Some customers write a bad review. Sometimes a brand fights back. And sometimes, the fight becomes headline news.

In an era where a single tweet, TikTok, or Facebook post can dent a brand’s reputation, some African companies have taken “defending their name” to extremes; dragging customers and critics to court, threatening multimillion-dollar suits, or even involving police.

From tomato paste makers and biscuit brands to beauty labels and smartphone giants, these five African companies turned what should have been minor customer complaints into full-blown legal battles, and in the process, showed just how thin the line is between defending reputation and torching it.

Here are real cases revealing the perilous line between protecting reputation and silencing dissent:

1. Erisco Foods vs. Chioma Okoli (Nigeria)

In September 2023, Chioma Okoli, a consumer in Lagos, posted a Facebook review claiming that Erisco’s Nagiko Tomato Mix tasted “too much sugar”.

What followed was a chain of legal actions. Erisco filed a petition, the Police arrested Okoli, and the matter turned into a full-blown court case.

Erisco’s CEO, Eric Umeofia, made some forceful statements:

“I am pursuing legal charges against her because I have a conscience. Is she right to falsely criticise my product, and people are supporting her?,” he fumed. “I have over 3000 people in my factory; indirectly, we are paying 20,000 people. I cannot allow this type of ‘syndicate’ to come and destroy my business.”

Okoli’s legal representation countered strongly. She has threatened to demand NGN 500 M (~USD 334 K at current rates) from Erisco for violation of her human rights, saying the company’s actions went far beyond what is reasonable.

The saga has become a lightning rod in Nigeria for debates about weaponising cybercrime laws to muzzle legitimate consumer criticism.

This case also highlighted the potential for the Cybercrime Act in Nigeria to be used in defamation or “misinformation” cases, raising concerns among consumer rights advocates, activists, and legal experts about the chilling effects on legitimate criticism.

2. Nuvita Biscuits vs. TikTok Reviewer (Kenya)

Back in 2018, Kenyan TikTokers and Facebook users began complaining that Nuvita’s biscuits were “shrinking” in size while prices rose.

When a popular content creator posted a sarcastic video showing a tiny biscuit in her palm, Nuvita hit back. They issued public denials, flagging takedown requests, and allegedly pressuring the influencer’s agency to silence her.

The dispute escalated into public rows, removal requests for ads, and reported attempts to pressure or discredit the critic, a classic example of a brand pushing back at a consumer’s public review and commentary.

Rather than quelling the backlash, Nuvita’s combative stance supercharged it, with memes, boycott hashtags, and coverage in Kenyan business outlets dissecting its PR blunder.

The incident became a textbook cautionary tale for Kenyan marketers on the dangers of escalating snarky reviews into corporate vendettas.

3. Van Deventer Inc vs. Sizwe Mdakane (South Africa)

In 2023, a South African law firm, Van Deventer Inc, attempted to use the courts to silence a former client, Sizwe Mdakane, after he posted a negative review of the firm’s service on Google Reviews.

Mdakane complained that the advice he received from junior practitioners at the firm was poor. The firm believed this criticism “implied it was unprofessional, dishonest and untrustworthy,” and sought a court order to force the removal of the post and restrain Mdakane from making further comments.

The Gauteng High Court rejected the application. Judge Stuart Wilson, in his ruling, stressed that what matters in defamation isn’t necessarily the intent of the critic, but how a “reasonable reader of ordinary intelligence” would interpret the statement. He found that Mdakane’s comments, while critical, did not meet the legal threshold for defamation that justifies gagging speech.

The judgment was hailed by legal commentators as a landmark win for consumer speech in South Africa.

4. Native Child Africa vs. Beauty Influencer (South Africa)

In 2021, South African haircare brand Native Child Africa sought an interdict (court injunction) against a local beauty influencer who had posted Instagram Stories calling its products unsafe.

The company argued the posts were false and defamatory; the court granted an interim interdict forcing the influencer to stop posting any further criticism pending full trial.

Consumer-rights groups criticised the move as “corporate censorship via lawfare,” warning it could chill honest product reviews.

The case underscored how South African defamation law can be used pre-emptively to muzzle critics, even before any full evidence hearing.

5. OPPO Kenya vs. AIfluence / Influencers

A more modern twist on review-based conflict is playing out in the influencer economy. In early 2025, OPPO Kenya sued the marketing agency AIfluence over a dispute triggered by content creators who claimed they were not paid for their work promoting OPPO’s Reno12 series campaign.

Influencers like Flaqo Raz publicly shared that they had created three months’ worth of content in only two weeks under pressure from OPPO and AIfluence, only for payments to be delayed or not delivered, even five months later.

OPPO Kenya insists it fulfilled its obligations to AIfluence, making an initial 50 % down payment, then the remaining 50% once work was complete, on 25 October 2024.

Still, with unpaid influencers complaining, OPPO filed suit alleging defamation and brand damage due to the agency’s failure.

The earlier mentioned Flaqo, put it plainly: “How you both have handled the influencer team is absolutely disappointing and downright shameful.”

OPPO insists it paid AIfluence in full and accused the agency of defamation for letting unpaid influencers tarnish its brand.

The post 5 Times African Businesses Fought People For Bad Reviews And It Backfired appeared first on WeeTracker.

Gregory Rockson, founder and chief executive of Ghanaian health technology firm mPharma, is stepping down after 11 years, the founder has revealed. He will transition to the role of Chairman of the board, while Chief Operating Officer Kwesi Arhin will be promoted to CEO, effective Sept. 1, 2025.

The leadership change at one of Africa’s most prominent healthtech startups follows a period of significant restructuring, including a major round of layoffs and a strategic shift toward operational efficiency and new markets.

Arhin, who joined mPharma in 2021 and most recently served as COO, will take the helm. His background in finance and global consulting is seen as aligning with the company’s renewed focus on a disciplined growth model.

The move is a common transition for venture-backed startups, where founders move to a strategic board role as the company matures.

The CEO change caps a volatile period for the company. In September 2023, mPharma laid off approximately 150 employees, which Rockson at the time linked to macroeconomic challenges and a severe devaluation of Nigeria’s currency.

Months later, in January 2024, the company secured USD 13.6 M in new funding from investors, including the Sanofi Global Health Unit Impact Fund.

That capital has supported a strategic pivot, including a recent push into Francophone Africa, where the company reported an annualised revenue run rate of USD 1.5 M within seven months.

Founded in 2014, mPharma manages a network of pharmacies and clinics to improve access to affordable medicine. It has raised over USD 65 M to date and operates in several African countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya.

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The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) has announced its decision to revoke the licenses of 42 television stations. Citing a persistent failure to comply with regulatory requirements, the move signals a continued effort by the CA to enforce the provisions of the Kenya Information and Communications Act (Cap. 411).

The stations have been given a seven-day notice to cease operations, with all broadcast resources reverting to the Authority. It is not clear when the licences will be revoked, because the statement was issued on August 22, but gazetted on September 12. So far, most of the TV stations listed are still in operation.

The revocation, announced by CA Director-General David Mugonyi, is the latest in a series of actions aimed at sanitising the broadcasting sector. This follows a similar crackdown in 2024, when the Authority revoked the licenses of 75 TV and radio stations.

The current list of affected broadcasters includes well-known outlets such as Mount Kenya TV, owned by politician Purity Ngirici and her husband; NAI TV, owned by renown media personality Jimmi Gathu; Wananchi TV, owned by Wananchi Group, which also owns ISP Zuku; Fanaka TV, owned by politician and former cabinet secretary Moses Kuria, and Metropol TV, owned by the parent company that also owns credit reference bureau Metropol.

According to a statement from the CA, the reasons for the revocations are wide-ranging but centre on critical regulatory breaches. These include the failure to pay license fees, non-compliance with licensing conditions, and in some cases, a complete cessation of operations. The Authority maintains that these measures are essential to uphold broadcasting standards and ensure a fair and transparent media environment.

