catch up on all the live shows right here on Africa Tech Radio.com. Okay, so this is another episode of 20 Sexide on Africa Tech Radio. And in this episode, we would be looking at the first half of 2024 in the tech space on the continent. And this would be from the perspective of the insights shared by tech about data research and intelligence units, the state of tech in Africa reports, which gives a bird's eye view of tech trends on the continent of Africa. We had conversations about the first quarter of the year 2024. And the first episode of this particular series, I spoke to Mobolaji, who's here, you know, starts in the second half again. And we're having this conversation on the first half, rather, the first half of 2024, the first quarter focused on the charting or path to profitability. If at any point, you know, I see something that's not correct, you know, Mobolaji would correct me. And we've gone through this. Okay, good. We've gone through six months of the year 2024. And the focus of the state of tech in Africa, each one 2024, is on corporate governance. Nonetheless, on this episode, the data analysts at tech about insights, Mobolaji at Dubai, would be looking broadly at the trends, the happenings, funding, regulation, policy, and future outlook in the African technology space, the first half of 2024. Welcome, Mobolaji. How does it feel like to be first to be here again talking about trends that have shaped and are still shaping the tech space on the continent? Yeah, I mean, it's nice to be again, a few is good to be here to just talk about the tech ecosystem and just detail kind of broadly, because what I would like it to know, technology and the economy is, it's no longer something that it's no longer in the background, it's at the forefront of our lives. I'm sure everything we used to do, I can count in the last three, four hours, says the work of this money inviting that to go on from a technology to do that. So yeah, it's nice to be here, it's nice to talk about these things and yeah, see how the conversation goes. Yes, the conversation, just like everyone does it. Funding is one of the most important, also one of the most celebrated aspects when you talk of technology on the continent, maybe everywhere else too. So let's start with funding, if we're to compare Q1 and Q2, the first quarter and the second quarter of the year 2024, in terms of the types of funding, in terms of the interesting things that the report took note of, what would that be, technology? Yeah, I think in terms of funding, it's looking bearish, does it drop in funding in Q2, to instance, and when we looked at the overalls for each one, that's from January to January, 2020 for funding did not cross the $1 billion mark compared to last year and compared to three years ago, which is because there's really dropping blue bar funding, blue bar, obviously funding in Africa is now left out. So here, we saw you dropping funding about $300 connecting points, $1 million compared to Q1 of 2020, so when the season reached about $4.66 million? Are there any interesting things generally that in terms of funding, except the deep that we experienced, because Q2 didn't exactly do as well as Q1 did, and the first half this year, clearly, as good as we had expected, are there things that stood out for you in terms of funding? Maybe, of course, I'm not sure you'd be able to speak to maybe why the funding dropped, we experienced that, especially in Q2, 2024, but maybe you'd want to just talk around to make some interesting things that you notice in terms of funding? Yeah, I think interesting things in terms of funding, if you look at it, is the fact that historically, there's a group of countries called the Big Four, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt, and they're called the Big Four because a large percentage of DC funding goes to startups that are operating in these countries, but we also saw in Q2 that startups based in Senegal and Ghana and even then the Republic raised significant amounts in funding. So, it means there could be the case, while it's obvious that Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt and South Africa have the IR GDP, and it just makes sense to invest in a startup based operating in markets that has the IR GDP and maybe IR population, IR purchasing power, content to other smaller markets, but there could be the case where investors are beginning to cast the units wired and then look at startups operating in other markets, but it's also important to note that sometimes you have the case of one of two startups queuing the advantage in those countries, so if it's a startup that is focused on solving a problem in a very niche area or sub-sector, it's likely to get funding. Compared to a startup that is operating in say, that is focused on payments, and if you want to get funding from payments, you're most likely going to be in the big markets where you can get in a lot of payment volume and make your revenue a profit from that, so that's something that is interesting that we saw, and I think something else that was so interesting to see is that grant funding, and why people could say, oh, there is no sort of portfolio state startups, any state startups continue to get significant volume in grant funding, because grant funding is always equity-free or equity-free, you don't get to percentage of the company, but it just irks a startup move from zero to one, you get as much as $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 in some cases to