In Kenya, TikTok is delivering serious sales results for brands, but questions persist over how the platform shares its commercial success with the local creators essential to its growth.

TikTok for Business, the platform’s advertising arm, is marking its first year in Kenya with data showing over 200 local creators collectively earned more than KES 47 M (over USD 360 K) through brand collaborations. The revenue came from Kenyan companies hiring creators to make promotional videos, using TikTok’s new local support teams to connect them.

The platform’s debut commercial year has seen strong adoption by Kenyan brands, resulting in measurable growth for several major companies. TikTok campaigns, findings revealed, helped e-commerce platform Kilimall generate over 152,000 purchases and a six-fold increase in sales. Others, such as consumer goods player Godrej Aer, doubled month-on-month sales, while fintech company Branch topped customer acquisition targets.

“It’s less billboard, more smartphone; less polished studio, more authentic, creator-driven clips,” TikTok says. This shift comes as spending on traditional TV, radio, and newspaper ads in Kenya has seen double-digit declines, while digital ad reach on platforms like Facebook has soared.

Despite the promising start for brand partnerships, a critical gap remains in how TikTok monetises the broader creator community. The platform’s Creator Rewards Program, which pays users directly based on video views and engagement, is not available in Kenya or anywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This policy has sparked criticism from creators and officials who argue the platform profits from African content without sharing a cut of the core advertising revenue. “If you have no arrangement [to pay], what are you doing in my country?” Ugandan comedian Kansiime Anne has asked. South Africa’s Communications Minister has called the exclusion an “economic injustice”.

In contrast, YouTube shares up to 55% of ad revenue with creators globally. TikTok points to alternative tools like “LIVE Gifting,” where fans can send virtual tips (though TikTok takes a standard cut), as well as special grant programs. However, these are not passive income streams like the unavailable rewards program.

For now, a Kenyan creator’s primary path to earning on TikTok is through the type of brand deals the platform is celebrating. With over 10 million users in the country and the app ranking as the third most popular social platform, building a sustainable local creator economy is imperative.

The platform plans to “deepen its footprint” in Kenya, betting that the next big billboard isn’t on a highway but in someone’s hand. The challenge will be ensuring more creators have a fair share in the revenue that billboard generates.

Feature Image Credits: The Star

After years of relative quiet, Egypt’s public markets are staging a vigorous comeback. A wave of new listings, led by homegrown technology and consumer brands, is signalling a surge of investor confidence and transforming the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) into a hub for local growth stories.

Market officials anticipate 2026 will be “the most active period for initial public offerings in the exchange’s history,” with plans to list around eight new companies, primarily from the medical and tourism sectors. This momentum follows a blockbuster year in 2025, which saw the EGX’s total market capitalisation surge by 42% year-on-year; part of a staggering cumulative growth of 390% since mid-2022.

The turning point came in 2025 with the landmark listing of Valu, a leading Egyptian fintech platform. Rather than a traditional IPO, Valu debuted through an innovative “in-kind dividend” where shares were distributed to investors of its parent company, EFG Holding.

The debut was explosive as Valu’s share price surged 852% in its first minutes of trading, proving local investors have a powerful appetite for high-growth tech companies.

The listing also attracted global attention, with Amazon acquiring a direct 3.95% stake in the company. Market experts, including Morgan Stanley, now highlight Egypt for “undemanding valuations amid an ongoing macro-turnaround,” with foreign investor flows reaching a two-year high.

Building directly on this momentum, premium grocer Gourmet Egypt has announced plans to list on the EGX. Its IPO was priced at the top of its target range, with the private placement portion oversubscribed by more than 12 times.

The deal, which saw existing shareholders sell a 47.6% stake while retaining confidence in the future, was seen as a key test of retail investor demand in Egypt’s consumer sector. Its strong reception confirms a broad-based revival is underway.

The market’s resilience is now being tested by the planned listing of Bosta, Egypt’s ubiquitous last-mile delivery startup. The company is reportedly preparing to float 20-30% of its equity in a deal worth up to EGP 8 B (USD 160-170 M) by the end of 2026.

Bosta represents a new breed of listing in that it’s a “pure-play” tech-enabled logistics company pitching itself as a high-margin ecosystem, not just a courier service. Its success will depend on investors believing in its expansion beyond parcel delivery into heavy B2B transport and its heavy investment in automation, including a new USD 5 M sorting facility.

