TechCabal Daily, 751 – Jiji Acquires OLX Businesses In Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania And Uganda

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Today marks 10 years since Paga’s founder and CEO, Tayo Oviosu embarked on the Paga journey. A journey, he says, that was born out of the frustration with needing to carry cash everywhere in Nigeria and the inability to make payments efficiently. In 10 years, the company has grown to a team of 460 and counting, recruited over 20,000 agents, served over 12 million customers, process over 72 million transactions worth $4.6 billion in value. In a special 5 part series to commemorate 10 years, Tayo shares his stories and lessons in what it has taken to build the leading mobile money company in Nigeria. In part 2, Tayo talks about what it takes to build a team.

According to news reports, Nigeria’s classifieds platform Jiji has acquired OLX operations in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. OLX users in Nigeria will henceforth, be directed to the Jiji platform. The acquisition is supported by one of Jiji’s principal investors, Digital Spring Ventures. Naspers, OLX parent company, says its users will now benefit from Jiji’s significant service offering. Last year, OLX shut down its full-scale operations in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana leaving only its South African operations running and follows a list of e-commerce companies that have closed shop in Nigeria in recent times.

Hotels.ng is expanding its services globally with an international arm, Timbu. According to TechPoint, Timbu is derived from Timbuktu, an ancient Malian city, to denote the brand’s African heritage. The company says it plans to roll out its global services over time. Chief Operating Officer, Yemi Johnson, says that Timbu will leverage on the successful business Hotels.ng has built in Africa since 2012 to stand out from global competitors.

On June 28 and 29, Braniacs STEM and Robotics will be hosting is flagship edition of the Africa Education Technology Fair 2019 themed “Application of Technology to enhance human capacity development and innovation in Africa.” The fair seeks to bring together policy makers and key stakeholders in STEM education to exhange ideas and solutions to achieving items 4, 6 and 11 of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. The fair will feature a design thinking competition, a hackathon, panel session as well as a teachers’ training session. To learn more about the fair, register for the competitions or sign up to attend, please visit the website.

The EchoVC team will be having its first office hours today at Art Cafe on Akin Olugbade Street, Victoria Island, from 12pm to 3pm. They are inviting entrepreneurs building tech/tech-enabled businesses that are at post-revenue stage, with some traction and customers, to come meet with the team. EchoVC Partners is a seed, early stage and growth technology venture capital fund operating in sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and North America.

On the 18th of April, 2019, The British High Commission to Nigeria and EFInA (Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access) are convening an interactive session that brings fintech operators, investors, policy makers and hubs to explore the ways in which increased funding and enhanced regulatory harmony can grow the Nigerian Fintech ecosystem. Also, EFInA will announce the winners of its $2 million Fintech Challenge Fund; fintech companies who have built solutions to improve financial inclusion among low-income earners in Nigeria. Sign up here to indicate interest to attend. Limited seats are available.

A new technology hub in Yaba, Lagos’ technology cluster, wants to train 10,000 young female coders by 2020. The Nest plans to do this under its Girls Code Academy, which began last year and has graduated its first two cohorts of 250 girls. Asides the coding programme, The Nest also offers incubation for startups in its focus areas and a workspace for collaborative endevours.

The CDC Group, formerly known as the Commonwealth Development Corporation, has acquired an 8% share in Liquid Telecom for US$180 million. Owned by Econet Global, the pan-African fibre-optic network provider is expected to “push more aggressively westwards into countries like Cameroon, Nigeria and Ghana with its added war chest.” Liquid Telecom’s broadband network currently spans nearly 70,000km across 11 African countries.

TechCabal is pleased to introduce its first paid report, The State of Health Tech in Nigeria. This essential report looks deeply into the state of Nigeria’s health industry, the challenges facing that industry and the innovative startups working to find solutions to those challenges. The report profiles 75 active and 15 inactive health tech startups across 12 subsectors. It further examines the challenges these startups face, the opportunities in the space and makes actionable recommendations for entrepreneurs, investors and regulators to consider. Get the report here.

For the Tech Women Lagos portrait series and exhibition, we partnered with PlusTV Africa to create a 10-part interview series on the platform’s interactive program, One on One. Anchor, Elsie Godwin, spoke extensively with some of the women profiled in the series about their foray into technology, careers and prospects for the future of women in technology in Nigeria. Here is a link to binge-watch  all the available episodes.

From TechCabal

The Challenge for Healthcare Innovators In Nigeria Is To Do More With Less

+ What Happens Next? A Recap of the Tech Women Lagos Portrait Series and Exhibition

See you tomorrow.
 
– Kay

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