validate your idea, to see if your idea can ask you before it becomes a perceived company or a perceived company, and then you go to speak to angel investors or institutional investors to back up your innovation or your venture, so it's interesting to see that there's a lot of backing for startups in terms of grants, so non-equity grants, you're not going to be diluteed, open, so you're going to seek for venture capital funding, and something else that is also very, very interesting in terms of funding is debt. So debt users have become a free variable asset class of startups, and debt users are sort of, people will see that they are specific to certain sectors, maybe logistics, and sectors where you have assets, tangible assets that you could use to, you could use as a, I don't know, collateral is not the right word, but your physical asset, instance, it gets debt for a logistics startup that has bikes that has fiscal components to it, it's very difficult to get debts for, say, equipment startup where everything is mostly virtual, so it seems right to use, and it just means that people, or startups are just trying to be creative around getting rental funding, it could be difficult to recoup your investment, that's the only we get debt funding in dollars, because many countries across Africa have so far currency devaluation, we've so far down inflation rates, and for you to make returns and paid investors could be a bit difficult, but I'm very sure the startups have done their due diligence, the investors have done their due diligence, and there are hope for that this startup's route, which don't pay back on these debts from it, but yeah, debt funding is also something that we are beginning to see when it passes, quota, Q1, Q2, and even from last year's, beginning to gain traction for startups, and something that is interesting is even beyond Q1 and Q2, some of the mega deals that we've seen in the past six months, nine months, they've been debt dues, so it means that these are actually gaining prominence in the sector compared to previously when it was mostly equity. That's an interesting thing to note, something I also noted on the report is the country by country analysis, where we have countries like Benet and Ghana doing better in terms of funding than South Africa and I think even Nigeria in Q2 2024, what's your take on this? So I think basically, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes it's always great to allow a trend up on four, two, three quotas before you come up, it's an informed opinion and say, oh, you tied this changing, because what you have with startups based in these countries is vehicles are just one of two startups raising 90% or 100% to be funny, but you look at a country like Nigeria or Kenya or even South Africa, Egypt, there's a large aspirate, there are many startups raising money, but the amount may not be as significant as those startups that have joined the free. So what we could see or what something else that my colleague, my mom, Chukko, Kafo, made an open argument as saying, is there something beyond the big four? Should we say there's a big one? No, are we trying to segment startups by funding? Are we looking at, oh, there's a top percentile, top two and five percentile, these are the guys that get significantly concerned, and then there's a 50% or there are people who get like the bottom to five percent, which most times are always Francophone countries or Ethiopian or countries like Ethiopia, and there are countries just at the middle oscillation, closely between the top and the bottom. So you know, countries like Ghana, like the Republic, like Senegal, like Mali, Rwanda, even in some cases, so maybe it's a case to try and reclassify startups or funding according to countries, regional funding. So you're looking at, so they're countries that would always perform very historically, because because of the fact that they have higher population, IRGDP, they are most successful startups there. And yeah, just basically that. So is it possible to say there's a big four plus that one? Or are we going to startups beyond just using the big four? And so every time a startup meets that criteria, it gets into that definition as opposed to just sticking to the big four every time, because it's just it's the cycle of life. Sometimes some of the countries in the big four will not get as much funding as less are like. Yes, very interesting. While we're still talking about funding in Q2, energy and water received the highest funding. Is this a surprise to you? Did you see this comment? And this half of the fintech, right, has been the one at the front. But this half of the year, we're looking at logistics and transportation as the sector has received the highest funding. What stand out things did you notice in terms of sector-by-sector analysis of or breakdown of funding this first half of 2024? Yeah, I think one interesting thing about sector-by-sector analysis is that, as I mentioned again, energy and water startups gained significant funds funding in Q2. Let me start with Q2 first. And you could say there's only fact that if we are energy startup, one of the points I made during our last conversation was a factor on climate tech, carbon zero, and there's a local significant investment. There's going to a lot of VC funds that just creating climate-focused funds. And you could say that using energy startups continues to gain significant funding in terms of climate funding. I'll give you an example. MCoPA is an energy-sludge tech