Video for France, Africa and the Middle East at Believe Digital Studios— the world’s leading multi-channel network (MCN) specialising in multi-platform distribution, audience development and content monetisation. Milena reveals how Believe has upended the traditional music and video production business, and how despite the plethora of self-publication platforms available to creators today, success is predicated on executing a killer digital strategy.

First published in AfricanTechRoundup.com

Kenya Commercial Bank Gets Hacked?

So, Episode 80 of the African Tech Round-up, aka the episode that nearly never happened, is finally out.

In an interview I just taped for the upcoming season of the African Tech Conversations series, Co-founder and Chief Credit Officer of M-KOPA Solar, Chad Larson, shared words he lives by that epitomise why I’m glad the team and I didn’t give up on publishing the podcast this week— despite the ridiculousness that made it nearly impossible to do so. “Done is always better than perfect,” he said. So, here it is.

There’s no doubt that this has so far been a bumper year for the world’s hacking community. Last week, one of Kenya’s biggest banks, the Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), spent a fair amount of energy trying to convince its customers that their personal data remains uncompromised– this, following claims by a certain programmer who goes by @IrakChris on Twitter claiming to have accessed KCB’s client data through vulnerabilities found in the bank’s mobile app.

Meanwhile, Twitter, Spotify, Amazon, Reddit, Yelp, Netflix, and The New York Times suffered easily one of the world’s biggest coordinated distributed denial of service (aka DDoS) attacks last Friday which led to the sites either slowing to a snail’s pace or being knocked out altogether.

For all the details on these stories and more, tuck into this week’s show, and be sure to tell us what you make of the week’s headlines on Twitter, or via email.

 

Tecno Plans To Start Manufacturing Mobile Devices In Nigeria

This week’s African Tech Round-up episode is jam-packed. Digital video content creator, streaming evangelist and co-founder of Pockitttv, Julian von Plato joins me to chat about VOD trends and the adoption of streaming technology on the continent, then TechCabal.com’s Editor-in-chief, Bankole Oluwafemi aka Lord Banks factors in on MTN’s ongoing run-ins with the Nigerian Communications Commission.

The past week saw internet access being blocked in Ethiopia in an effort to quell violent anti-government protests and MTN Nigeria rethinking its planned acquisition of Visafone, so Tecno’sannouncement of its plans to start manufacturing mobile devices in Nigeria provided some respite. The company is looking to consolidate the rather impressive 25.3% market-share it has so far managed to carve out for itself in one of Africa’s most competitive mobile device markets while demonstrating its commitment to Nigeria’s growing mobile ecosystem.

Finally, the team at the African Tech Round-up would like to express our heartfelt condolences to all those who have lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods in the recent storms that have swept through Haiti and are continuing to devastate parts of the US. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by the tragedy.

First published on AfricanTechRoundup.com.

 

Will Consolidated Media Plays Disrupt Telcos?

One of the more surprising things that came out of a recent conversation I had with BT’s Managing Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, Oliver Fortuin is his answer when I asked him (somewhat unfairly) what disruptive trend could potentially render BT redundant in the next decade. His answer? The trend towards consolidated media ownership. Listen in to this week’s African Tech Round-up to hear Oliver unpack that answer.

Meanwhile, the French Urban television network Trace TV’s acquisition of Kenyan, pan-African VOD service Buni.tv made headlines last week. Buni.tv is believed to be one of the largest African VOD services offering home-grown content. Trace TV has revealed that this acquisition is part of their plans to gear up for the launch of a VOD platform called Trace Play later in 2016.

Now, I reckon that aside from keeping an eye out for competitors like iROKOtv, DSTV and Netflix, aspiring VOD service providers like Trace TV would do well to anticipate the moves being made by the likes of South Africa’s Telkom, Zimbabwe’s Econet and offshore players like BT— because by Oliver’s own admission, incumbents like BT don’t plan to quietly “stay in their lane” and watch the world pass them by.

Netflix & Buffering (featuring Emeka Okoye and Aaron Fu)

The team at the  African Tech Round-up is just loving this trend of brilliant Africans crashing our podcast recordings. The last time that happened we had a total blast with Rebecca Enonchong, Mark Kaigwa and Thebe Ikalafeng. In case you missed it, check out that episode here.

This week, Nigerian software engineering heavyweight, Emeka Okoye, literally walked into the room as Tefo Mohapi and I were chatting about about how Africa seemed to be responding to Netflix’s surprise roll-out of its service to pretty much every corner of the planet. Be sure to listen in to hear him share his thoughts on the impact (or lack thereof) that Neflix’s entry into the Nigerian video-on-demand market is likely to have.

Then, in place of our regular discussion segment this week, we’ll be sharing an interesting chat I had with Aaron Fu, Managing Partner (Africa) at NEST— recorded when we hung out with him during his first proper visit to Johannesburg recently. We talked about everything from what he’s personally looking forward to in 2016 to what strikes his fancy in his professional capacity as the head of a leading VC firm on the continent.