The company is pursuing a “dual-track” strategy, concurrently preparing for its IPO while raising a USD 32 M private funding round to secure a financial cushion against market volatility.

These private-sector listings are unfolding alongside a government pipeline of 13 state-backed companies slated for privatisation, adding further depth to the market. The exchange itself is evolving, transitioning to a joint-stock company and preparing to launch sophisticated new trading tools like derivatives and short selling in early 2026. The combined effect is a dramatic re-rating of Egypt’s financial ecosystem.

AGX Consultant Studio, a Cairo-headquartered venture builder and investment firm, has announced an expansion of its operations across Africa, with a specific geographic focus on North and West African markets. The firm, which also maintains a regional hub in Rwanda, currently manages a portfolio of more than 50 startups.

The firm’s operational model involves facilitating market entry across more than 15 African countries. Rather than following a traditional consultancy or passive investment framework, AGX utilises a venture-building approach, taking an active role in the management and governance of its portfolio companies. This “co-builder” strategy is designed to help startups navigate the regulatory and logistical complexities inherent in cross-border scaling.

The firm’s current investment and development efforts are concentrated on several key sectors:

• Fintech and Digital Transformation
• Cybersecurity
• Agritech and Food Security

According to Dr Fady Ismail, Managing Director at AGX Consultant Studio, the firm’s strategy shifts the focus from simple capital deployment to active operational involvement. Ismail stated that the firm works with founders to ensure solutions are viable for regional expansion, aiming to bridge market gaps with local innovations that meet international standards.

By leveraging its network of regional alliances, AGX provides portfolio companies with access to institutional clients and decision-makers. The expansion is intended to position these startups to capture a larger share of the African venture market, which has seen significant shifts in funding dynamics over the past year.

Portfolio and Market Position

While the firm does not publicly disclose a single consolidated valuation for its entire “co-built” portfolio, it is identified as an early-stage venture studio focused on “supercharging” its partners’ valuations through tangible traction. The portfolio includes ventures across the following pillars:

• Financial Technology: Startups focused on cross-border payments and digital transformation.
• Security: Ventures specialising in regional cybersecurity infrastructure.
• Agriculture: Projects addressing food sovereignty and supply chain logistics in Africa.

Uber ceased all ride-hailing operations in Tanzania on January 30, 2026, ending nearly a decade in the market. The company informed users via its app that services were no longer available in cities including Dar es Salaam, Arusha, and Zanzibar, thanking them for their support but not detailing specific reasons for the exit.

The departure follows years of dispute with the Land Transport Regulatory Authority (LATRA). Uber’s journey in Tanzania, which began in June 2016, has been characterised by friction.

The core conflict centred on regulations that treated ride-hailing like traditional taxis, imposing a fixed fare structure and a cap on the commission platforms could take from drivers. LATRA enforced a commission ceiling of 15%, which was significantly below Uber’s global standard and limited its ability to fund promotions and driver incentives.

This regulatory pressure led Uber to suspend services temporarily in April 2022, stating the environment was not friendly to its business model. Operations resumed in early 2023 after negotiations resulted in a revised commission structure. However, the underlying regulatory framework remained, and the company has now made its exit permanent.

Intense competition from rival Bolt compounded Uber’s challenges. Bolt, which entered Tanzania in 2017, has become the market leader with a reported network of over 30,000 drivers across eight cities. Analysts note that Bolt’s pricing strategies and model were more adaptive to local conditions and LATRA’s rules. At the time of its exit, Uber’s active driver fleet was estimated at around 1,500.

The immediate impact displaces thousands of drivers who relied on the platform for income and removes a well-known mobility option for commuters. Market demand is expected to shift to remaining competitors like Bolt, In-Drive, and Little.

Uber’s exit from Tanzania follows its retreat from Côte d’Ivoire in 2025. Industry analysts view this as part of a strategic recalibration, where the global platform prioritises markets with regulatory environments more conducive to its dynamic pricing and commission model.

A clean-cooking company that powered kitchens for hundreds of thousands of low-income families has abruptly collapsed, laying off its entire 700-person workforce and shutting off fuel supplies overnight. The fall of KOKO Networks, a once-celebrated Kenyan startup, reveals the fragility of climate-tech ventures built on complex global finance and vulnerable to a single regulatory decision.