The directive has raised concerns about the future of many smaller and independent media houses. For the affected stations, the immediate implication is a total shutdown of their operations, rendering them unable to broadcast or provide any services. For Zuku in particular, this will curtail one of their critical value-add services.

While the affected stations have the option to appeal, the CA’s stance indicates that the path to reinstatement will be challenging. This action underscores the CA’s commitment to holding all broadcasters accountable, regardless of their size or reach.

Here is the full list of affected stations:

Apple Truth Television owned by Apple Truth Television Network Limited
Metropol TV owned by Comprehensive Business Media Limited
Corporate Media TV owned by Corporate Media Communications
DG TV owned by Dominion Generation Limited
Doxa TV owned by Doxa Television
Dunamis KTV owned by Dunamis Television Network Limited
Masai TV owned by Enaang Maa TV Limited
Ezra Christian TV owned by Ezra Christian TV Limited
Fanaka TV owned by Fanaka Television Limited
Faith Estate TV owned by Fort Hall College Limited
Talent TV owned by Gates Africa Education Trust
Champion TV owned by Heroes Communications Limited
ILM TV owned by ILM Media Limited
NAI TV owned by JimmiGathu Incorporated Limited
The Mirror Television owned by Jmax Media Services Limited
Ziwa TV owned by Jusga Wanjira Construction Limited
Kingdom Ambassadors TV owned by Kingdom Ambassadors Media Group
Limited
Uboro TV owned by Kirinyaga Multimedia College
Kokwo Television owned by Kokwo Radio International Limited
Bulsho TV owned by Lufman Company Limited
Manifestation TV owned by Manifestation TV Limited
Mount Kenya TV owned by Mount Kenya Media Limited
Limited Pillar TV owned by Mt. Kenya Blessings Company
Tourism and Wildlife TV (Safari Channel) owned by Next Options Limited

Ongatet owned by Ongatet Television Network
Mbugi TV owned by Outcom Media Limited
Safina Television owned by Safina T.V Limited
Shakaal Television owned by Shakaal Media Network Limited
Sugan TV owned by Sugan Media Group
Tama TV owned by Tama Media Group Limited
Sawa Television owned by Tano Entertainment Network
The Word Music TV owned by The Word Music Limited
Soko TV owned by Thirties Media Limited
Thjiwe TV owned by Thstone Television Limited
Tem TV owned by Triple Edge Media Limited
Ukweli TV Kenya owned by Ukweli Sounds and Video Limited
Value TV owned by Valutel Limited
Wananchi TV owned by Wananchi Television Network Limited
009 TV owned by 009 Television Limited
Ability TV owned by Ability Channel Limited
Ace TV owned by Ace Television Limited
Superflex Television owned by Admerline Construction Limited

Featured Image Courtesy: New Frame

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As the world accelerates toward cleaner energy and transport, Morocco is cementing its place on the global clean energy map with a landmark agreement to host Africa’s first battery gigafactory.

Backed by a USD 5.6 B investment from China’s Gotion High-Tech, the project is set to transform the North African kingdom into a major supplier of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy storage, a strategic leap for both Morocco and the continent.

The gigafactory will be located in Kenitra, northwest Morocco, an industrial hub already home to major carmakers. Construction is underway, with production expected to begin in the third quarter of 2026.

The plant’s first phase will deliver 20 gigawatt-hours (GWh) annually, enough to power hundreds of thousands of EVs. At full capacity, the factory is designed to reach 100 GWh, placing Morocco among the world’s largest producers of advanced batteries.

A Mega-Project with Mega Impact

With a total projected cost of USD 6.5 B, the gigafactory ranks among the largest industrial projects ever launched in Africa. The initial phase alone involves USD 1.3 B in investment and is expected to create 17,000 direct and indirect jobs. Over the course of five development stages, the project is expected to employ more than 10,000 workers directly.

Unlike many assembly plants that depend on imported parts, the Kenitra facility plans to also produce cathodes and anodes, the critical components of lithium-ion batteries. This vertical integration reduces Morocco’s reliance on foreign supply chains and adds a layer of security and cost competitiveness that few other regions in Africa, or even Europe, can currently match.

“This is not just about production capacity,” said Khalid Qalam, Gotion’s Moroccan director, who confirmed that earthworks are complete and construction is set to accelerate. “It’s about building an entire value chain in Morocco that serves Europe, Africa, and beyond.”

Morocco at the Crossroads of the Energy Transition

For Morocco, the gigafactory is a strategic play. The country has spent the last decade diversifying beyond agriculture and textiles, and its automotive sector is already leading its exports, making it Africa’s leading car producer. In 2024, Morocco’s car industry posted record overseas sales of MAD 157 B (USD 15.7 B), cementing its place as the European Union’s top automotive supplier, surpassing China, Japan, and India.

With Europe preparing to ban new fossil fuel cars by 2035, demand for EV batteries is surging. Morocco is uniquely positioned to meet that demand. Around 85% of the gigafactory’s output will be exported to Europe, offering the bloc a reliable alternative to Asian supply routes that have dominated the sector.

The project also strengthens Morocco’s ties with global automakers already present in the country, including Renault and Stellantis, while opening opportunities to serve the fast-growing market for renewable energy storage in Africa and the Middle East.

Overall, the factory aligns with Morocco’s national strategy to retain skilled talent, foster innovation, and reduce economic dependence on traditional sectors. By pivoting toward high-tech industries, Morocco is securing its position in the future global economy.

China’s Strategic Play in Africa

The gigafactory underscores China’s deepening role in Africa’s industrial future. Gotion High-Tech, a leading battery producer, is spearheading the project, but it is not alone. Other Chinese companies, including BTR, CNGR, Hailiang, and Shinzoom, are investing heavily in Morocco’s battery and materials sector, setting up Morocco as a strategic hub for green technology in North Africa.

For Beijing, this is part of a larger strategy: pairing infrastructure and industrial investment to reshape global clean energy supply chains. Morocco’s location just across the Mediterranean from Europe makes it a natural bridgehead for China’s ambitions.

Meanwhile, China’s role in Morocco’s gigafactory is part of a wider push across Africa, where it has steadily expanded from railways and ports to energy and industrial projects in countries like Nigeria.

The implications extend far beyond Morocco. By hosting Africa’s first battery gigafactory, the country is setting a precedent for how the continent can move up the value chain from exporting raw minerals to manufacturing advanced clean technologies.

Ultimately, the Morocco-China partnership is more than an industrial deal. It is a symbol of a new era in which African nations are emerging as active players in the global energy transition. By anchoring the continent’s first battery gigafactory, Morocco has positioned itself as a bridge between Africa, Europe, and Asia in one of the century’s most strategic industries.

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As Netflix and Amazon Prime retreat from Nigeria’s original content scene, two of Nollywood’s biggest players, Inkblot Studios and Filmhouse Group, are betting that the time is finally right for a homegrown streaming service. Their joint venture, Kava, is set to launch in August 2025, promising a curated library of Nollywood films and series backed by scale, strategy, and a touch of realism.

At first glance, it’s an ambitious leap. Kava enters a streaming landscape littered with cautionary tales—iROKOtv chief among them—while global streamers pull back on African investments and creators increasingly pivot to YouTube in search of monetisation and autonomy.

But Kava’s founders insist they’ve learned from past failures. And rather than chase Netflix’s scale or Iroko’s first-mover status, they’re building for depth—with a model that leans on high-quality local content, diaspora appeal, and a sustainable, multi-platform ecosystem.

“We’re not just streaming films. We’re fueling careers and building an infrastructure for African storytelling,” says Kene Okwuosa, Kava’s co-CEO and head of Filmhouse Group.

Filmhouse boasts West Africa’s largest cinema chain and controls a vertically integrated studio-distribution network through FilmOne. Inkblot Studios, behind hits like The Set Up and Up North, was the first Nigerian production house to ink licensing deals with both Netflix and Amazon.