startup that helps that will asset financing for solar systems and just energy-related products or assets. They worked in significant funding from recently, they got significant funding from an investor to climate-focused funds. And it just gives you that even startups that are creating solutions or solving problems around climate change, around global warming would become appealing to investors in the coming quota, in the coming years, in the coming months. But aside from that, when you look at logistics in Q1 and even in Q2, that's H1, holistically, you have a case where you move with more than 50% of the platforms. So while it's great for people for us to find and see from the data that logistics startups raised significant funding compared to other sectors, Pintechs continue to get more due accounts, or the amount of investments they get in terms of numbers, it still remains high. So you could say, "Oh, the total amount raised is not as high as other sectors, but the amount of views, the due accounts, is significantly higher than other sectors," which is not, I don't think it's unusual at all, investments into digital finance will continue to grow. And I'll give you an example. I don't know if you use Chaudec, but almost every young person on me do class-spacing or junk work out, entry level, mid-level work, and in Lagos today, that works from the office or even from their homes. They use Chaudec. Chaudec is a food delivery service that, as incorporated or as added, very, very easy payment process to eat. Mira is also, I think it's a restaurant or green startup. And all of these submissions, be it delivery, be it, if you talk about delivery, food delivery, you talk about restaurants, management, or other management systems, if you're talking about Golemon, I don't know if you're familiar with Golemon. It helps people, it helps young people, just everyone generally across the country to order for food stuff. So instead of going to the market to agro for a price, you just pick all the things you need, and then it delivery right as you get to drop it for you. So it's food delivery also. They basically do all of these things, and then they lay out payments on it. So because much of, because a lot of health of activities, you know, activities in Nigeria and much of West Africa, so sorry in Africa, I've not been digitized. Many startups are solving these problems and layering payments on it too. No matter the service you offer, you'd have to lay out payments on it. And it just makes sense that anybody that wants to invest is trying to make sure how are people able to make seamless payments, whether you're trying to order online, whether you're trying to do food delivery, whether you're trying to make a restaurant management system. The end goal is once people use these products, how are they going to pay for it? So it's to take me know, I've got some of the most the highest amounts in terms of funding, but the one counts or the due counts is the highest significantly higher compared to the last sectors. True, true, very true. And I, because I have the bias towards things that have to do with the environment, I really would want to see, you know, the energy sector finish, you know, top by the time where, by the time we're ending, at the end of 2024. And I hope that these solutions also translates to on the ground impact, right? Not just, you know, because the global community seems to be paying attention to issues around climate change. And then, you know, funding is available. And that's just it. I really would hope that we find things that are not just the ground breaking, but very impactful solutions that we can experience on, you know, on the ground itself in our daily lives. We are now being interesting to see, but it could be a case of maybe energy reduction of getting significant funding in terms of the amounts, and excuse the total amount in the direction. But if we're going to continue, we're going to look at the accounts by sector, I don't think any sector can see this place, FinTech, anytime soon. And I'll give you another example. Investors also looked at opportunities for exits. One of the, maybe we'll go there as we continue the conversation. The major sector that continues to generate exits or acquisitions for investors or for startup founders remains FinTech. So even if people are looking at the fact that we are building a solution and all of that, investors are also thinking, are my going to make my returns on my investment? And if the sector is number one, giving you the highest chance for return on investments, that's why I exit. And it's also powering a lot of the economy, informal and formal to the least gravitate towards it. So I think we energy startups or climate-focused startups. There's a renewable energy drive in Africa. We're seeing the likes of Sun King, and Koba, and all of these startups. I think the more they are able to solve significant problems or significant issue that people face across, across Southern Africa. Because being in mine, so Southern Africa, some of the lowest electrification rates in the world. If they have problems and help people make money by solving these problems, yeah. In no time, they could become very influential as a sector that's energy-related startups. For now, I think FinTech remains keen. Okay, FinTech, take your flowers. Maybe not for long, but yes, take your flowers. Let's look at mergers and acquisitions. Based on what I noticed from the report, they seem to be recovering from the deep experience in 2023. Will we see a bounce back in mergers and acquisitions like what we saw in 2022? To be honest, I'm not an investor, so I really wouldn't say a bounce back, but I think in 2023, there was a decline. 