Founded in 2013, KOKO Networks aimed to revolutionise cooking in urban Africa. It built a vast physical network of more than 3,000 automated fuel-dispensing “KOKOpoints” installed in corner shops across Kenya. Households would buy bioethanol—a cleaner-burning fuel—in reusable bottles at these outlets for as little as KES 100.00 (around 78 cents) per liter, roughly half the market price. The company sold its purpose-built cookers for KES 1.5 K (~USD 12.00), heavily subsidised from a market rate of about KES 15 K (USD 116.00).

This model tackled multiple problems. It offered a cheaper, faster alternative to charcoal, reduced harmful indoor air pollution, and cut down on deforestation. At its peak, KOKO was onboarding an estimated 1,000 new households daily and served an estimated 1.5 million families. Investors, including heavyweights like the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund and Rand Merchant Bank, poured over USD 100 M in equity and debt into the venture, seeing it as a flagship for climate action.

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KOKO’s ability to sell fuel and stoves far below cost was financed by the international carbon market. This was the core of its business model. By switching households from charcoal to bioethanol, KOKO generated verified reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Each tonne of emissions avoided was certified as a carbon credit.

These credits were sold to companies and governments abroad, like airlines in compliance offset schemes, to help them meet their climate goals. These “compliance market” credits could sell for around USD 20.00 each, a key revenue stream.

The income from selling these credits was used to cover the gap between KOKO’s costs and the subsidised prices paid by its customers. In essence, global carbon finance was directly funding affordable, clean cooking for Kenyans.

This entire financial architecture depended on one critical document; a Letter of Authorization (LOA) from the Kenyan government. Under international climate rules (Article 6 of the Paris Agreement), a country must authorise a company to sell carbon credits representing emissions reductions on its territory.

According to multiple reports, the Kenyan government declined to issue this letter to KOKO. While the exact reasons are part of private discussions, sources indicate a dispute over the control and sharing of benefits from the carbon credit revenues.

The refusal was catastrophic. Without the LOA, KOKO could not sell its carbon credits on the primary compliance markets. Overnight, the revenue funding its subsidies vanished. Following two days of crisis meetings, executives concluded the business was no longer viable. On January 31, 2026, operations stopped, staff were told not to come to work, and customers received a terse SMS informing them of the shutdown.

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Over 1.5 million families must now find a new, likely more expensive and polluting, way to cook. Energy experts warn of a widespread return to charcoal, reversing gains in public health and forest conservation. Meanwhile, more than 700 direct employees and thousands of shop agents who operated KOKOpoints have abruptly lost their livelihoods.

The collapse may also trigger a massive financial liability. In 2024, the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) provided a USD 179.6 M political risk guarantee to back KOKO’s expansion. With the company alleging a government action led to its failure, Kenyan taxpayers could face a potential claim reported to be as high as KES 23 B (~USD 179 M).

Ultimately, KOKO’s failure exposes the high-wire act of climate-tech ventures in emerging markets. The company built a real, impactful service with strong customer demand but was felled by a breakdown in the intricate, policy-dependent finance that underpinned it.

The fallout could also send a sobering signal to international investors and entrepreneurs betting on Kenya’s “Silicon Savannah” and its ambitions as a green investment hub.

Visa recently announced the latest cohort for its Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator program. This high-impact initiative is designed to support startups across the continent through mentorship, training, and potential investment opportunities, helping them scale their solutions to solve real-world financial challenges.

The fifth cohort of Visa’s accelerator is designed to provide early- and growth-stage startups with crucial support, including mentorship, technology assistance, and access to Visa’s extensive global network. This comprehensive approach is vital for startups seeking to scale their operations and introduce new financial solutions to underserved populations across Africa.

By expanding its geographical reach, the program actively positions itself as a pivotal platform for nurturing fintech innovation and accelerating financial inclusion. The latest program supports selected businesses with the resources and expertise to help shape the future of payments across Africa.

Meet the Cohort

The latest cohort features a diverse group of companies ranging from agricultural logistics to advanced fraud prevention, all working to deepen financial inclusion and digital payment adoption in Africa.