The platform launches with over 30 premium Nollywood titles and promises fresh drops weekly. Featured titles include Alakada Bad and Boujee, Owambe Thieves, What About Us, and House Job. Originals are in the pipeline, and Kava eventually plans to scale beyond Nigeria to tell stories across Africa.

But more than content, the founders say, Kava is a “digital infrastructure” project; a way to centralise Nollywood’s fractured monetisation channels, serve fans directly, and offer creators fairer economics than the ad-driven instability of YouTube or the bureaucratic lag of foreign licensing.

“When we deliver content at scale to audiences beyond ourselves, they’ll fall in love with the stories. They just don’t know it yet,” says Inkblot’s Chinaza Onuzo, who serves as Kava’s co-CEO.

Kava arrives at a transitional moment. Netflix and Prime Video have dialled back their local originals after a brief Nollywood shopping spree between 2020 and 2022. What’s hitting screens now, like Kemi Adetiba’s To Kill A Monkey, are the last remnants of that era. New commissions have slowed to a crawl.

This vacuum has driven creators to YouTube, where lighter, faster productions offer greater creative control and instant ad payouts. But the economics remain brutal. CPMs in Nigeria hover around USD 1.00, and a star actor might cost millions of naira, meaning millions of weekly views are required to break even, let alone profit.

Subscription platforms (SVODs) aren’t much better. iROKOtv, once hailed as the “Netflix of Africa,” spent over USD 100 M trying to crack the Nigerian market, only to retreat in 2023 and pivot to diaspora users in the U.S. and U.K. Its active user base peaked at under 200,000. Even its founder Jason Njoku now insists: “SVOD can’t work here.”

Fresh attempts at wooing the diaspora indicate a push for untapped opportunities, however. Roughly five million Nigerians live abroad, sending more than USD 20 B home every year. They’re already used to subscriptions and hungry for high-quality content that reflects their culture. Kava, along with other newcomer rivals, such as EbonlyLife ON Plus, is chasing that niche.

Kava’s leadership sees itself less as a Netflix clone and more of a niche but deeply committed hub for loyal fans. Product chief Damola Ademola compares the model to anime or horror streaming services like Shudder: “African movies can easily be just like that,” he told TechCabal.

Funding is in motion. A friends-and-family round has already closed, with institutional backing from TLG Capital and VestedWorld. More capital will be instrumental in expanding Kava’s footprint across Africa and into the U.K. and Europe. Yet even with funding, no one is pretending this will be easy.

Feature Image Credits: BusinessDayNG

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Egypt’s Elmenus, an online food discovery platform, has appointed Walid El-Saadany as its new chief executive officer, replacing founder Amir Allam after more than a decade leading the company.

The announcement marks a leadership handover at a time when the food-tech platform is planning to expand across more cities and invest in new digital infrastructure.

El-Saadany, who will also join the board of directors, is expected to guide the company through a new phase focused on scaling operations, integrating artificial intelligence, and building closer relationships with restaurant partners.

He takes over from Amir Allam, who founded Elmenus in 2011 with USD 5 K and a small team, and built it into one of the country’s best-known platforms for food discovery and delivery. Allam will remain on the board and stay involved in the company’s strategic direction.

Allam, reflecting on the transition, said he felt the timing was right to step back from day-to-day leadership. “What began with a laptop and two people has become a household brand that has impacted millions of users, created jobs for tens of thousands,” he said. “It is now the right time to pass the baton as the company enters a new phase.”

The company says Elmenus now reaches over 8.5 million users annually and works with more than 12,000 restaurants across four cities, with 1,000 of those currently offering online ordering. It has raised USD 30 M in funding from regional and global investors, including Careem and Global Ventures.

El-Saadany enters the role with nearly two decades of experience in tech, logistics, and venture-backed startups. He previously led Otlob through two key acquisitions, first by Foodpanda and later by Delivery Hero, which eventually rebranded the platform as Talabat. His background is seen as a key asset as Elmenus looks to strengthen its operational structure and broaden its market reach.

At Elmenus, he is expected to focus on expanding the platform’s presence beyond Cairo, Alexandria, and Giza into underserved cities and towns, where Elmenus plans to onboard more than 4,000 new restaurants in the coming period.

As part of the strategy, Elmenus plans to roll out AI-driven features aimed at improving restaurant discovery, delivery times, and offering more personalised recommendations to users. These changes are aimed at increasing efficiency while helping restaurant partners manage operations, pricing, and customer engagement more effectively.

Part of the company’s roadmap also includes investment in local talent development and workforce training, with initiatives that include upskilling riders and developers, as well as supporting small restaurant operators and women-led kitchens.

The leadership shift comes as Egypt’s food delivery and digital payments markets continue to grow, driven by rising smartphone adoption, fintech expansion, and increased demand for convenience and local service. Elmenus is positioning itself to benefit from those trends by enhancing both its consumer experience and its back-end tools for restaurants.

El-Saadany is expected to focus on execution and scale, with an eye toward long-term stability in a competitive and fast-moving market.

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Nigeria’s bubbly fintech sector is under fresh scrutiny after the country’s anti-corruption agency uncovered a sprawling identity fraud scheme involving thousands of young Nigerians selling biometric data to digital finance platforms.

According to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), over 12,000 individuals are allegedly harvesting and reselling critical identity information—including Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs) and National Identification Numbers (NINs)—to fintech companies for as little as NGN 5 K (~USD 3.33) per identity.

The illicit trade, described by the EFCC as a “threat to national security,” exposes a troubling weakness in the Know Your Customer (KYC) processes meant to secure Nigeria’s digital financial systems.

In some cases, scammers reportedly pay victims between NGN 1.5 K and NGN 2 K to surrender personal data, including ID photos, address details, and national ID slips. These details are then used to open accounts linked to fraudulent investment schemes, or to launder money via cryptocurrency and microfinance channels.

The alleged fraudsters, often referred to as “Account Suppliers” or “KYC Groups,” have created a black market for verified identities, exploiting the very infrastructure designed to enhance trust and access in the country’s digital economy.

While the EFCC did not publicly name the fintech companies implicated in the ongoing investigation, it confirmed that arrests have been made and that recovery efforts are underway.

The fallout has also reached Nigeria’s National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), which has moved to distance itself from the scandal. In a statement, NIMC’s spokesperson Kayode Adegoke denied institutional responsibility, stressing that the commission had repeatedly warned citizens against disclosing their NINs to unauthorised parties.

“The NIMC will not be held responsible for any personal information shared by an individual directly or by proxy for the purpose of financial gain,” the statement read. The agency encouraged the public to use its NINAuth mobile app to better control and protect their identity data.

Beyond the data-selling racket, the EFCC also flagged a parallel scheme involving malware and phishing. In one instance, victims were lured by a fake airline promo offering 50% off tickets in exchange for a NGN 500.00 “charity” donation. The scam prompted users to download a counterfeit app embedded with spyware capable of siphoning sensitive banking credentials.

Once accessed, victims’ funds were funneled into accounts, often opened with stolen identities, then converted to crypto to obscure the trail.

The revelations cast a shadow over Nigeria’s fintech boom, which has attracted billions in venture capital and positioned itself as a beacon of innovation and financial inclusion on the continent. The EFCC’s findings now raise urgent questions about compliance lapses and data protection standards in the sector.

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When people think “startup,” they imagine some hoodie-wearing genius building AI in a garage, or inventing the next impossible piece of tech that’ll “change the world.” But innovation doesn’t always come wrapped in code or complexity.

Sometimes, it comes in the form of…a potato. Or a glitter bomb. Or a bag of air. And that’s the thing most people miss. The reason most startup ideas fail is that they’re poorly executed. How an idea is brought to life, packaged, marketed, and monetised can make all the difference.

This same applies to wild ideas. Even the strangest concepts can work when they’re packaged and marketed properly purpose.

And yes, some startups have taken off like that. The products were weird on purpose, but the founders behind them understood their audience and were smart in execution. They leaned into what made their idea unforgettable, doubled down on the absurdity, nailed the pitch and got the right people to buy in.