22 was the best of times for peak periods for physicians, because there's a lot of funding to the ecosystem or to the economy. If we start to be trying to gain market share in your country, you're trying to pay just so you can see that it's better for me to acquire a startup that has done this heavy lifting for me. We do some sort of leg out work to just show it's a subsidiary, but it's under the appearance company, all of that, all of that. And yeah, you got funding to expand and you wanted to expand in your market. You could become money to acquire a startup like the printing in that new market. But no, funding is because that's its lowest state, which has reduced, I wouldn't use the word that's its lowest state. And yeah, so it could be slightly difficult for people to just acquire for acquisition's sake. Now, acquisitions are more of a strategic decision, like we really need this. And again, as I mentioned, digital economy or startups are not, I don't think they are free from the harsh economic conditions that real businesses face. So if people are beginning to decide to spend their money on other business as opposed to using your services, your data services, it's going to reflect in the numbers, it's going to reflect in the revenue, it's going to reflect in a little bit. If your startup is not making it enough, we're not going to be able to acquire a new startup. So yeah, I think it's early, it's too early in the year for us to say, oh, acquisitions this year are going to go higher than last year. But we already have 19 acquisitions this year. And I think that was when we draft the reports. But even after the report, I think that there's been about two or three marked relationships. So that means 2021, 2022. Yeah, we never can tell you could just leapfrog the numbers from 2023. And yeah, it would be great to see. But again, as I mentioned, it's slightly early. We're seeing the recovery because if you look at 2022's number as Q1 was 14, Q2 was 12, 2020 for us 12 and seven. It's not exactly as I asked 2022, but it's significantly or it's slightly better than 2023. We look at it from an h1 perspective. So yeah, I believe as long as the economic conditions try to as long as the economic conditions get better, as more people adopt data services, as most startups get funding and as most startups expand, as the growing business do seek, exit options, they do seek acquisition options, they want to acquire startups to expand into new markets. And yeah, it'd be great to see that happen in the coming months. But for now, I'm going to be cautious and not say, oh, we are going to have more acquisitions than 2022. I think the significant better than 2023. Yeah, or would slightly better not significantly. Sigma can is going to be like 100% or more. So just slightly better than 2023, because we already have like, that's about two or three extra even after we need in this report. So yeah, that's that's something to look helpful. Okay, which of the acquisitions and which of the expansions during this period, this, you know, first half, will cut your attention. There's a long list, there's the brass acquisition, there is, for me, I think it would be OBX expansion to Cameroon. It would also be, I think, old school, Kenya, and probably Bamboo, South Africa, which ones, you know, cost your attention. Yeah, personally, in terms of acquisitions, the acquisitions are called my attention. The first one is the acquisition of Adumo. It's a FinTech startup based in South Africa. Let's check out where I did for $85 million. And they are going to sell 1.7 million active consumers or users of Adumo, the FinTech payments startup. And it's very interesting to see that South African companies continue to lead all the African countries in terms of acquisitions and FinTechs, of course, continue to dominate. So that's a very, very interesting acquisition play in South Africa. Another acquisition play that is very, I don't know how to put it, I don't want to use the word interesting against it, it doesn't sound like I'm repeating that word. It's about nature, about nature is an investor network. They invest in startups across Africa, they're sector agnostic. So they acquire the startup code of Flecto markets in ad. What's power is going to do basically for this is they are going to use Flecto markets into support their portfolio companies. We announce marketing and brand new services. So look at it this week, every time a startup raises money for investors and they are trying to make a splash they are going to spend money on branding and PR and marketing. Your investor is telling you that you know what, you don't have to worry about these things. All you need to do now is focus on building your product, focus on getting customers. We have an in-house marketing and branding service for you that will execute your marketing and branding functions. So if you're a startup, I don't know what the criteria is going to do. You're going to get this from us. And I think it's very interesting that an investment group or investors are looking at helping startups reduce their operating costs. Because if you're a startup senior portfolio and they keep saying, "Oh, we're trying to make a splash. You want people to know us. You're spending X, X amount on PR, explaining X, X amount on marketing." Of course, they