1. Upward funding trend In 2017, $560m was invested into African startups by VCs focused on African markets. It was a 53% increase compared to 2016, 2x the funding amount of 2015 and 14x the fundraise amount in 2012. $168m was deployed into 120 African startups in H1 with about 24% of those startups…

I was speaking with my mentor some days ago and we touched on some developing themes we believe are worth exploring across the African startup ecosystem. I will add to this list as new themes emerge. — Inclusive Fintech A large number of Africans still do not have access to financial services. 70% of people in sub-saharan Africa do have a bank account. In Nigeria, a country where technologically adoption is more advanced has 61% of the adult population un- or underbanked.

Not too long ago, there was this very new thing called The Internet. It was a concept only few people fathomed. Those few knew it’s potential and how it might function, but all else didn’t know what was coming. Flash forward to today… one does not need any form of…

Sometime in January, I ran into my friend and fellow MEST Alum Emmanuel at the MEST incubator. We had a long chat about technology, blockchain, data science and all other frontier tech. Emmanuel got into data science before I did and I always fed off his knowledge whenever I could. …

What to think about when valuing your startup — As a founder at an early stage startup, you, an investor or someone else is going to be interested in the value of your business. Now, a third party looking from the outside in is looking through certain experiences and biases that may not necessarily align with how you see…

A data science point-of-view — The year 2017 was good for the Nigerian music industry. There were new collaborations with local and international artists, and an array of never ending hit songs. It also had it’s fair share of controversies headlined by Wizkid’s and Davido’s beef and reunion. After reading this article, I began to…

And some tools that helped — I am a lover of technology. I loved owning the greatest gadgets, staying on top of the latest happenings in tech and discussing tech. I even switched careers to technology. But I realised I was consumed, I was addicted. I couldn’t get things done cos I had an array…

Before my sojourn into tech, I used to have a lot of discussions with friends (business grads) and colleagues about different startup ideas. In hindsight, I believe those ideas were not so great. But back then, we believed the ideas were awesome. Why didn’t we execute you might ask? We…

This was inspired by Derek Sivers who created the page so he doesn’t have to keep typing out replies when people ask ‘ what are you doing now’. …