Although not all started with this intent to reach a broader audience, the success behind some of these startups shows that if you package a product well, you can reach a much wider audience that is willing to go “Take my money,” however weird the idea might be.

Here are ten of the most wonderfully weird, delightfully unexpected startup ideas that took off, even got funded, and in some cases, made a killing.

1. Potato Parcel

Potato Parcel lets you send a message to someone on a real potato. That’s the entire product.

You go to the site, type your message, and they print it on a spud and mail it. It could be a birthday note, a breakup line, or just a picture of your face. It’s absurd on purpose, and people love it for that.

Started in 2015 by Alex Craig, the business grew quickly. In just over a year, they generated over USD 215 K in revenue. When the founder pitched it on Shark Tank, Kevin O’Leary invested USD 50 K for 10% equity. Since then, it’s shipped over 70,000 potatoes worldwide.

Potato Parcel works because it’s a perfect mix of novelty and surprise. It’s a one-time gift that people can’t help but talk about. In a world of boring e-cards and recycled memes, this was just strange enough to break through.

2. Ship Your Enemies Glitter

The concept here is blunt. Pay a small fee and they’ll send your nemesis an envelope filled with loose glitter. It explodes when opened, getting everywhere. You stay anonymous. They get sparkled. Everybody wins. Or loses. Depends on who you ask.

When this site launched in 2015, it went viral overnight. The founder, Mathew Carpenter, received over 2,000 orders in the first 24 hours. He panicked, hated the attention, and sold the site for USD 85 K just days later. The buyer turned it into a long-term business and added new services like confetti bombs and spring-loaded glitter tubes.

This wasn’t about utility. It was about giving people a way to act out their feelings—anonymously, playfully, and with no real consequences. People aren’t buying glitter. They’re buying petty satisfaction.

3. Vitality Air

In the early days, Vitality Air started as a prank. Two Canadian entrepreneurs began bottling fresh air from Banff National Park and selling it online. The packaging looked like something from a health spa, but the product was air.

But in parts of the world where clean air isn’t guaranteed, it hit a nerve. When they launched in China, their first shipment of 500 bottles sold out in under a week. Since then, they’ve expanded to India, South Korea, the Middle East, and the UK.

Each can of air costs around USD 20 to USD 30, with some high-end versions going for more. The brand has grown far beyond novelty. It’s now marketed as a health and wellness item for urban professionals living in polluted cities.

4. Dinner in the Sky

Dinner in the Sky offers a fine dining experience, but suspended 150 feet in the air. A crane lifts a platform where guests are seated, belted into chairs around a table, with a chef and waitstaff in the middle. The menu is high-end. So is the adrenaline.

This started in Belgium in 2006. It sounded like a stunt. But the demand kept coming. It now operates in over 60 countries, hosting everything from private dinners to corporate events and tourism experiences. They’ve partnered with brands like Ferrari and Forbes. The company has since spun off into multiple franchises, licensing the concept around the world.

5. Unagi Travel

Unagi Travel is a Japanese company that runs tours for stuffed animals. Customers ship their plush toy to Tokyo, and it’s taken on guided “tours” of local sights. Along the way, it’s photographed at temples, shops, restaurants, and even trains. The toy comes back with photos and souvenirs.

This isn’t marketed to kids. It’s often used by adults, many of them dealing with anxiety, disability, or grief. The stuffed animals represent emotional comfort, and sending them on a journey becomes symbolic. Some say it helps them feel like they’re part of the trip, even if they can’t go themselves.

Unagi Travel has been covered by CNN, NPR, and the BBC. While exact revenue numbers aren’t public, they’ve handled thousands of plush travellers from over 30 countries.

6. Rent-A-Friend

Rent-A-Friend is exactly what it sounds like. You pay someone to hang out with you. That could mean going to a movie, grabbing lunch, attending a wedding, or just walking around the city. It’s strictly platonic, so no dating or romance. Just time and company.

Founder Scott Rosenbaum originally built it off the back of another business (a dating site), but Rent-A-Friend stood on its own. It launched quietly but picked up traction as loneliness became a more public issue. Not everyone has a circle of friends on standby, and sometimes people just want someone to talk to who won’t judge them or ghost them.

The idea was easy to dismiss at first. But since launching in 2009, the site has grown to hundreds of thousands of registered “friends” worldwide. Some earn up to USD 2 K a week, depending on availability and location. When you look at the way people crave connection, especially in cities where millions live side by side without speaking to each other, it makes sense. Rent-A-Friend stepped into that gap and built a business on something we usually take for granted.

7. Entomo Farms

Entomo Farms raises crickets and turns them into food. As in real food for real people. They grind them into flour, press them into bars, and use them in protein-rich recipes meant to replace traditional meat or dairy sources.

In Western countries, this still turns heads. But in other parts of the world, insects have been on the menu for centuries. What makes Entomo Farms different is that they’ve found a way to present it to new markets as clean, nutritious, and sustainable.

The company started in Canada and quickly positioned itself as a leader in the edible insect movement. It has since raised millions in funding, including a USD 3.7 M investment from investors like Maple Leaf Foods to expand production and distribution. Its cricket protein is now used in over 50 product lines across North America.

8. DoodyCalls

DoodyCalls is a pet waste removal service. You call them, and they show up to clean the dog poop from your yard. That’s the entire business.

It was founded in 2000 by Jacob D’Aniello and his wife after they realised people would pay to have someone else deal with their dog’s mess.

It’s grown steadily for over two decades, expanding across the U.S. and becoming the largest pet waste franchise in the country as pet ownership has exploded, and not everyone wants to deal with the mess. DoodyCalls took an everyday annoyance and turned it into a professional, reliable service.

DoodyCalls handles tens of thousands of service calls per week and was acquired in 2021 by Authority Brands, a major home services conglomerate.

9. Pavlok

Pavlok is a wearable device that shocks you when you engage in a habit you want to stop. If you bite your nails, hit snooze, or scroll too long on your phone, you get a jolt. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make your brain take notice.

Inventor Maneesh Sethi first built a prototype with duct tape and an Arduino. After blogging about hiring someone to slap him every time he used Facebook, the idea blew up. Pavlok raised over USD 284 K on Indiegogo, launched to strong press coverage, and eventually gained over 100,000 users worldwide. They later went on Shark Tank, where Sethi famously turned down Kevin O’Leary’s offer, calling him “Mr. Know-Nothing.” The moment went viral, and so did Pavlok.

It’s based on behavioural conditioning. Do the thing, get the shock. Repeat it enough times, and your brain starts to associate the habit with discomfort.

The concept sounds harsh, but it appealed to people who’ve tried and failed with softer methods.

10. And Vinyly

And Vinyly offers a way to press a loved one’s ashes into a vinyl record. You choose the music or audio. They handle the production. What comes back is a playable record infused with the physical remains of someone you lost.

The founder, Jason Leach, had worked in the music industry and saw a gap for something more meaningful than a standard urn or grave. The idea took off in niche death-positive circles and art communities. They’ve since been featured in VICE, The Guardian, and BBC, and the service costs around USD 4 K–USD 5 K per record, depending on customisation.

It’s not a mass-market service. It doesn’t need to be. And Vinyly found a small group of people looking for a different kind of closure, and it gave them a way to hold onto it.

If you look at every business here, they were born from an idea that sounded uninvestable, unscalable, or just plain weird. Yet each one carved out a customer base and made real money. Some went viral. Some flew under the radar. But they all proved one thing: There’s room in the market for strange ideas, as long as they’re built with care and delivered with intent.

The post 10 Outrageous Startup Ideas That Actually Worked appeared first on WeeTracker.

Ghana is taking decisive steps to bring cryptocurrency under official oversight, with plans to license and regulate digital asset platforms in a move that could reshape the country’s financial landscape.

The Bank of Ghana is finalising a regulatory framework expected to reach parliament by September, according to Governor Johnson Asiama. This development comes as millions of Ghanaians have already embraced cryptocurrencies for daily transactions and cross-border trade, despite operating in a legal gray area until now.

