UPDATE GIGS MEDIAUPDATE GIGS MEDIA
  • Home
  • Entertainment
  • Business & Finance
  • Education
    • Scholarships
  • Lifestyle
    • Health & Fitness
    • Travel
    • Dating & Relationships
    • Do it yourself
  • Tech
  • Privacy Policy
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Facebook Twitter Instagram
UPDATE GIGS MEDIAUPDATE GIGS MEDIA
CONTACT US
  • Home
  • Entertainment
  • Business & Finance
  • Education
    • Scholarships
  • Lifestyle
    • Health & Fitness
    • Travel
    • Dating & Relationships
    • Do it yourself
  • Tech
  • Privacy Policy
UPDATE GIGS MEDIAUPDATE GIGS MEDIA
Home » Spotlight on technology in French-speaking Africa
Tech

Spotlight on technology in French-speaking Africa

adminBy adminApril 17, 2023No Comments6 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Telegram Pinterest Tumblr Reddit Email
La Francophonie Afrique.png
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email


If you’ve been a regular reader of Next Wave for at least four months, you will have noticed the appearance of a blue “Lire en Français” (Translation: Read in French) button early this year. I’ve changed it to “C’est article aussi disponsible en français” (Translation: This article is also available in French). There’s a backstory to it that is also a good primer for today’s essay.

In the last few months of 2022, some Next Wave essays found their way into the emails of readers in several French-speaking countries in Africa. It was definitely not the first time TechCabal or even Next Wave articles were being read by an audience in French-speaking Africa, but this time was different. Some readers were having none of it. “Je ne sais ni lire ni parler anglais. Il faut me renvoyer les messages en français pour me permettre de comprendre. Merci,” one reader wrote. It translates to “I can neither read nor speak English. You have to send me the messages in French to allow me to understand. Thank you.”

So I did a bit of Googling and customised a code snippet that creates a Google-translated web version of these Sunday emails. Not perfect, but the problem was solved! I share this story to illustrate how a media business like TechCabal cannot afford—even if we wanted—to ignore the rise and growing importance of technology businesses and startups in French-speaking African countries. The undeniable fact is that technology is being increasingly used by people across all social strata even in parts of Africa that are all too easily unseen.

In 2021, Wave, a fintech founded in Senegal became the first $1billion+ company in Senegal, and the first to emerge outside of the Big Four—Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt and Kenya. Three of the Big Four have the English language as one of the languages used in official documents in business, generally. So when Wave raised a $200 million war chest, it was guaranteed to get attention. If any African company raises $200 million, it’s huge news. But investors, including the IFC, putting $200 million into a company in Senegal has arguably done, for francophone Africa, something akin to what Stripe’s acquisition of Paystack in 2020 did for Nigeria. It put a spotlight on the mostly unheard progress of technology in the region. People sat up and took notice.

Recent startup investment inflows into Francophone African countries. French speaking African countries have pulled in a few heavy hitters recently. | –Chart: Ayomide Agbaje — TechCabal Insights

“Tech startups in the region were mostly surviving,” Moulaye Taboure, co-founder and chief executive of ANKA, an e-commerce company told Tomiwa, on the Next Wave show. “Because they could not count on going to France to get funding, they were focused on being profitable,” Taboure added.

Funding to French-speaking Africa has increased steadily since then, with corporate and regular VC investors paying more attention to these companies. As more companies have been funded, more have been born, putting more spotlight hours on French-speaking Africa.

But other forces have been at play. Rashmi Pillai, head of public policy at Wave, points to “an enabling policy environment for innovation” and nuanced appreciation of the market potential of francophone Africa as factors that support an upsurge of investments in francophone startups in Africa. Wave itself was able to force open the almost monopolised payments market in Senegal by reducing charges to 1%. The company followed this up by quickly expanding its footprint into other countries, making the market size question moot.

Startups closing deals in Francophone Africa are on the rise, with Wave setting the highest fundraising record. | Infographic: Ayomide Agbaje — TechCabal Insights

Rebecca Enochong, a Cameroonian tech entrepreneur and chief executive of AppsTech, an enterprise software business, has this to say about the market size: “A lot of these francophone countries share a common currency and a common central bank, which means that it is easier for them from a regulatory and forex exchange standpoint to scale across the region.”

Business researcher and consultant, Abderrahmane Chaoui, conducted a months-long study on the digital innovation space in francophone Africa. He says the drivers of innovation and the readiness of francophone markets to accept tech-enabled products or services vary widely even between neighbouring countries. Writing for Founder Factory Africa, a corporate-backed startup accelerator, Chaoui notes, “Ecosystems around the world are fundamentally shaped by these different aspects. To consider Africa as a whole, or to imagine subsets based on the spoken language or the geographies they are in, does not make much empiric sense from an ecosystem analysis point of view.”

