South Africa - Afrikan Heroes

President Ramaphosa Envoy, Jeff Radebe Promises to Mend Fences across Africa

September 21, 2019

As South Africa reels from the after effects of the xenophobic attacks on nationals from other African countries, more countries have ramped up evacuation processes of their citizens in the country; President Cyril Ramaphosa’s special envoy to select African countries assures fellow African countries that the government is taking every necessary step to ensure a safe and secure South Africa. The team started their visits from Nigeria where they met with President Muhammadu Buhari, from there they went to Niger, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia to deliver a message of solidarity from President Cyril Ramaphosa.

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa

However, more countries have continued the evacuation of their citizens from South Africa which observers see as a draw back to the shuttle diplomacy engaged in by President Ramaphosa and his government. It could be recalled that a second batch of over 300 Nigerians were evacuated from South Africa over the week, while countries like Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe have also been evacuating their citizens from South Africa.

Analysts say that South African government has been under enormous pressure to assure the world that their country is safe for foreigners because the xenophobic attacks has had negative impacts on consumer confidence, and the economy in general as the hopes of the economy coming out of recession dims. The country is working hard to address its dented image abroad.

Inspite of the development, the Special Envoy which consists of South Africa’s former Minister of Energy, Jeff Radebe, Ambassador Kingsley Mmabolo and Dr Khulu Mbatha, a veteran of the African National Congress; President Cyril Ramaphosa is determined to assure fellow African countries that the government is taking every necessary step to ensure a safe and secure South Africa; Special Envoy Jeff Radebe is the 2018 recipient of the Big Five Energy award presented by Africa Oil & Power (AOP).

The group of Presidential Special Envoys will deliver a message of solidarity from South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa to the heads of state as a means to assure them that the government is committed to addressing xenophobic attacks which sparked in the Gauteng province earlier this month.

“The Special Envoys are tasked with reassuring fellow African countries that South Africa is committed to the ideals of pan-African unity and solidarity. The Special Envoys will also reaffirm South Africa’s commitment to the rule of law,” said an official statement by The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa.

Special Envoy Radebe already met with Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari; President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo and Senegal’s President, Macky Sall since the tour started on September 14, 2019. Buhari assured them that the recent ugly incident will not taint the good diplomatic relationship between Nigeria and South Africa, but called on the South African government to take stringent steps to ensure such occurrence never repeats itself.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.

New Report Shows South African Startups Received 41% Of All Venture Capital Investments In 2018

September 20, 2019

This is an encouraging report for South African startups. With more funding opportunities,comes the impossibility of being hindered by inadequacy of capital. In its latest report, Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association’s (Savca) Venture Capital Industry Survey has indicated that southern African VC funds made investments of over R1.5-billion last year in South African startups and businesses — an increase of 31% from the over R1.1-billion invested by such funds in 2017. The figure is expected to be higher this year.

The VC sector had one of the best years in South Africa in 2018, with deal value up 31% over 2017 — reveals a new report

Here Is All You Need To Know

The report which was released earlier this month, was carried out in collaboration with research partner Venture Solutions. The survey features data gathered from over 50 fund managers as well as other industry investors.
While the report also covered countries bordering South Africa — Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique and Zimbabwe — South Africa accounted for 99.7% of all deal value under management currently.

The report was presented at an event held at law firm Bowmans’ offices in Cape Town recently.
The report’s author Venture Solution’s Stephan Lamprecht said last year’s figures were evidence that the VC sector is on an “exponential upward curve”.

“The quantums that investees are raising — we haven’t seen that in recent years,” he added.

Lamprecht said driving the increase has been the recent uptake in the funds registered under the South African Revenue Services’s (Sars) Section 12J of the Income Tax Act.
The incentive allows investors who make investments in approved VCCs — that then invest in qualifying small companies — a tax deduction.

The year saw a substantial growth in seed, startup deal value

In 2018, 41% of all deals by value were in startup capital.
The total number of deals invested through seed or startup deals amounted to 60% of all deal value — up from 57% in 2017 and 49% in 2016.
Despite the growth in early-stage deals by share of deal value, Lamprecht said South Africa still needs to improve the system that taps into talent and that more must be done to get industry to invest in the startup sector, beyond just enterprise development deals.