The push for regulation reflects both the growing influence of digital currencies in Ghana’s economy and the challenges they pose to traditional financial systems.

With an estimated 3 million Ghanaians (about 17% of the adult population) using virtual currencies, authorities are keen to bring these transactions into the formal financial sector. Recent data shows Ghana recorded USD 3 B in cryptocurrency transactions between July 2023 and June 2024, per Web3 Africa Group, though this pales in comparison to neighboring Nigeria’s USD 59 B volume during the same period.

Governor Asiama acknowledged the urgency of regulation, stating “We are actually late in the game.” Many economic activities involving cryptocurrency payments currently escape official records due to the lack of oversight, creating blind spots for monetary policymakers.

This gap has become particularly problematic given the Ghanaian cedi’s dramatic fluctuations – the currency gained 48% over the past year following a 25% drop in the previous 12 months. Such volatility complicates inflation management in a country heavily dependent on imports.

The proposed framework aims to strike a balance between harnessing cryptocurrency’s potential benefits and mitigating its risks. Officials hope regulation will help stabilise the local currency, attract strategic investment, and improve financial transparency while protecting consumers from fraud. Kwame Oppong, head of fintech and innovation at the central bank, emphasised the need for safeguards, noting “Our goal for this whole process is to put safe guards and rails around it.”

With inflation at 13.7% and policy interest rates at 28%, the stakes for getting this balance right couldn’t be higher for Ghana’s economic future. As Ghana joins a growing list of African nations establishing cryptocurrency regulations, the coming months will reveal how effectively the new framework can reconcile innovation with financial stability in one of West Africa’s most dynamic economies.

The post Ghana Moves To Regulate Cryptocurrency As Millions Embrace Digital Assets appeared first on WeeTracker.

Jumia made headlines as the “Amazon of Africa” for much of the last decade, becoming Africa’s first tech unicorn and going public at USD 14.00 a share in 2019 before soaring past USD 50.00. But in 2025, it’s a complicated tale, exiting markets, shedding services, early backers pulling out, and its stock under USD 5.00.

Today, a surprising player is in the wings, plotting a takeover of Africa’s biggest e-commerce company, reports suggest. The suitor is Axian Telecom, the Mauritius-based telecom and fintech group, which recently raised USD 600 M in bonds and quietly amassed an 8% stake in Jumia.

With telecom, mobile money, and brands like Yas and Mixx under its umbrella, which collectively fetched USD 1.1 B in revenue and USD 55 M in profit last year, Axian aims to integrate connectivity, payments, and commerce in one system. Its bond raise, reportedly oversubscribed threefold, was marketed as digital infrastructure capital.

The takeover bid is unfolding against the backdrop of Jumia’s own pivot. CEO Francis Dufay has spent the past two years cutting back—exiting non-core markets like South Africa and Tunisia, cutting services and staff, and narrowing operations to nine key countries.

He’s moved the company from reckless expansion to consolidating fundamentals: rural distribution, pick-up stations, logistics, and stronger margins. “We must deliver the numbers. Execution will rebuild our credibility,” Dufay told the FT last month. And he’s putting a timeline on it: profitability by early 2027.

The stakes are high. Chinese platforms like Temu and Shein are muscling in, using ultra-cheap prices and slick logistics to steal share. Jumia has responded by onboarding low-cost Chinese merchants, creating a Shenzhen team of 70, and folding their offerings into the marketplace.

“We believe we can fight them,” Dufay declared, arguing Jumia’s localised approach and product breadth give it an edge.

And yet the macro still bites. Jumia has weathered multiple currency devaluations across key African markets such as Nigeria and Egypt that crushed margins. Its 2024 revenue fell 10% to USD 167.5 M, with negative EBITDA exceeding USD 54 M; Q1 2025 brought further GMV decline, though Dufay noted orders were up 21% in constant currency.

However, despite GMV growth in constant currency, quarterly active users have stayed stagnant as it struggles to find new customers, and loss-making continued—USD 20 M in Q3 2024 and over USD 18 M in Q1 this year. Although, to their credit, Dufay’s cutbacks have slashed annual losses by over USD 150 M, core profitability remains elusive.

That’s where Axian enters the frame. Telecoms have infrastructure, connectivity, customer reach—and increasingly, money. Combine that with Jumia’s logistics and distribution strength, and that adds up to a digital ecosystem capable of bundling mobile data, mobile money, and e-commerce into one consumer offering. That synergy is reminiscent of what telecoms did in Asia.

Axian CEO Hassan Jaber has framed the bond raise as a strategic “digital infrastructure” play; the acquisition talks have already lifted Jumia shares in New York. And while Dufay has bet on rural Africa’s vast potential—“Africa is the last place on earth with massive untapped demand,” as he put it recently —that demand must translate into reliable repurchase behaviour and stable margins.

Yet the cleanup is underway. Jumia’s soft-exit from unsustainable ventures, its pivot toward Chinese-supplied assortment, and a renewed focus on efficient operations have laid the groundwork. Axian stepping in now indicates infrastructure capital may just write the next chapter.

The post A Telco’s Surprise Takeover Bid Offers Jolted & Jilted Jumia A Lifeline appeared first on WeeTracker.

In much of Africa, trade isn’t held back by a lack of goods or buyers but stalled by cash flow. Exporters ship products, then wait 30, 60, sometimes 90 days to get paid. Banks, when they show up at all, take weeks to process financing and charge fees that make it unworkable for small firms.

Ghanaian startup Liquify is betting that this friction can be abstracted, standardised, and sold as a scalable asset class.

The company just raised USD 1.5 M in seed equity and additional debt financing to expand its digital invoice-financing platform, which helps small exporters in Ghana and Kenya get same-day cash for unpaid invoices.

Since launching its beta in late 2024, Liquify has financed over USD 4 M in transactions, mostly agricultural and light manufacturing exports headed to Europe and North America, as it pursues a quest to close Africa’s USD 120 B annual trade finance gap.

The pitch is classic fintech: speed, automation, and bypassing banks. Liquify’s platform wraps onboarding, KYC, AML, credit scoring, and settlement into a streamlined process that clears invoices in hours, not weeks.

“The average bank process takes over 10 days and costs more than USD 10 K to serve a single SME,” said co-founder and CEO Nadya Yaremenko, a former Citi exec who managed a USD 3 B trade finance portfolio. “We bring that down to a fraction of the time and cost.”

But what Liquify is really doing is making trade receivables investable. The startup buys export invoices at a discount, offering liquidity to SMEs while giving global investors access to short-term, self-liquidating assets, unlinked from broader financial market swings. Investors get yield; exporters get working capital. Everyone avoids the banks.

Of course, there’s a reason this gap hasn’t been filled. The team has had to build trust with SMEs used to informal lending and persuade foreign investors that fragmented invoice claims from African exporters can function like an asset class.

Co-founder Alberta Asafo-Asamoah, who came from the impact investing world, saw up close how “patient capital” wasn’t fast or flexible enough to scale SME exports. Liquify is taking a more transactional route, one that looks less like aid and more like arbitrage.

With the new funding, Liquify plans to expand its risk and compliance engine, grow into Francophone Africa, and test structured investment products.

Whether African trade finance becomes fintech’s next frontier or just another category of repackaged risk may depend on how well the startup balances local complexity with global appetite. For now, Liquify is betting that Africa’s slowest money problem is also its most bankable.

The post Liquidity Is Costly. Ghana’s Liquify Raised USD 1.5 M To Sell It Cheaply To SMEs appeared first on WeeTracker.

Across markets in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, vendors used to lose nearly a tenth of their daily earnings just by accepting mobile payments. Every transfer from a customer came with a fee (sometimes 5%, even 10%) sliced away by the telecom companies that dominated Senegal’s mobile money market for nearly a decade. Then, in 2018, something changed.

A new player, Wave, arrived with a simple pitch: What if sending money cost almost nothing? And Senegal’s mass market quickly embraced this new order.

