African Tech Roundup Podcast

Episode overview: Nikolai Barnwell has been resident in Kenya since 2009, and he watched the African mobile money story arrive in real time. Fresh out of university, he joined the early Africa-focused fund 88mph as a programme manager, helping build what is now Nairobi Garage , and got a front-row seat to roughly 50 investments over five years. Most went nowhere.  The ones that did, betting busine...

Episode overview: Russell Southwood has been watching Africa's digital story unfold since 2000, when the number of people involved in the continent's internet could be counted in the hundreds.  Armed with yellow pages and a willingness to show up unannounced at ISP offices across Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Uganda, he began documenting what he saw in a weekly email newsletter that would, over tim...

Episode overview: Seyi Ebenezer didn't come to fintech from a hackathon or an accelerator. He came from KPMG's audit desks and Access Bank's corporate finance floors. These are environments where the numbers had to add up before anyone was allowed to dream out loud. That training shows in everything about how he has built Payaza , from claims of launching profitably with a single gas station clien...

Episode overview: Natasha Blycha's path into emerging technology law started in an unlikely place. As a gap-year volunteer teaching English and economics at a school outside Gweru, Zimbabwe, circa 2000, she was simultaneously working for a small rural law firm on constitutional questions — an experience she credits with shaping the questions that have driven her career since. In conversation with...

Episode overview: Prince Nwadeyi spent years providing market research that unlocked South Africa's R600 billion (~USD 34.4 billion) informal economy for blue-chip clients. The likes of Swiss Re, Liberty, NASPERS all wanted the insights. Few wanted the execution risk. In conversation with Andile Masuku, Nwadeyi explains why his holding company SAG Ventures stopped selling insights and started buil...

Episode overview: April Long spent two years fighting reality. The co-founder and CEO of "Afro-Asia Cross-border payment infrastructure" startup Pyxis was so determined to serve Africa's small merchants - the "bottom of the pyramid" she'd read about in Harvard Business Review - that she nearly bankrupted her fintech ignoring the bulk traders actually driving Africa-China trade. In conversation wit...

Episode overview: Andrew Hall faces a unique challenge: building profitable telecommunications infrastructure across one of Africa's largest countries with one of its smallest populations. As managing director of Paratus Namibia, Hall oversees operations spanning vast distances where traditional business models struggle to pencil out. Andile Masuku invites Hall to share on the realities of buildin...

Episode overview: Bernard Laurendeau has a mission: to stop African business leaders from asking for "patient capital." The Ethiopian-French management consultant, now operating from Tokyo, believes this standard pitch fundamentally misunderstands how global investment works and fails African markets. It's a contrarian stance from someone who's spent 15 years advising Fortune 50 clients and buildi...

Episode overview: Guidione Machava has a confession: he's tired of being called an "African designer." The Mozambican product designer, now based in France and fresh from stints at Shopify and Paris-based 23point5, reckons that geographic qualifiers automatically strip away a third of your professional value before you've even started. It's a provocative stance from someone who's built his career...

Episode overview: In this conversation, South African strategist Wabo Majavu, executive strategy and business operations leader at Africa Data Centres, unpacks how technical expertise at organisations like MTN and Intelsat laid the foundation for her distinctive approach to strategic leadership and digital activism. From building radar applications at the CSIR to optimising cellular networks throu...

Episode overview: In this conversation, Verto co-founder and CEO Ola Oyetayo shares the journey of building a cross-border payments platform that tackles the unique challenges African businesses face when making international transactions. Since graduating from Y Combinator in 2019, Verto has established itself as what Oyetayo describes as a profitable and cashflow positive fintech serving multipl...

Episode overview: In this conversation, David Ogundeko shares the journey of Funema, an impact-focused alternative investment firm operating for nine years across Nigeria, South Africa, and the US. He discusses his approach to venture building for early-stage founders, why Africa needs a unique investment approach, and how his firm addresses the "chicken and egg" challenge that idea-stage founders...

Meet Marie Lora-Mungai, expert advisor in African creative industries and sports business and founder of Restless Global - whose 20-year journey from CNN journalist to production company founder to industry advisor gives her a unique vantage point on Africa's creative economy. In thought-provoking conversation with Andile Masuku, Lora-Mungai makes a compelling case for African filmmakers to stop s...

