In our first episode of this series on jobtech platforms and the future of work, we argued that the future of work is a tech-enabled portfolio of work.  But what does a portfolio of work really look like? And what happens next?  We know we need to create more formal jobs in Africa, and we need to boost the productivity of the informal sector. But how do we get there?  Considering the context of the markets in question, the future of work isn’t going to be designed or endowed; it’s going to...

In January 2024, we hosted a live show in Lagos with The Subtext's Osarumen Osamuyi on the relationship between the tech ecosystem and the media.  It was a follow-up to a 2020 episode we published entitled Much Ado About the Media. A lot of founders still feel the media is acting in bad faith amidst more accountable media coverage. In this episode, we explore this tension and have an important discussion with the ecosystem players themselves. 00:00 - Intro01:22 - Reflecting on 2020's...

Live from the BIG Summit, a platform hosted by investor and 2x NBA All-Star Baron Davis, at the 2024 NBA All-Star Game, a conversation with three operators connecting Africa to the world through culture and commerce.  In this conversation, we're joined by Clare Akamanzi, the CEO of NBA Africa, Abdul Karim Abdullah, the Founder and CEO of AfroFuture music festival, and entrepreneur and private equity investor Tuyee Yeboah.  00:00 - Intro02:38 - NBA Africa05:32 - AfroFuture08:34 - Investing...

The African continent has the highest levels of poverty, the lowest levels of formal employment, and its population is going to double in the next 30 years.  African countries need to create more jobs. But what kinds of jobs? And how?  What if I told you that the way governments and development organizations are trying to create jobs in Africa is all wrong?   To make a dent in this problem requires an understanding of the realities on the ground and how that has impacted the preferences of...

Despite research showing that female founders outperform their male peers, startups with a solo female founder or an all-female founding team raised a mere 2% of all the funding in Africa last year. There is a huge gender funding gap. How do we close it? This episode is the last episode of a five-episode series on gender lens investing, co-hosted by Eloho Omame, Founding Partner of First Check Africa, an early-stage fund backing female-led startups. Each episode of this series will explore a...

Despite research showing that female founders outperform their male peers, startups with a solo female founder or an all-female founding team raised a mere 2% of all the funding in Africa last year. There is a huge gender funding gap. How do we close it? This episode is the fourth of a five-episode series on gender lens investing, co-hosted by Eloho Omame, Founding Partner of First Check Africa, an early-stage fund backing female-led startups. Each episode of this series will explore a...

Despite research showing that female founders outperform their male peers, startups with a solo female founder or an all-female founding team raised a mere 2% of all the funding in Africa last year. There is a huge gender funding gap. How do we close it? This episode is the third of a five-episode series on gender lens investing, co-hosted by Eloho Omame, Founding Partner of First Check Africa, an early-stage fund backing female-led startups. Each episode of this series will explore a...

Despite research showing that female founders outperform their male peers, startups with a solo female founder or an all-female founding team raised a mere 2% of all the funding in Africa last year. There is a huge gender funding gap. How do we close it? This episode is the second of a five-episode series on gender lens investing, co-hosted by Eloho Omame, Founding Partner of First Check Africa, an early-stage fund backing female-led startups. Each episode of this series will explore a...

Despite research showing that female founders outperform their male peers, startups with a solo female founder or an all-female founding team raised a mere 2% of all the funding in Africa last year. There is a huge gender funding gap. How do we close it? This episode is the first of a five-episode series on gender lens investing, co-hosted by Eloho Omame, Founding Partner of First Check Africa, an early-stage fund backing female-led startups. Each episode of this series will explore a...

Today's guest is Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Chairman of Coronation Capital and former Group MD and CEO of Access Bank.  Aigboje is one of the most successful and esteemed businesspeople on the continent. In 2002, he led the acquisition of Access Bank, which under his 11-year leadership grew into the largest bank in Nigeria and one of the largest in Africa. This wide-ranging discussion with the Chairman took place during the 2023 UN General Assembly in New York at an event hosted by the...

Today's guests are Natalie Kolbe, Ngetha Waithaka and Lexi Novitske - Partners of the $205 million growth fund Norrsken22.  In this episode, we'll talk about investment strategy, valuations, perspectives for the ecosystem, exits, and much more.  00:00 - Intro00:48 - Norrsken22's $205m fundraise09:36 - Investment strategy & process12:43 - Investing in asset-light marketplaces14:37 - Expansion18:04 - Investment theses27:26 - Macro perspectives30:22 - What are the partners focused on and...

Today's guest is Perseus Mlambo, Co-founder and CEO of Union54, the developers of the social commerce app ChitChat.  The company started as Zazu, an agtech startup, which pivoted to Zazu the neobank. After issuing virtual cards for their users and seeing the demand other fintechs had for virtual cards, they pivoted to Union54 the card issuing API, which after massive traction in the fintech ecosystem and subsequent issues with fraud, has pivoted once more to ChitChat. With many pivots come...

