Source: Aid, Evolve
Layoffs, resignations and licence losses seem to be the order of this week. Nestcoin and Twiga laid off some of their staff this week, while employees of Future Africa volunteered to leave the company. Yet another startup, Healthlane, suffers from mismanagement of funds.
Pamela Tetteh Editor, TechCabal.
Healthlane, a startup founded to make hospitals obsolete, is now on the brink of extinction because of its founder’s unbridled spending and erratic decisions.
Nearly $4 million of Nestcoin’s funding from investors—used for salaries and day-to-day operations—are stuck on the now-defunct FTX platform. This has led the crypto startup to lay off nearly half of its workforce.
President Ruto announced in September that 66% of blacklisted Kenyan loan defaulters would be whitelisted. Now, the Central Bank of Kenya has directed credit reference bureaus and commercial facilities to stop denying Kenyans loans solely because of negative credit scores.
Nigerian-born fintech Paystack has secured a payment service provider (PSP) licence from the Central Bank of Kenya. With this licence, Paystack can now facilitate payments and optimise merchant experience for Kenyan businesses.
South Africa has cut ties with the now-bankrupt crypto exchange platform FTX. To insulate itself from the imminent collapse, cryptocurrency market maker, Ovex, disassociated itself from FTX—one of its major investors. As a result, FTX lost its local Financial Service Provider (FSP) licence in SA.
The tides have turned and brought a second chance to the shores of Sky.Garden. Two months ago, the Kenya-based marketplace announced that it would shut down in October, but thanks to an IP acquisition, it will now stay open.
If you like food, drinks, loud music, and the sheer threat of meeting new cool people, then Z! Fest is the place to be.
To end its monopoly in the telecom sector, the Ethiopian government is giving up a 40% stake in Ethio Telecom to private players. It is also inviting other telecoms to operate in the country. Safaricom currently operates in Ethiopia and has grown to over 1,000,000 subscribers.
Twiga is laying off and branching out. The Kenyan agritech startup has laid off 21% of its workforce. The company’s in-house sales team was shut down, and now it is branching out into a new sales model.
While other companies are laying off staff, employees of VC firm, Future Africa, are voluntarily leaving the company. It appears to be because the company is switching from VC to venture studio, which reportedly calls for a smaller crew.
Orange has joined Africa’s 5G gang. Its affiliate in Botswana has become the first Orange affiliate to launch a commercial 5G network in Africa. It will be used to launch other services in health, IoT, virtual reality, and augmented reality.
During his mass layoff, Elon Musk sacked most of the Twitter Africa team in Ghana, one week after the launch of their office. Facebook and Amazon, which also have offices in Africa, are laying off employees too. What will happen to their offices in Africa?
How well can you guess paswords? Bring out the hacker in you.
Written by: Ngozi Chukwu
Edited by: Pamela Tetteh
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