CinetPay, the Ivorian fintech backed by Nigerian giant Flutterwave, is facing intensifying scrutiny as a new million-dollar dispute with a business partner emerges, compounding existing investigations into the company for alleged money laundering and fraud troubles in Senegal.

The fresh allegations reveal a severe liquidity crisis at the company, contradicting its public assurances of stability and raising urgent questions about regulatory oversight in one of Africa’s fastest-growing digital payment markets.

According to documents reviewed by WT, CinetPay’s CEO, Daniel Dindji, formally acknowledged in September 2025 that the company owed merchant aggregator D-Pay CFA francs 655 M (approximately USD 1.1 M). The debt stemmed from a “significant cyber fraud incident” that same month, which Dindji stated had a “direct and substantial impact on our cash flow.”

The incident, which targeted CinetPay’s systems in Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, and Burkina Faso, saw fraudsters exploit its treasury to siphon funds to mobile money accounts. While CinetPay blocked some transactions on Orange Money, recoveries were minimal. Four months later, D-Pay reports the funds remain unpaid, forcing it to cover settlements to its own merchant clients from its working capital to avoid collapse.

“By withholding customer funds for months, this situation has restricted our access to working capital and affected our ability to serve our clients,” revealed John Schubbe, an operations manager at DPay, speaking on behalf of the company.

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This financial dispute unfolds alongside a separate, serious legal probe. Last year, Senegalese authorities investigated CinetPay for its alleged role in facilitating organised fraud, money laundering, and illegal online gambling.

According to Senegalese police reports from September 2025, the investigation began after complaints about harassment from fake loan companies. Authorities tracing financial flows found funds routed through CinetPay’s platform to an Ivorian company, Nectar Microcrédit Technologie.

A search of CinetPay’s Dakar office also uncovered links to Sunutech Ltd Sarl, operating as Seyp Senegal, an entity accused of running a Ponzi scheme that allegedly defrauded Senegalese citizens of over USD 15.4 M. Police technical analysis indicated CinetPay processed payments for this scheme throughout 2024.

Senegal’s Special Cybersecurity Division arrested a CinetPay business development manager in Dakar as part of the probe.

In a September 2025 statement, CinetPay denied any wrongdoing, claiming a “third-party company misused its services.” It said it terminated the contract, cooperated with authorities, and filed a complaint against the merchant. The company asserted its commitment to compliance and framed the scrutiny as “demonisation.”

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CinetPay holds a payment service provider license from the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) and gained 2025 approval to join the region’s formal cross-border payment system. It services over 25,000 merchants across francophone Africa and raised USD 2.4 M in 2021 from Flutterwave and 4DX Ventures.

This authorised status clashes with the current allegations. The situation forces urgent questions about the efficacy of client fund safeguarding rules, real-time transaction monitoring, and the BCEAO’s supervisory capacity for licensed fintechs, especially after a major cyber incident.

BCEAO regulations mandate that electronic money institutions segregate and protect client funds, ensure timely settlement, and promptly report material incidents. The documented months-long settlement failure to D-Pay and the alleged processing for fraudulent schemes in Senegal suggest potential breaches of these core requirements.

Despite the CEO’s signed debt acknowledgment to D-Pay dated September 30, 2025, and the issuance of formal legal notices in November, no comprehensive repayment plan has been implemented. Partial payments of about 120 million CFA francs were made in some jurisdictions, but the bulk remains outstanding.

CinetPay has not responded to multiple requests for comment regarding the debt to D-Pay. Flutterwave and 4DX Ventures have also not publicly addressed the allegations against their portfolio company. For now, partners like D-Pay are left waiting, and regulators face a critical test of enforcement.

A rather candid assessment of its new African acquisition sees French media giant Groupe Canal+ declaring MultiChoice-owned streaming platform Showmax commercially unsuccessful while planning to significantly cut investment, pivoting a multi-billion-dollar deal toward cost savings rather than digital growth.

The move follows Canal+ gaining control of the MultiChoice Group in a USD 3 B deal finalised in September 2025. Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada announced as the group outlined a plan to extract over USD 479 M in annual cost synergies from the combined company by 2030.

“Showmax is not a commercial success. It’s quite obvious,” Saada said bluntly during a recent presentation. “We are in a position to reduce those investments… I won’t say how much, but it is significant”. Chief Financial Officer Amandine Ferré described Showmax’s ongoing losses as “not acceptable for us”.