Firms Located in the Gauteng Province of South Africa got the biggest share

When it comes to the location of investees, Gauteng businesses last year received the largest share of VC money (R658-million), up 38% from 2017. This, while the Western Cape saw an increase in 2018 of 14% in VC investments. amounting to R433-million.
The report also noted that KwaZulu-Natal backed VC businesses saw a significant increase in activity in comparison to 2017, with R71-million invested in 2018.
By number of deals, Gauteng has shown significant growth. In 2014 just 19 deals were conducted in the province, climbing to 41 in 2017 and 73 last year.
In comparison, the number of deals in the Western Cape has been more stable — 41 in 2014, 45 in 2017 and 61 last year (see below graph — Figure 7b).

Low number of exits was also recorded in the year under review

Concerning however, noted the report is that overall exit activity remains low. Just 11 exits took place last year, compared to 15 in 2017. Most exits are by trade sales.
Of the 11 last year, six were reported as profitable, compared to nine in 2017 (see below, Figure 9).

Lamprecht attributed the low number of exits to evidence of South Africa’s nascent VC industry. He pointed out in the report that a range of opportunities and early stage investment challenges need to be addressed in order for the industry to continue to grow and mature.

VC has R5.3bn under management

So, that was 2018, but how much capital have VC fund managers in the Southern Africa currently deployed?
The report puts this figure at the end of 2018, at over R5.3-billion, invested in 665 active deals.
Most of these funds are being deployed in the Western Cape (48.2% of active deal value), followed closely by Gauteng (42.5%). By number of transactions the Western Cape accounts for 52.6% and Gauteng 34.6% (see below graph).

Manufacturing comprised 14.2% of the value of all deals invested at 31 December 2018 with the food and beverages sector and medical devices and equipment sector accounting for 12.3% and 10.5% respectively (see below graph — Figure 3a).
Software amounts to only 5.2% of deals if taken by value (and 9.4% by deal number — see below graph — Figure 3b), and consumer products and services to 5.4% (10.8% by number), but combined these make up one in five transactions under management currently.

The report also noted that deals in energy type businesses amount to the fourth largest share in active deals if taken by value. Lamprecht pointed out that the growth in this sector had been stimulated by the 12J tax incentive, with investors having invested in solar PVR units among others.
For example, the number of deals jumped to 24 in 2018, from less than four in 2017. Software was also up significantly, from eight to 17.

In all, consumer products and services account for the largest share of active deals by number (10.8%), followed closely by manufacturing (10.4%) and software (9.4%).
The latter mirrors the global trend for investing in deals involving software, including many transactions classified as Consumer Products & Services where the business activity involves software, noted the report.
South Africa’s economy might be mired in political and economic uncertainty, but the VC sector is growing in leaps and bounds.
Says Lamprecht: “We haven’t seen anything that will decimate the sector, despite the current economic and political challenges”. The question is, will it keep booming?

Click here to read the report

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world

The First 5G Network Launched In South Africa

September 19, 2019

Rain South Africa, a data-only network provider in South Africa has launched South Africa’s first 5G network in parts of Johannesburg and Tshwane, and it is offering prices that make fibre connections seem slow.

In a statement on Wednesday (18 September), Rain’s chief marketing officer Khaya Dlanga said that the service will first launch in parts of Johannesburg and Tshwane, with access being made available to select customers. Other interested users can apply for 5G through Rain’s website, and will be alerted once it is available in their region.

Here Is All You Need To Know

Selected customers in Rain’s 5G coverage area have been invited to be the first to purchase ultra-fast 5G, unlimited internet from R1,000 per month, according to Khaya Dlanga.
Rain will then deliver a state-of-the-art 5G router to a customer’s home. No installation is required, the router is simply plug-and-play and you will connected immediately.
The speed and capacity of the 5G network, together with the latest Wifi 6 technology in the router, will enable rain users to stream high-definition video to multiple devices simultaneously.
Khaya Dlanga said the company has achieved speeds of 700 Mbps during testing, but the typical client will see speeds around 200 Mbps.
By comparison, a 40 Mbps fibre line at Telkom costs R1,199 a month, and you will pay R1,067 a month for a 50 Mbps fibre line via Afrihost.
Dlanga said that the initial offering aims to provide fast, affordable and easy to install wireless connectivity to homes and businesses as an alternative to ADSL fibre and fixed-LTE.
During the course of the next year 5G coverage area will be extended to Durban and Cape Town, Dlanga said.
5G is the latest iteration evolution of wireless data standards, and promises to be roughly 10 times faster than the current state-of-the-art 4G used by cellphone networks, while also being more reliable.