still have some in-house marketing themselves. I don't doubt that because they can outsource or they can expect reflective marketing, which was a startup that's acquired, to do all of these things. But I believe it's going to be a sort of eye-level overview of marketing and branding services across startups on the above-end network portfolio. And that's a very, very interesting acquisition to be honest. I think investors are looking out for the success of their portfolio companies. I think that's also very strategic. That particular one is very, very, very strategic. And I forgot to mention earlier on in the year, I think the MasterCard on MOMO, and I think it's MTN. Yeah, MTN MOMO. Of course, I know a lot of people talked about the M&T allow advanced, you know, that particular one. But the MasterCard on MOMO, MTN MOMO, yeah. I think that also was top on my list. And that's not what's going on. And that was from Q1 over this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So another acquisition play that I found interesting is Brass. So Brass, Brass conceptable was founded in 2021 or 2017. So I think, and then it feels a bit of a professional challenges. But sometimes it could be a case that the business idea is great. And they are Swiss challenges because it's normal, it's life. That's our businesses. And the phase of the law of challenges with customers or businesses finding it difficult to recruit their phones or to take their to withdraw their phones when they phase the law of issues and even able to get follow-on from them. And you had the consortium of investors and companies like they stock the best people on this ventures platform. And a group of angel investors came together to acquire this startup. Oh, the thing takes a turn in Nigeria is green. Brass has a very, very interesting idea around business banking for startups. We don't want this idea to die. We know you're facing difficulties in raising follow-on funding, but we don't want this idea to die. We don't want this business to die. And we are going to come in, we are going to buy our going to support. And just see how this business is going to bounce back. And an example in the past has to be, it wasn't an acquisition, but it was just investors coming to to report to support the startup around. Yeah, we are running around to support this startup doesn't get your of closure. It's Tribogreek. The Tribogreek was a hybrid tech startup that was open, small, dark farmers, connecting them with people in the cities, they were investing in them, getting their returns after six months, three months. The physical issues, just before lockdown or during lockdown. And investors came into the scene because Adya saw with the past Chief Marketing Officer at MTN, MTN Nigeria, and she turned things around. So I'm really, really looking out for brass. And it would be great to be here in six months, in one year, yeah, if don't things are around with this acquisition. Yes, brass were in the lookout for you. So by the end of the year, we would see how things have turned out for brass. Now, talking about looking forward to how things have turned out pivots. In Q1, the first quarter, I think the major thing we even talked about was around the pivoting startups, switching business models and pivoting. How much of that did we see in Q2 to make up the remaining half of the year? Yes, so in Q2, we saw, I guess we noticed about two pivots, a market force, which is a K&R without a tech startup or a V2D or a startup that switched shut down one of its verticals, rega, I think it's rega rega, and it moves to social commerce. Then we also have one surely, which is to be cross-category aggregator. It's now pivoting to an end-to-end utilization solution that helps retailers access money, receive money from their customers. And it's just interesting because both of the startups are in the e-commerce space. I think if I cast our minds back to 2021, I'd say it was Nirvana for B2B e-commerce startups in across Africa. The other likes were Succo, the other likes of Kopera Group, the other likes of Chinese members, Maxi, the other likes of, there's a Nigerian one, Alesu. We didn't significantly bounce from VC from venture capitalists to sort of digitize the informal e-commerce space in Africa. And it has come with a lot of difficulties, in fact, that a lot of these startups tried the trust, they tried the usual, grew our top posts, and then would acquire these customers. But the acquisition cost was very, very high. And it made that you were already creating or stimulating these attributes for people to expect lower prices. So the catch there was, would you get all of these things you get from an amount of pop shop, but a lower price from most, I would deliver it to you to do all of these things. And would deliver it to what's called Ocelas and Ritalasu in tonsil and make profits. But as we mentioned during the last conversation, it was about two, three months ago. The business has to think about profitability. And now, most of these startups are facing a lot of difficulties. There's a lot of pivot, so many of them are pivoting, some of them are shut down. And it just goes to shut, maybe giving people three days as a way to acquire customers is no longer the way. And I'll give you one other example. People talking about the success of child x today. People talking about the success of delivery startups that actually compete before delivery book. If we go back to 2012 or 2013, 2014, when Jumya Kongra, DUD, you're that aware, the big