That promise—radically cheaper digital payments—has turned Wave into one of Africa’s most valuable startups. Now, with a fresh USD 137 M debt round led by Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) and backed by global development financiers, the company is doubling down on its mission: to make Africa the first cashless continent.

Wave’s rise reads like a playbook for how to disrupt a monopoly. Before its launch, mobile money in West Africa was controlled by telecom operators like Orange, which charged fees as high as 10% per transaction. For millions of small merchants and low-income users, those fees made digital payments more expensive than cash.

Then came Wave—no fees on deposits or withdrawals, just a flat 1% on transfers, with bill payments subsidised by businesses rather than customers. The model was so aggressively consumer-friendly that skeptics questioned its sustainability. Yet six years later, Wave is thriving.

Today, the company operates in eight West African countries, serving 20 million monthly active users through a network of 150,000 mobile money agents. In 2021, it became Francophone Africa’s first unicorn after a record-breaking USD 200 M Series A. Now, with this new funding, it’s eyeing further expansion into Central and East Africa.

The USD 137 M debt round—led by RMB and supported by British International Investment (BII), Norfund, and Finnfund—comes at a pivotal moment. Africa’s startup ecosystem has seen venture funding dip, but debt financing is emerging as an alternative, especially for companies like Wave that have provable scale and revenue.

For development financiers, the appeal is clear as Wave is well-positioned as a financial inclusion machine. “Wave’s platform is a clear example of technology enabling inclusive finance at scale,” said a representative from British International Investment. “This is aligned with our mandate to support digital infrastructure that empowers communities.”

Wave CEO and co-founder Drew Durbin said in a statement that the new “funding means we can help even more people by delivering the best possible product at the lowest possible price.”

“It brings us closer to our mission of making Africa the first cashless continent.”

The numbers back him up. In Senegal alone, Wave now processes more transactions than some traditional banks. And for two years running, it’s been the only African company on Y Combinator’s list of top 50 highest-earning startups.

Wave’s ambitions, however, face real obstacles. Regulators are watching closely as fintechs gain influence, and in some countries, telecom operators still hold political sway. Then there’s the sheer dominance of cash—90% of transactions in Africa are still offline, per World Bank data.

But if anyone can shift that balance, it might be Wave. After all, it’s already done the unthinkable once: making digital money cheaper than cash and accessible to everyone, not just the rich as in the past, while wrestling market share from telecom giants. Now, with fresh capital and a continent still ripe for disruption, it’s betting it can do it again at scale.

The post Senegal’s Wave Adds USD 137 M War Chest To Topple Africa’s Cash Habit & Costly Rivals appeared first on WeeTracker.

The hospital ward wasn’t quiet. It rarely ever was. Phones buzzed, patients coughed, nurses called out vitals, the agitated and impatient nagged, and through it all, young doctor Tobi Olatunji scribbled furiously, trying to keep up with the flood of patients. Thirty on a light day. Double when things got bad.

It was in that noise—noisy, gritty, chaotic—that Intron was born. Today, that same startup, now rebranded from Intron Health to just Intron, is making voice AI models that reportedly outperform OpenAI, Google, AWS, and Azure when it comes to recognising African accents. Intron stacks up well compared to big names, publicly available benchmarks and datasets reflect.

What started as a solution to medical paperwork has morphed into a robust suite of speech tools, called Sahara, powering voice recognition in hospitals, courtrooms, call centres, and government agencies across the continent.

The premise is simple: Big Tech’s speech tools don’t understand Africa. Intron wants to fix that. But building AI for the hardest accents on Earth didn’t start in a lab. It started in Nigeria’s overstretched clinics, where physicians are lucky to have five minutes with a patient and 30 more filling out forms. Olatunji, now Intron’s CEO, saw that broken system up close and decided to do something about it, through code.

***

It’s easy to romanticise startups. But the earliest versions of Intron didn’t even work well. The first doctors who tried the speech-to-text app during the pandemic took 45 minutes to complete their notes—much slower than writing by hand. Some gave up. Others rolled their eyes. But the problem was real: hospital staff overwhelmed, errors stacking up, and patients at risk.

There’s a particularly haunting story: One Dr. Martins, the only physician at his clinic, missed a biomarker on a routine test. The patient, an elderly woman, had a heart attack a few days later. She survived, but barely. The omission wasn’t due to incompetence. He simply didn’t have time.

It was stories like that—and countless others—that pushed Olatunji and his co-founder, Olakunle Asekun, to go deep on speech recognition. Not just adapting foreign tools, but training new models from scratch.

That led to the creation of AccentMix, Intron’s proprietary algorithm designed to handle one of AI’s thorniest challenges: the wild variability of human speech. So far, Sahara’s models have been trained on over 3.5 million audio clips from 18,000+ speakers across 30+ countries. The result? More than 300 African accents recognised with over 92% accuracy, the company claims.

That isn’t only better than Big Tech on paper but a practical breakthrough. For example, in Nigeria’s Ogun State Judiciary, Sahara has cut court transcription times nearly in half. In Uganda, at C-Care hospitals, patient wait times are down and documentation errors are dropping. Branch International, a notable fintech player, now uses Intron’s conversational bots in its call centres to slash queue times.

And unlike most imported models, Intron’s tools don’t stumble on African names, currencies, or medical jargon. It can transcribe “Ayinla” as easily as “John,” “₦1,250” as smoothly as “twenty dollars,” and understands “troponin” just as well as it does “temperature.”

But perhaps the most interesting part of Intron’s story is how it’s moved from a niche healthtech product to something much bigger: voice infrastructure for the continent.

Earlier this year, Intron launched Sahara-Optimus (its general-purpose voice recognition engine), Sahara-TTS (a pan-African text-to-speech system), and Sahara-Voice-Lock (voice authentication for security use cases).

It’s also training Sahara-Titan, a model that can understand, transcribe, and translate across 20 major African languages including Swahili, Hausa, and Zulu. These efforts have gone from research experiments to products shipping now.

It’s a shift that mirrors how platforms like Google started with search, or Amazon with books. Intron began with hospitals, but the engine it’s building is far more universal. “We built for the hardest environment first,” says Olatunji. “Now, our technology scales effortlessly.”

***

Intron isn’t the only startup working on African voice tech, but not many are doing it at this scale or with this data. And while the team still numbers under 20, the traction is real. Intron now serves 40+ organisations across 8 countries, and its models are deployed in healthcare, justice, finance, and youth health initiatives like Audere’s reproductive chatbot in South Africa.

After a USD 1.6 M pre-seed round in 2024, Intron began expanding both its cloud-native and on-prem deployment capabilities—critical in regions with patchy internet—and growing its engineering and research teams. It also joined NVIDIA’s Inception programme and partnered with the Gates Foundation, Google Research, and Digital Square to benchmark global language models across Africa.

Still, challenges persist. Data collection at scale is expensive. Local hardware constraints remain. And global competition is real. While Intron beats the big names on African voice recognition today, OpenAI, Meta, and Google could close the gap quickly. But this is where Intron’s focus becomes its superpower as Big Tech builds for everyone but Intron is Africa-first.

More than two billion people worldwide are underserved by today’s voice AI. For most of them, English isn’t their first language. For many, the tools built in Silicon Valley don’t even work.

That’s not merely an annoyance but a harbinger of real danger. It means errors in clinical notes. Misunderstood legal testimony. Frustrated customers. Lost time. In places where time is a matter of life and death, that gap can’t be shrugged off.

Intron seems on track to build infrastructure that works for the languages, cadences, and constraints of African life. One dictated sentence at a time.

And while it’s still early days, the company’s trajectory shows what happens when you start with the right problem and build deep. Not to catch up with Big Tech, but to leapfrog it on Africa’s terms.

The post An Unlikely AI Startup Born In Nigerian Hospitals Is Doing What Big Tech Still Can’t appeared first on WeeTracker.