Read Also: How 5G Connectivity Will Boost The Output Volume of African Startups

South Africa And 5G Network

Vodacom and MTN have both said they could launch 5G locally in 2019, but have been restricted by a lack of access to the necessary radio frequency spectrum.

Vodacom already launched a 5G network in Lesotho in 2018.

In a policy discussion document released in August, South Africa’s national treasury said data prices could decline by as much as 25% if the appropriate spectrum is released in South Africa.

The release of spectrum, Treasury said, would reduce the cost of doing business in SA and contribute up to 0.6% in economic growth.

Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams in July issued a policy directive to Icasa to release additional spectrum.

If implemented, that would be the first time in 14 years that additional spectrum is released for use, after the state repeatedly missed its own deadlines to do so.

You can find out more about the service here.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world

South Africa’s Constitutional Court Outlaws Spanking of Children

September 18, 2019

The South African Constitutional Court today delivered what many South Africans see as its most controversial judgments to date; making spanking of a child illegal in the country. Many civil society organizations are protesting already. The Constitutional Court earlier today upheld a South Gauteng High Court ruling in 2017 to eliminate the common-law defence of reasonable chastisement when spanking a child.

In its ruling, the Court maintained that there are effective ways to discipline a child without needing to resort to corporal punishment. This case has dragged for two years after following earlier ruling by the High Court that reasonable chastisement was unconstitutional in a matter related to a father who was found guilty of assaulting his 13-year old son for watching pornography.

“We are Sorry”, South Africa’s President Begs Fellow Africans

September 15, 2019

The President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa has asked fellow African countries for forgiveness over the xenophobic attacks that took place in his country in the last two weeks. President Ramaphosa who spoke on this over the weekend during the state funeral for late President Robert Mugabe in Harare, Zimbabwe is said to have engaged in people diplomacy to put the matter to rest. Also there has been series of peaceful protests by South Africans across different cities against xenophobia in their country.

Xenophobic attack on Africans in South Africa

The South African government has sent out high-ranking emissaries to different African countries to assure them that their citizens are welcome in his country, despite the wave of xenophobic violence earlier this month. The mission, led by former Minister Jeff Radeba, left South Africa over the weekend scheduled to visit Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, the president announced on today. Our sources in Abuja say that the South African delegation is already in Nigeria. In an unprecedented move, hundreds of migrants from neighbouring Zimbabwe and Mozambique had fled from South Africa recently while Nigeria air lifted 600 of its citizens back home after they were targeted in the violence.

It could be recalled that President Cyril Ramaphosa had his speech at the state funeral of late President Robert Mugabe severally disrupted with boos and jeers from the crowd over the xenophobic attacks on African nationals in South Africa. President Ramaphosa punctuated his speech with an apology saying “I stand before you as a fellow African to express my regret and apologise for what has happened in our country”, a gesture the crowd refused to accept. His comments were met with cheers and blasts of air horns from the crowd.

The South African business leaders earlier warned that the fallout from the attacks has had a negative impact on businesses and the country’s statistics agency said that business confidence is at its lowest in the last 30 years, a sign that the economy is feeling the heat of the negative publicity. South Africa, the continent’s second largest economy, is a major destination for other African migrants. But they are often targeted by some locals who blame them for a lack of jobs.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.

The Biggest Internet Company In Europe Is Now Owned By Africa ’s Most Valuable Company

September 14, 2019

This is a big shot from Naspers, Africa ’s most valuable company, which in terms of GDP, would be richer than the West African country of Liberia. In its latest move, Naspers has listed its international internet assets on Amsterdam’s stock exchange. By doing so, it has carved out the biggest consumer internet company in Europe.

“There’s this great pent-up demand for great technology and internet companies,” Naspers CFO Basil Sgourdos said. “We’re now the largest — we’re actually three times larger than the next biggest tech company and that will attract lots of interest”.