boys, or the cream of the crop. I don't think anyone was paying on delivery who would have to wait, bring what I had to do for me, if I can pay you any money. I don't trust anybody online. And because of the success and failures of these startups, it's that of like how they can come and see the scene I see, we are not, there is no chance to do this or deliver on the UK before delivery. So sometimes it can be the case of a sector, the pioneers of a sector, we'll learn a lot of lessons and then we'll fail. Then the, then those who come after them would build on these lessons and be able to execute successfully. So that's also something I see in terms of people's for business videos and just generally the ecosystem and some sectors. I don't want to see failure as a factor. So this startup was not, they didn't execute well. Sometimes market forces could just get against you. And it could be a case of the fact that the audience or users or consumers are not ready for your offering, or they are not ready for your solution. And we time they become used to it and receptive to your solution and get up with it. Okay. Okay. And if we look at regulations, which is always an important conversation on the continent, out of the examples, the many examples that are in the state of tech in Africa, each one reports of major regulation trends, which three caught your attention and why I mean from the digital lending slash credits in regulations around that to the, I don't know if it's still a proposed bill now, the ICT authority bill or the ICT bill in Kenya, the crypto regulations in South Africa, which of these regulations in a crossboard you like caught your attention, maybe two or three and why? So the two regulations, the two major regulations that caught my attention as to be digital lending regulation in Tanzania. And the second one that that caught my attention as to be, as to be the controversial ICT authority bill in Kenya. And I'll tell you what, Tanzania for instance, so just data lending in Africa and Africa as commodity a lot of scrutiny in the past two or three years, it's multi-layered. A lot of Africa has enough access to credits. A lot of Africa has enough access to credits. They find it difficult to get credit from the banks and we, I know it's very difficult for even young professionals, AI, Nigeria, to get loans from their banks. I know there's quick loans now from studying banks, but people would not have access to form out financial services. The only way of getting loans is from digital lending startups, that all you need to do is do double application on your phone, the request for your loan, and a dedicated loan. But unlike banks, banks are group posts, mechanisms, check-and-palances, credits, current systems to see who aren't with you at this percent loans too. These startups already have to do is get access to your phone, get access to your contact list, and keep sending these messages through the photos. I'm being reminded that their interest rates are very high because that's the trade-off. They can get loan interest rates and have a very, very porous credit scoring system or rather check-and-balance. So what happens in the end is that anyone who doesn't even have access to form out financial services and is going to borrow or is going to get loans from the mobile app on PlayStop. I don't think the person is going to be able to repay the money with those AI interest rates. So what happens is these startups use a debt-shaming method to get money from your default ads. And I'm sure you'd have gotten similar messages or calls in the past. I remember last year, one of these startups calls me that my friend borrowed money. That's not my business. You should talk to my friend. It's just very, very fun. And then you have that. And what happens in that space or in that state is that there's been a violation of data privacy. How did you go to someone's phones and contacts list? And if that's any messages to someone who did not access your own service to remind their friends a bit, it's just a lot of issues around it. And change to free. They've set up new regulations and now licensed platforms will require to issue borrowers, sign loan agreements, showing the temptations, including the total fees for the loan, the interest rates, and then rule about fees for late payments. And the implication of this is that it's going to lead to transparent and responsible data-langing environment in Tanzania. But on the other hand, for people who could not access from our financial services and the assets, at the onset, how easy is it going to be for them to get access to loans with all of these new licenses and regulations? Because many startups are going to, they may not be able to meet the requirements. And the implication of this is that some people who used to depend on this loan chart or these data-langing startups would lose the opportunity to get loans from them, or would not be able to get loans from them anymore. I think it's very important that regulations are fair and this list of regulations is very important because consumer protection is at the forefront of the regulation, just protect your consumers. There's really no points if data-langing startups continue to grow in the country, and then data privacy regulations, the data privacy violations also continue to grow. That doesn't make sense at all. And that's a very, very, that's a very critical piece of regulation that's that took center as teaching in Q2 and just each one of 2020 and 4. Then the second