Banking in South Africa just took a sharp digital turn. Lesaka Technologies, the fintech firm formerly known as Net1, is acquiring 100% of digital banking upstart Bank Zero in a ZAR 1.1 B (~USD 61 M) deal.

It’s a rare merger of fintech infrastructure and a full banking license that could redefine how financial services reach underserved customers across the country.

The acquisition—announced via a late-night social post by Bank Zero chairman and ex-FNB CEO Michael Jordaan—is being paid for in a mix of Lesaka shares and up to ZAR 91 M in cash.

The deal gives Bank Zero’s shareholders a 12% stake in Lesaka and signals a strategic pivot. Lesaka, having made its name providing fintech rails, now wants to own a bank, too.

Founded in 2021 by Jordaan and banking veteran Yatin Narsai, Bank Zero has quietly built one of the most radically low-cost banking platforms in South Africa.

Its digital-first, zero-fee model has attracted more than 40,000 funded accounts and ZAR 400 M in deposits, without a physical branch in sight. Its patented card technology, which offers separate numbers for different transaction types, is one of many innovations designed to limit fraud and put control back in the hands of users.

But while Bank Zero focused on design and compliance, it lacked scale. Lesaka, on the other hand, has deep distribution across consumer and merchant segments, including a presence on both the Nasdaq and Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

The pitch is synergy: embedded lending, cross-sell, operational leverage. But the real story is about control—of data, of deposits, and of destiny.

By absorbing Bank Zero’s banking license and tech stack, Lesaka gets to escape its dependency on third-party banks. That opens the door to better margins on lending, a tighter loop on customer behaviour, and more regulatory flexibility. It’s also a bet on long-term infrastructure over short-term fintech flash.

Jordaan and Narsai will stay on, and no layoffs are expected following a move that may well signal what the future of South African finance could look like—digitally native, vertically integrated, and built for people who have never truly had a bank that worked for them.

The post SA’s Bank Zero Vowed To Kill Fees—Now It’s Being Acquired To Reinvent Them appeared first on WeeTracker.

Better Auth started in an Addis Ababa bedroom with a stubborn problem. Its founder, Bereket Engida, a self-taught developer, was tired of relying on expensive, opaque services like Auth0 and Firebase to handle the messy, critical job of user signups and logins.

So he built an open-source tool that lets developers embed customisable authentication directly into their own code — and kept all the data where it belonged, in their database.

Today, that tiny project has become one of the fastest-rising developer platforms out of Africa. After gaining 150,000 weekly downloads and 15,000 stars on GitHub, Better Auth has just announced a USD 5 M seed round led by Peak XV, with Y Combinator, Chapter One, and P1 Ventures also joining in. It’s the biggest bet yet on an Ethiopian founder tackling global developer infrastructure.

“This funding fuels the next phase of Better Auth,” reads the company’s announcement. “We wanted to prove that you can build global infrastructure out of Africa,” Engida said in an earlier interview with Addis Insight.

The appeal is obvious. In an era when cybersecurity and privacy concerns dominate, Better Auth is a shot across the bow of hosted services that treat user data like a commodity.

Its TypeScript-based framework gives developers a modular way to implement advanced sign-in, role-based access, and session management, making it ideal for early-stage AI startups and SaaS platforms that want to control their own data and save costs.

For Engida, a programmer who started coding after a friend declined to help him build an e‑commerce search tool, this went beyond making a better login as he set out to reshape an industry that treats access and authentication as a bottleneck.

Better Auth’s approach is rooted in a very specific frustration. “I remember needing an organisation feature. It’s a very common use case for most SaaS applications, but it wasn’t available from these providers,” Engida told TechCrunch.

“So I had to build it from scratch. It took me about two weeks, and I remember thinking, ‘This is crazy; there has to be a better way to solve this.’” So he started coding. And when he posted it to GitHub in September 2024, it quickly caught the attention of developers.

In six months, it went from a fledgling GitHub repo to a bustling library with a dedicated following of over 6,000 developers. Its open source core allows teams to self‑host or pick from plug‑and‑play enterprise add‑ons. That approach has started resonating far beyond its Ethiopian roots, making it the first African-led investment for Peak XV.

“Better Auth’s auth product has seen phenomenal adoption among the next generation of AI startups,” said Peak XV partner Arnav Sahu.

Fresh off a stint in Y Combinator, Engida and his co‑founder Kinfe Michael Tariku now have Silicon Valley backing and a global roadmap. The seed funding will help hire a small engineering team, deepen enterprise tooling, and build a seamless experience for developers wary of vendor lock‑in.

At a time when digital trust is under siege and the cost of relying on Big Tech platforms is rising, this Ethiopian upstart is making the case that the best foundation for a connected world can come from anywhere.

For Engida, it’s still early days. “There’s so much more to build,” the founders note. But in a global market tired of compromises, Better Auth may already be the right tool at the right time.

The post An Ethiopian Coder Just Raised USD 5 M To Build A New Login System For Everyone appeared first on WeeTracker.

MyNextCar (MNC), a key fleet enabler for Bolt in South Africa, has raised USD 10 M in its first institutional funding round—capital that could reshape the country’s low-cost ride-hailing landscape.

The investment, led by London-based Emso Asset Management with backing from Bolt, Assemble Capital, and E2 Investments, will help MNC scale its operations and roll out 1,500 new vehicles under Bolt Lite, a budget-focused category powered by the compact Bajaj Qute.

For Bolt and its partners, it’s a bet on a model that brings affordability, accessibility, and local relevance to South Africa’s mobility market.

Despite the success of Bolt Lite in pilot phases, the journey hasn’t been frictionless. Violent resistance from traditional taxi operators and illegal vehicle impoundments have made lenders wary.

This new funding signals renewed confidence in MNC’s ability to overcome those headwinds and validate an alternative future for urban transport.

To date, MNC has enabled over 700 drivers to earn on Bolt’s platform, with 43% of them being youth and 4% being women.

That demographic tilt is no coincidence. Both Bolt and MNC frame their partnership as part of a broader play to combat youth unemployment and expand financial inclusion via asset-light vehicle access. “This isn’t just about adding cars, it’s about changing lives,” a company spokesperson said.

The investment is also a vote of confidence from Emso, whose previous backing of Moove, a vehicle-financing startup for ride-hailing drivers, signals a growing interest in Africa’s mobility-fintech intersection. E2 Investments’ participation reinforces its impact-driven mandate to fund ventures that generate jobs in underserved segments.

By backing a business model built on small vehicles, lean economics, and broad access, the funders are effectively helping Bolt cement its presence in South Africa’s price-sensitive transport market.

With competition heating up and regulatory tensions still simmering, MNC’s next phase will test whether scale, impact, and margins can co-exist in the country’s rapidly evolving ride-hailing economy.

The post Bolt SA’s Low-Cost Ride Plug MNC Taps USD 10 M—With Moove’s Backer Behind The Wheel appeared first on WeeTracker.

South African agri-tech startup Nile has raised USD 11.3 M (ZAR 200 M) in a fresh funding round to scale its digital agricultural marketplace across Southern Africa, betting that technology can bring coherence and capital into one of the continent’s most chaotic value chains.

The round was led by the Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund, with participation from FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, and existing investor Platform Investment Partners. This brings Nile’s total raised to over USD 16 M since its founding in 2021.

At its core, Nile is a digital B2B marketplace designed to remove the layers of inefficiency that have historically plagued African agriculture. Price opacity, delayed payments, excessive food waste, and too many middlemen between farm and fork are persistent problems.

What started as an online produce exchange has quietly evolved into a one-stop agri-commerce platform, bundling trade, inputs, logistics, and even credit under one interface.

It’s a compelling pitch. By streamlining fragmented supply chains, Nile helps farmers capture more value and access a wider pool of buyers, including export markets in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

The platform now facilitates cross-border trade using road, sea, and air freight, connecting producers from Southern Africa with demand in East and West Africa, and beyond.