Here Is All You Need To Know

On the Euronext Stock Exchange, Amsterdam Netherlands, Naspers’ new company is called Prosus. This week, upon listing, it got a valuation of $105 billion. By far, these figures have now made it the largest ever Europe ‘s consumer publicly listed internet company. Far off the tech board on the exchange, overall, Prosus is now the third most valuable company listed on the Euronext exchange in Amsterdam.
Each of the company’s shares soared as much as 29% on its first day of trading.
Naspers is smarter anyway; it is only floating 27% of Prosus, holding onto the remaining 73% stakes.
Apart from Prosus, Naspers owns a third of Chinese tech giant Tencent. Its stake in Tencent is valued at $130bn.
Prosus is holding many Naspers’ assets including Naspers’ Tencent stake as as well as investments in Swiggy, the Indian e-commerce startup and Mail.Ru, a major Russian internet platform.
Naspers’ smart international moves include more than doubling its $616 million investment in Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce company, when it sold its 11% stake for $1.6 billion last year.
Prosus will trade on Euronext with “PRX” as its ticker.
Prosus also houses Naspers other inter assets, which include all of its interests in online classifieds, food delivery, payments, etail, travel, education, and social and internet platforms sectors. Apart from Tencent, these include mail.ru, OLX, Avito, letgo, PayU, iFood, Swiggy, DeliveryHero, Udemy, eMAG, and MakeMyTrip.

Why Is Naspers Listing All of These Assets In Amsterdam, Netherlands?

Naspers reasons for listing all of these assets may not be unconnected with its size on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), where asset managers were cautious about their exposure to a single share.

Listing on Euronext, Amsterdam will therefore give the internet giant an opportunity for “opening up investment to a broader category of investors,” says CEO Bob van Dijk, while diminishing the valuation gap between Naspers and Tencent.

From A South African Newspaper Publisher To A Global Brand

Naspers’ success stems from a vertical change in strategy. Originally a newspaper publisher, Prosus’ listing comes as part of its long-term strategy to transform the century-old newspaper publisher into “a global consumer internet company.”

The net effect of the Prosus listing will also be felt in South Africa as it trims Naspers’ weighting on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange to 15% — down from around 25%. Being listed only in South Africa had limited Naspers’ pool of accessible capital and its dominance on the local stock exchange also constrained local investment managers.

From the pie chart above it is clear that majority of revenue for Naspers comes from Internet services, which contributed 69.34% to NPN’s revenue, second biggest revenue earner was E-commerce with 15.2% or $1.987 billion dollars followed by video entertainment, with 14.1% or $1.834 billion.

In a more strategic move, earlier this year, Naspers appointed Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa, 48, as its new chief executive of its South African unit. This appointment makes her the first ever female and first black chief executive of the 104-year old company. Mahanyele-Dabengwa, previously chief executive of Shanduka Group, an investment company founded by Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa, will lead Naspers’ drive for major African tech startup wins with a $314 million fund announced last October.

She will also oversee Naspers Labs, a social impact and skills acquisition initiative for South Africa’s unemployed youth, and to Bob van Dijk, group CEO of Naspers.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.

More Nigerians Still Trapped in South Africa

Reports from South Africa say that about a thousand Nigerians who would like to return back to Nigeria using the open window of evacuation organized by the Nigerian mission in South Africa but are still trapped there due to the slow process of the evacuation programme. While about 600 registered to be part of the evacuation, documentation challenges have prevented many from leaving as only about 180 made it with the first batch. But more are still trooping into Johannesburg from many cities across the country.

It could be recalled that the first batch arrived Lagos from Johannesburg last Wednesday and were received by the Chairman of Nigeria in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri among other top government functionaries. The evacuation plan by Air Peace was delayed due to documentation process by both the South African government and the Nigerian Missions in South Africa.

Chairman of Nigeria in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri

The Nigerian High Commission in South Africa was said to have arranged temporary Travel Certificate (TTC) for most of those that had offered to return home, many of whom do not have valid passports. Aside Air Peace’s offer, the government is said to have made arrangements for the immediate voluntary evacuation of all Nigerians.

In the latest outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa, deadly riots in Pretoria and Johannesburg killed at least 12 people and targeted foreign-owned businesses. There are fears that another round of attacks may follow because there is still tension in the country and comments attributed to some South African leaders are not helping matters are critics and civil society organizations blame the government for the negligence at the root of the whole xenophobic attacks. This concern about another wave of attacks is responsible for the voluntary repatriation from South Africa .

However, sources at the Nigerian Mission in Johannesburg say that efforts are being made to mop up the remaining people after they have been properly documented. However, a representative of the Nigerian community union in South Africa has blamed the officials of the Nigerian Mission in South Africa for the delays saying that the documentation process is so slow that it has become frustrating. Aside this group, there are others who arrived Johannesburg from different parts of South Africa to participate in the evacuation process even though the cities they live in did not experience the xenophobic attacks. A source who spoke with this Correspondent noted that some of those who arrived from farther place such as East London, Port Elizabeth, Durban, and Cape Town

Another source that spoke with this Correspondent say that many of those who volunteered to participate in the process was seen sleeping in the open at the High Commission with no shelter over them for three years. It was not until two days ago that the Mission provided hotel accommodation for them while the processing of their papers is ongoing.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.

