Nigeria has published 20 peer-reviewed artificial intelligence (AI) compute research papers in less than two years, up from zero, in a sign of the government’s push for Nigeria’s entry into the global conversation on AI research. That jump is thanks to the Nigerian Artificial Intelligence Research Scheme (NAIRS), a federally funded program designed to stop

This is Follow the Money, our weekly series that unpacks the earnings, business, and scaling strategies of African fintechs and financial institutions. A new edition drops every Monday.   Whether it is football, prayer meetings, or Nollywood marathons, life in Nigeria now runs on data. That shift, plus a long-overdue tariff hike, has increased the

Kola Aina needs no introduction. As the founding partner of Ventures Platform, a $46 million early-stage fund, he has been a central figure in African venture capital for the past decade.  His firm has backed more than 90 startups across the continent, including Paystack (exited in 2020), PiggyVest, Omniretail, Lemfi, Raenest, Thrive Agric, and MaaD.

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Next week, we’ll publish our 2025 list of Innovators Under 35, highlighting smart and...

When Nigeria barred the import of SIM cards in 2022, a Lagos-based maker of bank payment cards saw an opening. Two years later, CardCentre Nigeria Ltd. (CCNL) has turned that policy shift into a new revenue stream worth ₦4.9 billion ($3.2 million) in 2024, positioning itself among the country’s few domestic telecom manufacturers. For much

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has scrapped preferential borrowing terms for bank employees, rejecting a push to exempt staff loans from its new risk-based pricing model. The move will drive up borrowing costs for thousands of insiders who, for years, enjoyed cheaper credit than ordinary customers. The regulator stated that only foreign-currency-denominated and fixed-rate

Oluwaleke Fakorede’s story begins on a grim note. On a random weekend in July 2022, after visiting friends in Osogbo, southwest Nigeria, he rode home on his superbike, the sun warming his skin. Fakorede loved his superbike. For the Nigerian-born software engineer, the bike presented a regular rush of adrenaline break from sedentary work. But

One year since it issued provisional crypto licences to two startups, Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—under the capital market institute (NCMI)—and Kenya School of Government (KSG) have partnered with crypto startup Busha to launch a cryptocurrency course. The module, to be developed and facilitated by the UK’s Cambridge Enterprise, part of the Cambridge University

Getting a mortgage in South Africa is starting to look a lot like buying a fridge. Digital platforms are turning the long, paperwork-heavy process into something that can be done with a few clicks, and consumers are responding. The latest signal came last week when Takealot, the country’s largest e-commerce platform, launched a Home Loan

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Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc (GTCO), one of Nigeria’s largest financial services groups, has injected ₦365.85 billion ($236 million) into its flagship subsidiary, Guaranty Trust Bank Limited (GTBank), to meet Nigeria’s new capital requirements for lenders with international authorisation. The move, announced in a regulatory filing on Friday, comes through the issuance of nearly 7