Episode overview: In this conversation, Fatu Ogwuche shares insights into her transition from working at Meta and consulting for Nigeria's Electoral Commission to launching her own media platform, Big Tech This Week. She discusses her entrepreneurial spirit, creative approach to storytelling, and the unique position independent creators hold in today's media landscape. Andile Masuku describes Ogwu...

This episode features an engaging conversation with Rob Bergman, Chief Investment Officer at Unicorn Factory, exploring the nuanced intersection of digital infrastructure investment and internet connectivity ecosystem development across Africa. Episode overview: Andile Masuku engages with Bergman to unpack his 12-year journey in African investment, examining how Unicorn Factory's distinctive two-p...

Episode Overview: This episode features a relaxed, peer-to-peer conversation between two media entrepreneurs—African Tech Roundup co-founder and executive producer Andile Masuku, and Money & Moves founder and writer Tinashe Mukogo. They explore how Mukogo draws on his background in consulting (Deloitte), corporate venture capital (Next47), and organisational finance (Siemens), along with his C...

Episode Overview: This episode features a deep conversation with Joshua Bicknell, co-founder of Balloon Ventures, exploring how the organisation evolved from a non-profit connecting young people with informal entrepreneurs to becoming a financial institution that's deployed over $14 million in loans to SMEs across Kenya and Uganda, while openly sharing portfolio data to prove the viability of SME...

This episode features a brief check-in with Ochuko Ogra, Chief Transformation and Strategy Officer at Backbone Connectivity Network (BCN), sketching Nigeria's digital infrastructure landscape. Episode overview: BCN has over 1,000 km of wholly-owned fibre infrastructure, primarily in the North-Central and North Eastern parts of Nigeria. Citing its stronghold in Northern Nigeria to its expanding nat...

Listen in as Alan Knott-Craig Jr, son of Alan Sr, the pioneering co-founder and first CEO of Vodacom, one of South Africa's leading mobile network operators, and later the feisty CEO of challenger telco Cell C—takes us through a transformative career moment that set the stage for his future ventures. Episode overview This early 2016 conversation finds Alan Knott-Craig Jr in a moment of trademark f...

Episode overview This unfiltered 2017 archive dialogue captures Maya Horgan Famodu (Founder and Partner, Ingressive Capital) before she became known for straight-talking LinkedIn posts about founder insights and personal growth. Fresh from investment banking, she was forging new pathways between Silicon Valley capital and African startup innovation via carefully-curated investor tours—laying the g...

As we wind down 2024, we're diving into our archives to serve up some memorable throwback conversations. Whether you're a long-time listener revisiting these gems or discovering them for the first time, these conversations capture pivotal moments in Africa's tech journey. In today's episode, we're rewinding to 2018... Episode overview: Join us as we eavesdrop on a fascinating corridor conversation...

Meet Chijioke Dozie, the co-founder steering Carbon through Nigeria's increasingly noisy neobank scene. In this candid chat with Andile Masuku, Dozie makes a case for zigging while others zag—specifically, charging for value while competitors burn cash on free services. It's a stance that might raise eyebrows in Nigeria's price-sensitive market, but as you'll hear, it's backed by 12 years of hard...

Ambar van der Wath—who leads investor relations at one of Africa's leading accelerator slash VC firms, Baobab Network—discusses with Andile Masuku how the firm is creating accessible entry points for cautious investors interested in early-stage African tech startups. Episode Overview: Picture this: You're an international investor curious about African tech, but you're not quite ready to write mil...

This episode features an illuminating dialogue with Lanre Kolade, Chairman of ConnectedCompute, CEO of Koltronics Nigeria and former CEO of CSquared, exploring the intricate dynamics of infrastructure development and digital transformation across Africa. Episode overview: Andile Masuku engages with Kolade to unpack his 26-year journey in African broadband connectivity, examining the delicate balan...

This episode features a candid conversation with Jasiel Martin-Odoom, Africa Investment Officer at Accion Venture Lab, exploring the intersection of venture capital and connectivity-focused content creation and ecosystem building in African tech. Episode overview: Andile Masuku sits down with Jasiel Martin-Odoom to unpack his unique approach to ecosystem engagement, scaling personal impact through...