South African Startup Digemy raises R1m In New Funding Round Now Valued at R40m

This year, African edutech startups have seen much of investment, compared to their counterparts in fintech, logistics or transport. Cape Town-based edtech startup Digemy seems to be the latest on the scene. The startup has now raised R 1 million in new investment, bringing its total valuation to R40-million.

Here Is The Deal

This is the second round of funding and it came from Greenwold Capital.
The latest investment follows a R2-million investment previously made by Greenwold Capital in the startup in 2017.
However, this would be the end of the road for Digemy’s co-founder Carl Wallace, who Digemy CEO and co-founder Kobus Louw said had been replaced on the startup’s board by an investment representative after Wallace was diagnosed with lupus and Crohn’s disease.
With the recent investment Greenwold Capital now holds a slightly smaller stake, of 24.4%, while Digemy CEO holds a 48.9% stake and Vigo, which allows users to create their own websites, holds the remaining 26.7%.
Wallace’s stake in Digemy was formerly represented by Vigo (which has two tech subsidiary companies — Digital Drawing Room and Wapp).
However effective from 1 September, Wallace was replaced on Digemy’s board by Stocks & Strauss director and co-founder Wayne Stocks, who has previously helped SA tech startup JUMO to expand in East Africa.
Louw said the funding from this second round will be used to expand the Digemy team, launch the besmarta financial literacy platform, and to pursue entrepreneurial development.

What Digemy Does

Digemy was founded in 2016 by Wallace and Louw. The startup’s platform provides corporates with in-depth insights into the knowledge levels of employees, from course-level to the most granular level of every syllabus. Training material is delivered in bite-size chunks.

Despite the disruption around Wallace’s departure, Louw said the startup had signed four listed companies as clients, and had grown its valuation five times in the last 18 months. It has also just finished a proof of concept with one of the top banks in South Africa.
While he could not reveal who the bank was, he said the listed companies include pharmaceutical giant Cipla and Transaction Capital’s software firm Principa. The startup is currently working to conclude a deal with Deloitte too, he added.

Last year, Digemy placed in the top five for the Best Enterprise Solution at the AppsAfrica Awards, won an MTN Business App of the Year award for their besmarta financial literacy solution, and has now been named the second best tech start-up in Africa in 2019, according to Africa Tech Week.
The company has also partnered with Kevin Horsley, New York Times best-selling author and the World Record Holder for the matrix memorisation of 10 000 digits of Pi.
Through this partnership, the startup hopes to develop and launch an app that helps children memorise times tables.

Read Also: Orange Telecommunications Opens Digital Centres Across Africa

Digemy is currently partnering with corporates to roll out its besmarta platform in their organisations.
The platform provides learners with access to microlearning modules and quizzes on financial literacy that aim to decrease financial stress and help them gain financial independence.
The startup is also helping organisations to create their own online academies to assist in employee and consumer education solutions. They also create specialist courses and offer their platform as a SaaS solution.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.

South Africa’s Kingson Capital Grows Its VC Fund To Over R1.4bn With Additional Capital

September 13, 2019

Durban based venture capital (VC) company Kingson Capital yesterday announced that it had raised an additional amount in capital from US investors, to bring its $30-million (R400-million) Kingson Fund Two announced earlier this year, to $100-million (over R1.4-billion).
When it was announced in February, Kingson Capital founder and managing director Gavin Reardon said the fund would invest in 30 to 50 tech startups and black-owned small businesses (see this story).
Reardon (pictured above) told Ventureburn today that the new capital has allowed the fund to increase the ticket size of investments and as a result the fund is now looking to invest in 60 to 80 tech startup and black-owned small firms.
He said fresh capital has come from US investors who are behind digital investment platform Stat Zero.
He also stressed that the fund has not as yet closed to investment.

Kingson Capital has raised an additional R1bn from US investors, to bring its fund to a total of over R1.4bn

The fund is currently conducting due diligence on various possible investments, including both late-stage and early-stage startups, he said, adding that a “healthy” proportion of these include black startups.