The decision represents a swift reversal of MultiChoice’s ambitious multi-year strategy to transform the continent’s pay-TV leader into a streaming powerhouse. MultiChoice had relaunched Showmax with a major technology and content overhaul in 2024, projecting it could generate USD 1 B in revenue within five years.

However, the platform’s financial reality has proven dire. For the 2025 financial year, Showmax recorded a trading loss of ZAR 4.9 B (approximately USD 308 M), an 88% worsening from the previous year. Despite a 44% year-on-year increase in paying subscribers, the platform’s revenue declined, dragged down by what the company described as “a step-change in content costs and increased platform costs”.

Analysts say Canal+’s primary motivation for the MultiChoice acquisition was always scale and cost savings in its core pay-TV business across Africa, not to salvage a standalone streaming contender.

“We are in a position to reduce those investments. They are included in the synergies,” Saada said, explicitly linking the Showmax cuts to the broader USD 479 M annual savings target. The synergy plan focuses on consolidating spending on content, technology infrastructure like satellite and set-top boxes, and refinancing MultiChoice’s debt.

Canal+ executives have stressed they will proceed cautiously to avoid losing “potentially valuable subscribers,” but the strategic shift is evident.

Showmax’s struggles occur against a backdrop of severe challenges for its parent company. MultiChoice lost 2.8 million linear TV subscribers over the past two years, with its active customer base falling to 14.5 million. The group blamed a “severely stretched consumer environment,” foreign exchange volatility, intense competition from global streamers, and rampant piracy for its declining revenue and profit.

Canal+ now faces the task of stabilising the broader MultiChoice business while managing Showmax’s substantial losses. The French group has committed to not cutting South African staff for three years, indicating that savings will come from operational areas, not mass layoffs.

The strategic retreat from heavy streaming investment has been forced by the harsh economics of competing in Africa’s video market, where low broadband penetration, complex payment collection, and price-sensitive consumers create formidable barriers.

For now, Canal+ appears to be betting that a leaner, more integrated pay-TV operation with a scaled-back streaming component offers a surer path to profitability than an all-out battle with global giants for Africa’s streaming future.

A cyber syndicate allegedly stole NGN 7.7 B (approximately USD 5.5 M) from a major telecommunications company by hacking its core systems to divert vast quantities of airtime and mobile data. The Nigeria Police Force announced the arrest of six suspects, revealing a complex fraud that exploited internal vulnerabilities to treat digital airtime like cash.

The scheme began with a critical breach. Investigators found that the criminals gained access not by attacking the company’s external defenses, but by compromising the login credentials of internal staff. This allowed them to infiltrate the telecom’s core billing and payment systems undetected. Once inside, they executed large-scale, illegal diversions of prepaid airtime and data resources.

This fraud highlights a fundamental aspect of Africa’s telecom landscape as prepaid airtime functions as a liquid, digital-currency alternative. The syndicate’s operation essentially involved hacking the “mint” and printing unlimited digital cash, which they could then sell on the retail market for real money.

The scale of the fraud became evident with the arrests and asset seizures. Following a petition from the affected company and weeks of planning, police conducted coordinated raids in Kano and Katsina states in October 2025, with a final arrest in Abuja.

Recovered assets, believed to be proceeds of the crime, painted a picture of a highly organised, large-scale commercial operation. Among items recovered are two residential houses and two mini-plazas in Kano, retail outlets containing over 400 laptops and 1,000 mobile phones, a Toyota RAV4 vehicle, and substantial sums of money traced directly to the suspects’ bank accounts.

The police identified the suspects as Ahmad Bala, Karibu Mohammed Shehu, Umar Habib, Obinna Ananaba, Ibrahim Shehu, and Masa’ud Sa’ad. They are to be charged in court upon the conclusion of the investigation.

Inspector-General of Police Kayode Egbetokun commended the officers of the National Cybercrime Centre for the operation, reiterating a commitment to “safeguard Nigeria’s digital and financial ecosystems”.

The case exposes a critical weak spot for telecoms, which manage vast, easily monetisable digital resources. The breach of internal credentials points to potential failures in cybersecurity protocols and internal controls, allowing a technical exploit to result in one of the largest telecom frauds recently uncovered in Nigeria.

Image Credit: Hurriyet Daily News