But the company’s ambitions go well beyond brokering transactions. Nile is building a digital ecosystem that locks in users with a growing suite of services. It promises everything from fertiliser and packaging to finance and instant payments.

The plan is to deliver immediate utility, then layer on value-added services to drive retention and recurring revenue.

Investors are buying into that vision. “Nile is transforming fresh produce trading by addressing farmers’ full range of needs—from inputs and trading to financing,” said Henry Rahmann of AfricInvest. In a sector long overdue for digitisation, Nile is positioning itself as infrastructure, not just an app.

And the timing seems favourable. Global interest in agri-marketplaces is surging. AgFunder reports a 77% jump in upstream agri-tech funding in emerging markets last year alone.

The post South Africa’s Nile Raises USD 11.3 M To Turn Agric Chaos Into Digital Order appeared first on WeeTracker.

South African coding academy WeThinkCode has secured a USD 2 M grant from Google.org to scale its AI skills training programmes across South Africa and Kenya.

It’s a significant boost to Africa’s rising role in the global digital economy as the move signals not just philanthropic goodwill, but a strategic investment in plugging one of the continent’s most pressing talent gaps: AI readiness.

The funding will empower 12,000 learners—half of them in non-technical roles—to gain practical AI knowledge through a new curriculum designed to meet both the region’s socio-economic realities and its future-of-work ambitions.

The initiative couldn’t be more timely. According to a SAP report cited by the academy, 90% of African companies are already feeling the pain of AI skills shortages, manifesting as delayed projects, abandoned innovations, and lost business.

Founded in 2015 by Arlene Mulder, Camille Agon and Yossi Hasson, WeThinkCode has earned a reputation for its tuition-free, aptitude-based tech training model that targets youth from underserved backgrounds.

This new AI programme is an extension of that mission, with a dual-track approach. One stream will train 6,000 aspiring and early-career software engineers to integrate AI tools into their development workflows.

The other will equip 6,000 junior professionals in fields like healthcare, education, and law to use AI for everyday productivity; think automating admin tasks, synthesising data, and supercharging routine work.

Courses will be delivered in 40 to 80-hour modules, both in-person and online, with local language support built into WeThinkCode’s upgraded learning platform.

The programme will also tap into the academy’s corporate partnerships in finance, telecoms, and tech consulting to help learners showcase their new capabilities—and crucially, get hired.

The grant also positions Google among a growing list of tech giants and VCs betting on Africa’s AI potential. Last year, Nigerian startup JADA raised USD 1 M to train mid-career data professionals in AI leadership roles. Taken together, these efforts suggest that Africa’s AI talent pipeline is coming together.

“We don’t just want to prepare young people for jobs,” said Nyari Samushonga, CEO of WeThinkCode. “We want them to shape the future of work itself.”

The post Africa’s Fledgling AI Hopes Get USD 2 M Push As Google.org Backs SA’s WeThinkCode appeared first on WeeTracker.

Eighteen months ago, Karim Jouini and Jihed Othmani were ready to retire from startup life, fresh off a nine-figure exit.

Their expense management platform, Expensya, had just been acquired by Swedish fintech Medius in a deal reportedly worth over USD 120 M—one of Africa’s largest tech acquisitions made in Tunisia.

But the pull of generative AI and a nagging sense that they had unfinished business has drawn them back into the ring.

Their new startup, Thunder Code, has raised USD 9 M in seed funding to automate and rethink software testing from the ground up using generative AI.

Led by Silicon Badia, with participation from Janngo Capital, Titan Seed Fund, and strategic angels like Roxanne Varza of Station F and Karim Beguir of InstaDeep, the round includes familiar names from the Expensya era, some of whom are former employees turned investors.

Thunder Code is betting that quality assurance (QA), an often-overlooked but crucial bottleneck in software delivery, is ripe for reinvention.

The startup’s platform uses AI “agents” to autonomously understand apps, generate and execute tests, and catch bugs, promising to cut testing time by up to 90%.

In a world obsessed with shipping faster, it’s a pitch that’s already gaining traction with pilot programs in the U.S., France, Tunisia, and Canada.

Unlike Expensya, which took years to mature, Thunder Code shipped its MVP in just six weeks. “We’re moving 10x faster this time,” Jouini says, noting that the product today is already more robust than Expensya was in year four.

The founder emphasises that from day one, they have applied hard lessons: ship fast, hire top-tier talent early, and don’t be afraid of dilution if it buys speed and expertise.

Their timing is sharp. The global software testing market is projected to top USD 100 B by 2027, yet much of it still relies on clunky, code-heavy platforms.

Thunder Code joins a growing list of startups racing to modernise testing with AI, from incumbents like Tricentis to new entrants like Nova AI, but believes its execution speed and real-world traction give it a meaningful edge.

More than just a second act, Thunder Code feels like a startup born from unfinished ambition. “We promised not to do this again,” Jouini admits. “But the opportunity felt too big to ignore.”

The post Tunisian Founders Who Sold For USD 120 M Raise USD 9 M To Do It Again—With AI appeared first on WeeTracker.

When four friends from Abuja decided to take a summer road trip across Europe—visiting Spain, France, and Italy—they knew staying connected was essential. From navigation to translation apps, hotel bookings to social media sharing, reliable internet access would be critical to the success of their adventure.

What they didn’t want? High roaming charges, juggling multiple SIM cards, or depending on unstable public Wi-Fi. Their solution? A Prestmit eSIM—a single digital plan that made their multi-country journey smooth and stress-free.

What is an eSIM and How Does It Work?

An eSIM (embedded SIM) is a digital version of the traditional SIM card. It is built into modern devices and activated by scanning a QR code—no physical insertion or SIM swapping needed.

With eSIM, travelers can connect to international networks before even boarding the plane. This means:

• No queuing at foreign kiosks
• No language barriers when registering
• No switching out your home SIM

Why Prestmit is the Go-To Platform for African Travelers

Prestmit offers one of the most seamless ways to buy eSIM online in Africa. Here’s why it worked perfectly for this group of Nigerian tourists:

• Instant QR Delivery: The group received their eSIM QR codes seconds after payment.
• No Account Creation: They didn’t have to register or sign in.
• Flexible Payment Options: Prestmit supports Naira and cryptocurrency, ideal for users with various financial preferences.
• Top-Up Ready: They could refill data anytime during the trip without downloading a new profile.
• Multi-Country Plans: Prestmit offers regional eSIMs that work across multiple European countries.
• Affordable: Compared to roaming, the group saved significantly using Prestmit’s bundled plans.

Why Should Tourists Care About eSIMs?

If you’re traveling from Africa to Europe or any international destination, staying connected is a non-negotiable. Here’s why eSIMs are a smart choice:

• Access to maps, rideshare apps, and hotel bookings in real time
• No need to rely on unsecured hotel or café Wi-Fi
• Share photos and updates instantly with friends and family
• Keep your original SIM active for calls or SMS without physical switching

For tourists, eSIMs deliver both flexibility and peace of mind.

A Story of Seamless Connectivity

The Abuja-based group selected a regional European data plan on Prestmit, paid using crypto and Naira, and activated their eSIMs in under five minutes. As they arrived in Madrid, Paris, and Rome, their phones automatically connected to local networks.

They never once had to visit a local provider, endure a language barrier, or suffer disconnection. Booking restaurants, finding directions, and updating social media—all happened without skipping a beat.

How to Get Your Prestmit eSIM

Planning your own trip? Here’s how to get started:

1. Visit the Prestmit eSIM store
2. Select your destination or region
3. Choose your preferred data package
4. Pay using Naira or crypto
5. Instantly receive your QR code and activate your eSIM

International travel should be exciting, not stressful. With Prestmit, African tourists now have a smarter, cheaper, and more reliable way to stay connected anywhere in the world.

Before your next trip, be like the Abuja crew—buy your eSIM online in Africa with Prestmit and stay connected throughout your journey.

The post How Prestmit eSIM Helped a Group of Nigerian Tourists Stay Online Across Europe appeared first on WeeTracker.