‘Capital to fund innovation, impact’

Commenting in a statement yesterday, Stat Zero co-founder and CEO Marquis Cabrera said the investment platform is committed to bringing together innovation and emerging technology, with impact, to enact global change.
“Our investment into Kingson’s Fund Two reinforces this mission to evoke change for the better on a significant scale, which will help increase South Africa’s GDP by enabling global market access to Silicon Valley, California and U.S. markets and capital to grow and scale SMMEs in South Africa,” he said.
In addition, Kingson earlier this year also secured a $10-million loan portfolio guarantee facility from the US government through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The guarantee is a risk-sharing facility on debt issued by Kingson, which is supported by the US Treasury.
Reardon confirmed today that the facility forms part of the $100-million figure for the fund.
In Kingson Capital’s first fund (Fund One — see the portfolio here) the VC invested in 10 companies including Finfind – a matching platform for lenders and businesses seeking funding, Spazapp – an online ordering system for the informal marketplace (see this story) and Healthcloud – a data aggregator in the healthtech space.

10 startups selected for US bootcamp

Meanwhile, Reardon told Ventureburn that the fund, together with Cape Town based accelerator Akro Accelerate has identified 10 startups that have preliminary been selected for a two-week bootcamp in the US in November.
He said representatives from the accelerator and fund met with 10 startups on Tuesday (10 September) and that a list of those who will be selected to attend the bootcamp will be finalised shortly, he said.
It follows a pitching event held last month in Cape Town to select the 10 startups

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.

These Four African Countries Control 60 per cent of Africa ’s Digital Economy, says new report.

September 12, 2019

Africa has 54 countries but only four countries dominate the digital revolution going on in the world. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa are leveraging data and various platforms to collectively control the lion’s share of the continent’s digital entrepreneurship activities.

Here Is All You Need To Know

Apart from the Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa, six second-tier countries — Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia, Uganda and Tanzania — make up another 20 per cent, while the remaining 44 countries in Africa account for the remaining 20 per cent.
The UN agency, however, warns that the growing digital wave on the continent could be curtailed, particularly in Kenya where the Government is looking for ways to start taxing mobile applications and internet usage.

‘‘While this kind of taxation may be attractive to governments, it can be counterproductive if it results in a decline in economic activity by reducing the number of active internet users,” says the report.

UCTAD said efforts to grow tax revenues could also hurt the growth of the growing online businesses as well as suppress start-ups.

According to the report entitled Value Creation and Capture: Implications for Developing Countries, numerous developed countries are discussing or implementing interim and permanent measures to tax the digital economy.

Read Also: Tax War On Online Businesses: Nigerian and Kenyan Ecommerce Businesses To Pay VAT

These include Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. In Kenya, the National Treasury has proposed imposing an income tax and value-added tax on items bought on different e-commerce platforms. The proposals, contained in the Finance Bill 2019, are currently being debated in Parliament. This is also the case with Nigeria which has proposed to tax all ecommerce companies.

Commenting on the findings, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said digital advances have generated enormous wealth in record time, but that wealth has been concentrated around a small number of individuals, companies and countries.

There Is Wide Disparity In Digital Revolution Across The World

The report also noted that the world’s top digital firms are highly concentrated geographically . Among the world’s 70 highest valued digital platforms, most are based in the United States, followed by Asia (especially China). Latin American and African digital platforms are only marginal. In terms of market capitalization value, digital platform companies from the United States increased their share in the global total from 65 per cent to 70 per cent. An analysis of web traffic data confirms the dominance of the large United States digital platform companies. The report also noted that the United States hosts more than half of the top 100 websites used in 9 of the world’s 13 subregions shown in the table. Even in Western Europe, the most-used websites are based in the United States.

Challenges Confronting Emerging Economies

The report noted that the some of the problems confronting developing economies and other entrepreneurship ecosystems include the small size and scope of their markets.

It is rare for them to be able to reach international markets. In the diverse sample used in one study on Africa, 117 out of 135 enterprises (87 per cent) targeted their domestic markets. Enterprises typically focused on using digital technologies to cater to a nearby niche market, the report notes.

Indeed, few African digital enterprises reach customers beyond the boundaries of their home city. This is because they have to engage with customers directly, and also because only customers in cities have the minimum necessary infrastructural access or technological readiness to engage with a variety of digital products, the report further notes.

The report further notes that Africa still has fewer capital and other entrepreneurial resources than any other regions in the world to boost its digital economy.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.