Safaricom Becomes The Latest Mobile Service Provider To Be Sued

I’m still buzzing from the great time we had at The Annual Round-up 2015, that Tefo Mohapi and I hosted at The Wanderers Club in Johannesburg last week.

Many thanks to those of you who made it out on Thursday morning, and a big thank you to our incredibly generous and insightful guest panelists and speakers. Also, big up to our event partners, Opera Africa, Stuff magazine, and iAfrikan.com.

It was a chilled morning of intelligent, retrospective conversations – which took stock of the state of Africa’s tech scene. The programme featured three keynote talks and three lively interactive panel discussions covering Enterprise, Startups and, Gadgets & Apps.

Seriously, though, the good news is that we’ll be sharing the conversations we had at the Annual Round-up in place of the African Tech Round-up podcast starting on Monday, December 14th, 2015 — to hold you down till the show returns in mid-January 2016. There’ll also be plenty of cool extras we’ll be sharing exclusively on our Soundcloud account and via Facebook, Twitterand Instagram, so do follow us, do.

In the meantime, enjoy Episode 33 of the African Tech Round-up. Listen in to find out why two Kenyan mobile money service providers are suing Safaricom. This is definitely on trend. The last quarter of 2015 is proving to be quite trying time for Africa’s mobile operators.

How To Build Products For Africa And Avoid Failing Like The Altech Node

It’s official. Citing “increased competition” and “unfavourable market conditions” Altron is puling the plug on the Altech Node console and will discontinue its video-on-demand offering come the end of October 2015.

The news comes in the wake of Naspers’ recent launch of the Netflix-clone, ShowMax, which the tech giant is clearly not sparing any expense in promoting. (By the way, you may as well take advantage of ShowMax’s free seven-day trial offer to check out what all the fuss is about.)

What is the best way to build new tech products for Africa?

The Node’s spectacular failure to appeal to consumers has led Tefo Mohapi and I to ponder the question, “What is the best way to build new tech products for Africa?” Perhaps there are lessons that big tech and startups on the continent would  do well to learn from Altron’s costly misfire regarding how to effectively build and roll-out relevant and commercially successful products and services.

Also in this week’s African Tech Round-up, all the week’s most important digital, tech and innovation news:

• Visa has choses to test ground-breaking biometrics technology— for use at ATM’s, in South Africa,
• Apple is preparing to shut down the transit app, Hopstop— which it bought from its Nigerian founder, Chinedu Echeruo for $1 billion in 2013,
• WeChat and Nigerian online tech publication, Tech Cabal are set to host conferences in Nigeria, aimed at empowering developers to make use of WeChat’s API, and
• Mobile phone manufacturer, Mi-Fone, accuses its Chinese rival, Xiaomi, of intentionally using similar sounding names for mobile devices they have recently launched in Africa.

What Are You Going To Do When They Come For You?

Think back to high school. Remember how the new dude always got all the girls whispering, or how the new girl got all the boys trying to walk her home? Now, if the newbie rolled into town with discernible signs of affluence (i.e. dope clothes, or an expensive scent), the singles market would get particularly frenzied. And when the newbie possessed a hint of exoticism (i.e. a foreign accent, or an unusual taste in music), even the kids involved in some of the most stable couplings might start feeling the pressure to reevaluate their options.

In this week’s African Tech Roundup, Tefo Mohapi and I discuss the pressure African tech startups are feeling in the face of local markets being invaded by experienced and well-resourced foreign-based interests. Local incumbents in many sectors of tech now find themselves fielding competition from abroad. In everything from venture capital investment to mobile money solutions, media streaming platforms and e-commerce solutions, the race to dominate is well and truly on.

In the light of all this, I pose a simple question, “What are you going to do when they come for you?”

This week’s episode will feature some insights from Nubi Kayode that may help us all find confident answers to that question. Nubi is a Nigerian Business Analyst at Accenture Ireland, and Managing Partner at DevShackAlpha.co.  He co-founded EasyAppetite.com— Nigeria’s first online takeaway site in 2012, and managed to survive railroading attempts by foreign-backed competition, and set himself up to make a successful exit in 2014 when his company was acquired by CityChops.

Be sure to catch all the week’s most important digital, tech and  innovation news from across the African continent:

• Find out about a Zimbabwean high school dropout who’s built an electric powered vehicle and a hybrid helicopter,
• Discover which two foreign money transfer firms have teamed up and become the latest to launch into Africa,
• Learn more about Kenya’s admirable obsession with building their own laptops,
• Hear what you can do to extend the runway for struggling Cameroonian startup, KwiiziBox, and
• Get the low-low on a South African-based video-on-demand platform that is calling it a day.