Today's guest is Adia Sowho, one of the most experienced and thoughtful operators in the African tech ecosystem. After starting her career in consulting and telecommunications, Adia led growth at the digital credit startup Migo, before leading the turnaround as Interim CEO of the embattled agriculture finance company Thrive Agric.  In this episode, we'll learn from Adia about her lessons working across both big and small companies, about the importance of sharing those lessons learned, and...

Today's guest is Ham Serunjogi, the Co-founder and CEO of Chipper Cash. In 2021, Chipper raised $150 million Series C extension, valuing the startup at $2 billion, but has since cut its valuation, reportedly by 70 percent, has engaged in three rounds of layoffs, reducing its headcount by nearly 175 from its peak of 450, and has drastically pulled back from its aggressive growth and expansion strategies across the continent. This conversation with Ham comes at an interesting time for Chipper...

Today's guest is Dare Okoudjou, the Founder and CEO of MFS Africa, which this week has rebranded to Onafriq.  The new name represents a new chapter in the company, which is a very different looking company than when we first had Dare on the show back in 2020, after their acquisition of Beyonic. Since then, they've also acquired the card issuer, GTP in the US, and the agent network Baxi in Nigeria.  This current period of the African tech ecosystem is one of increased consolidation and...

Today's guests are Michael Seibel, the Managing Director of Y Combinator, and Kwamena Afful, a Founding Partner of Microtraction.  Michael has been an avid supporter of the African tech ecosystem. Since his first trip to Lagos in 2016, and since Paystack joined YC's winter batch earlier that year, the number of African startups that have participated in the global accelerator has grown to 89.  And for Microtraction, the early-stage fund was founded in 2017, in part in relation to the...

Today's guest is Kiaan Pillay, the Co-founder and CEO of Stitch. My conversation with Kiaan comes on the heels of their recent fundraising announcement, a $25 million Series A extension led by the global fintech fund Ribbit Capital, which brings their total funding raised up over $50 million since the launch of the company in 2019. In this episode, we talk to Kiaan about how they've gotten here, the intangibles of company building, their vision for the next generation of payments, and much...

Today's guest is Olugbenga Agboola, better known as the one and only GB - the Co-founder and CEO of Flutterwave.  It's been a trying last year or so for Flutterwave with issues of fraud, allegations of impropriety inside the company, regulatory hurdles, and the general challenges of scaling a fintech in a tough operating environment. Yet through it all, Flutterwave has "technology reach" in 34 countries, they've continued to ship new products beyond their core payments technology, including...

The future of work in the African context is going to be a lot of different things. It mimics the nature of work itself for many individuals on the continent. They're taking this portfolio approach to work. Even in more "developed markets" we're seeing work become less formal and more flexible, as work becomes unbundled from employment. And this evolution of work itself provides a whole set of new challenges and opportunities.  So this episode is a retrospective on the entire season, in...

There is a perception that there's a tech talent shortage in the African tech ecosystem, and that it's hard to find high-quality local talent. There has been lot of conversation around the impact and role of Big Tech in the equation, which many felt were also culprits in driving up the price of talent in local marketplaces. In an environment of talent scarcity, there's been an upward pressure on salaries for talent of a certain caliber - which Big Tech can more readily afford compared to...

We're dropping one more episode of our new show, crypto@scale, on The Flip's feed today. In this episode, we interview our first guests on what might be Africa's killer crypto app, stablecoins. According to data from Coinmetrics, cumulative Stablecoin volumes are at a $9 trillion annualized run rate, exceeding the volumes of all major card networks, except for Visa. Across the African continent, stablecoins are finding meaningful uptake, particularly in markets with low USD liquidity, or...

We interrupt this season on the future of work to drop a special episode today in The Flip’s feed. Introducing crypto@scale, a new show from The Flip, co-hosted by MFS Africa's Head of Crypto, Gwera Kiwana, and The Flip's Justin Norman. crypto@scale is a pragmatic and hopefully hype-free exploration of the crypto ecosystem across the African continent. If you enjoy this episode, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast app or YouTube by searching for crypto@scale. We'll be...

Where there is fragmentation, informality, and a dearth of infrastructure, there are questions about what the path to formality and standardization will look like. One intriguing answer to that question is conversion franchising, where existing stores are converted into a franchise. In the future of work context, are microenterprises, their owners, and their employees better off as converted franchisees? This episode is a case study, with mPharma's Gregory Rockson. 00:00 - We begin this...

African markets are largely informal. So while our examination of workforce and training programs in the fast few episodes focused on formal and salaried jobs, we know that most Africans aren't going to get these types of jobs. So, our exploration of the future of work needs to span much further than that. Where there are no formal jobs, what does it look like to help stimulate the development of the informal sector and microenterprises? And what role does technology play? In this context,...