regulation has to be, yeah, ICT, I don't used to be in Kenya. Kenya has been in years 4. A lot of reasons since the year began. It's a protest. That's out 3 for almost 6 weeks, 7 weeks. There's been data-langing licenses last year when we reduced the number of data-langing startups on Google Play stuff and data-langing apps on PlayStop from about 120 to maybe less than 20. And now there's a new regulation that wants to regulate the ICT industry by licensing, ICT companies and professionals saying, oh, these people were going to get credited more than these certain minimum technical qualifications. And it's in typical African fashion. Sorry, I'm using that term. The process we include being a fee, although the charges are currently undefined. And what this kind of regulation does is that it just increases the buy-out entry and makes the old job for ICT professionals. It's increased number one the price of data-census because if you're accessing an ICT professional to register somewhere or ICT company to register and pay registration fee, there is only one person who is going to be a de-brand of all of these things. And it's the end user, it's the consumer. So that's a piece of regulation that I would really really like, either not to see the light of the day or to be a mandate to fit. Yeah, it is. Yeah, because if we keep saying that, if we keep saying that we want to get investments, we want people to take up tech, we want this economy to blows on, we have to try and possibly to ensure that there are no regulations that end during the growth of this near sector. Let's face it, the digital economy has started in Africa. I don't think the sector is as old as 20 or 30 years, less than 15 or 20 years. And we are trying to innovate the growth at the early stages, what's going to happen in the future. So yeah, regulations, I'm not the fan of regulations being of saying that they're not, there's no need for regulations, no regulations always be there to protect the consumer, to protect stakeholders to ensure that means they're done appropriately. But regulations should not, in any way, increase, should not, in any way, see full innovation, they should not, they should not reduce or they should not impede or coin the will of people who are trying to make an effort. So that's, in terms of regulations, those two regulations stood out for me, Tanzania, digital ending, restriction of operations of one license, the Italian does in the country, which is very, very important. And yeah, Kenya's revolution of the constitution authority bill. Okay, now the focus for the half year, this report is corporate governance. This H1 report narrowed its lens on corporate governance. Why? Yeah, that's, that's a very, very interesting point to note. So the reason we focus on corporate governance is fact that corporate governance is just basically the breeding set of rules and procedures and firms, organizational strategy and direction, and how they relate to its internal and external stakeholders. And if you look back to the past years, there's been a lot of issues that doubt have been mitigated with the worst standards, corporate governance procedures in those companies. So we start with companies like Bento, Africa, Cloudcomas, Elslyn, facing serious scandals ranging from misappropriation of phones, last year PD faced allegations of financial mismanagement and frauds. After raising $3 million, we had 54 gene analytics, that's the darling of everyone doing the lockdown and COVID-19, facing financial mismanagement. This is after raising $45 million into 2021, this short time. Dash, Eganian fintech, acts of fire, it's you for misrepresentation of performance metrics, showing investors that the access to a number of users and that meets this amount of revenue, after finding out that that was not the case. And so we look at 2024, it has not exactly changed. There is also the case of Black Copa, a fintech that I think they wrapped up as much as a billion nirine dates, after feelings, recoveral wounds from their customers. And this tattoo part claimed that they had an algorithm or scoring system that could help them solve this whole issue around the photos. Then you look at Mara, a crypto startup that lost $15.9 million in 2022 after raising funding. Some of the reports we heard was that the CEO of the executives earned way above markets range for salaries. Why the startup was operational? And then it's not just in Nigeria or even Kenya I learned, you look at Botswana, where there was an e-commerce startup called Punachigu, who customized since $5,000 for unbelievable goods a year after it showed down. Then just all across all across the country, you have a copy of Blue Dog, I appreciate it. And a lot of issues that could have been mitigated or prevented was standard corporate governance. And what it means is that corporate governance has become super super important. So why for the abilities is important? You cannot pay profitability by doing all you need to do by basically profitability, then sharing that your operating expenses is not more than your revenue. If you can get a surplus after deducting your operating expenses and all the expenses that it comes in, kills within the financial aid and you make a surplus, you need a profit. But you don't get to make that sort of profit. If you don't have checks and balances of corporate governance, standard corporate governance requirements in your startup, and that's the reason we explore corporate governance as the sinful, each one or two to twenty cents or four. And even if you start making profit as a startup and you receive some form of funds, to ensure that there isn't something scandalous that happens along the line that you can't account for, it's really an important thing that every startup needs to look into. Now, we've gone through the first half of 2024, right? What's the outlook for the rest of the year? What it's not like we're going to be predicting the future, but based on what we've seen in the first half of 2024, what kind of expectations should we have for the rest of the year? Yeah, I think for the rest of the year, I know I've mentioned cautious optimism about twice since we since this conversation began. But yeah, I it's this the second half of the year, we just have to I'm hopeful. And I'll give you reasons why I'm hopeful. Pondon has dropped, but we are seeing startups pivoting business videos, diversifying their offerings to remain afloat in business. We're seeing a lot of investment, for instance, just this month, we've seen almost 200 or 300 million dollars invested into startups, which is the Wi-Fi network. Startups that are solving critical problems will continue to gain investment pattern to build on their solutions. And it's not it's not it's not normally that's even within this very, very bearish outlook, startups are continuing. Startups receive investments. And that's only funding angle. We also look at the fact that shutdowns and layoffs have not been as high as last year. Sameing startups are still trying. Yeah, we're doing this term during this very unfavorable economy climates. Then in terms of operations, we see that you know, startups or government across these are crafting AI strategies and policies. Because you want to stay ahead of everything AI revolution has been through the globe across the world. But it's also important. So it's why it's great to have its high level lives and regulations. The foundation of the building blocks of AI remains electricity, great data access. You want to talk about even human resources, like research. This things are crucial. This things are crucial for any government or any country that is trying to pursue an AI policy and wants to see it implemented in real time. So yeah, and then final points, in terms of regulations, the same sanitization of data lending in Uganda was seen as in Nigeria and Kenya in the past, say, three, six months. And yeah, most likely, I believe we're still going to see more regulations between the end of the year. I don't know if this sounds like a good news to share, but we've already passed the $1 billion mark in terms of funding. July has been the best year so far for funding since 2024 began for African startups. And yeah, it just means that maybe the future is not as bleak as everyone thought, because I'm not going to like you going to enjoy using power, currency fluctuations, and then increasing interest rates, combats and inflation. But yeah, I think the economy, generally, the data economy is recovering. We are seeing, as I mentioned, regulations, in terms of AI, data lending, and in room funding, fact that July already has IS funding so far for 2024. That would be great to see in the coming months or coming quarter. So yeah, 2024 basically, one tagline for it is just going to be "cocious" optimism. Yeah, and another point I was going to make is Amazon recently finalized their expansion to South Africa. So we expect to see that these big companies are still investing, or are still moving to African countries to do business. So yeah, "cocious" optimism is the watch one for 2024, each to 2024. Okay, beautiful. Thank you very much. I've been speaking to data analysts like tech cabal insights, Mobology. I did buy your own trends, happenings, outlook, the African startup space with the focus on the first half of 2024. And you can get more insights from the state of tech and Africa reports that's done by the tech about insights team. Mobology, how can anyone listen and get the reports? How can anyone, everyone, access the report? Yeah, so you can access the report by visiting insights that take about as calm, and then just clicking on reports. You would see a state of tech in Africa report each one and so forth. You can download it. If you have any feedback, if you have any comments for us, you can share it to its team at this insight that big cabal does come. But yeah, I enjoyed the conversation with Anthony. I'm looking forward to speaking to you again in the future. Thank you very much. And that's not the only reports, please go through all the other reports and insights that the tech cabal insights team have worked on. And maybe just see it some way so that you can keep coming back for much more. You can subscribe. I know they have a newsletter. You can subscribe to that too so that you can get them in your mailbox. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of 20 tech site. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a comment, share it with your friends, wherever you listen to it from. You can follow us on social media at Africa Tech Radio across social media for updates and more tech insights. Stay tuned for our next episode. Yes, we'll continue to explore the fascinating intersections of tech and its impacts on you and on me here on the continent. Visit our website, AfricaTechRadio.com for more conversations, resources and information. Until then, stay curious and keep innovating. Thanks for listening and don't forget to catch up on all the live shows right here on AfricaTechRadio.com.