I love that Chaoui’s research takes a broader look at francophone countries because it allows me to point towards Tunisia’s InstaDeep, Morocco’s Chari and Algeria’s Yassir, as examples of firms whose offering has caught the attention of stakeholders in Africa’s technology space. The more interesting point is that all three firms operate in different spaces in different countries.

Capturing the francophone ecosystem with a wider lens also reveals the misalignment between the region’s ambitions and the available resources. In countries like Senegal for example, Chaoui decries the ecosystem’s over-exposure, noting that “It is this external attractiveness that has led investors into the ecosystem come and go, harming Senegal’s international ecosystem reputation.” It is an interesting point to make, especially since the narrative is that technology in French-speaking Africa is unseen, but Chaoui makes the point without deference.

Advertisements

To be fair, his point can apply to the entire continent. For example, that francophone ecosystem “needs more coordination and collaboration between its different players to gain efficiency and bring more value to entrepreneurs,” is true for Senegal as it is for Egypt or Nigeria. Both countries may take in more venture funding compared to the rest of the francophonie, but the shared ecosystem problems won’t go away because there’s more money in the bank.

Advertisements

Partner Message

JICA Nigeria Startup Ecosystem ad

Get Insights on the Nigeria Tech ecosystem, the distribution of tech hubs/incubators across sectors and states in Nigeria, and their impact on the respective sectors in the ecosystem.

Download the second edition of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Nigeria ecosystem report to learn more about the evolution of the ecosystem.

Get a free copy here.


We’d love to hear from you

Psst! Down here!

Thanks for reading The Next Wave. Subscribe here for free to get fresh perspectives on the progress of digital innovation in Africa every Sunday.

Please share today’s edition with your network on WhatsApp, Telegram and other platforms, and feel free to send a reply to let us know if you enjoyed this essay

Subscribe to our TC Daily newsletter to receive all the technology and business stories you need each weekday at 7 AM (WAT).

Follow TechCabal on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay engaged in our real-time conversations on tech and innovation in Africa.

Abraham Augustine,

Senior Reporter, Business and Insights
TechCabal.

If you liked this edition of Next Wave, please share with your friends. And feel free to reply with thoughts and feedback. We welcome those.

Share this:

  • X
Advertisements

Advertisements

Related

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
admin
admin
  • Website

Related Posts

👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Worldcoin goes global

July 25, 2023

Nigerian insurance startup, MyCover.ai closes $1.25m pre-seed fund

July 24, 2023

Kenya tax authority goes for Upwork freelancers in new tax net

July 24, 2023

The middle ground for Africa’s traditional economy vs. gig economy

July 24, 2023

eTranzact reports N1.17 billion profit after tax for 2022

July 24, 2023

Africa Walk to dispel myths about investing in the creative industry

July 24, 2023
Stay In Touch
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
Don't Miss
Tech

Has NFT found its biggest mainstream proponent yet in Africa?

By adminApril 13, 2022

The past few days have been good for NFT in Africa—Nigeria and Ghana, to be…

Share this:

  • X

👨🏿‍🚀 TechCabal Daily – MTN is accelerating mobile money in Nigeria

April 13, 2022

Didi shuts down operations in South Africa

April 13, 2022

Back from the future: How embedded finance changed the world

April 13, 2022

Can Hytch succeed where GoMyWay failed?

April 13, 2022

More African central banks are considering digital currencies

April 13, 2022

This bootstrapped drone startup is promoting smart farming in Zimbabwe

April 13, 2022

The Next Wave: Africa does not know itself

April 13, 2022

TechCabal Daily – Kenya’s new law for content creators

April 14, 2022

INDUSTRY EXPERTS DISCUSS THE GROWTH AND FUTURE OF FINTECH IN NIGERIA AND INDIA IN SYMPOSIUM BY CLI COLLEGE, NIGERIA AND CHRIST UNIVERSITY, INDIA

April 14, 2022

28 days after launching investment arm, Luno crosses 10m user base

April 14, 2022

👨🏿‍🚀 TechCabal Daily – The war for Twitter

April 15, 2022

Digital Nomads: Julian Owusu’s journey from football to fintech

April 15, 2022

In the wake of explosive accusations against Africa’s most valuable startup, Flutterwave co-founder speaks

April 16, 2022
Advertise with us
update gigs advert images
LATEST

Bupa shuts cash plan of 78-year old woman that paid in for almost 40 years – with less than three months notice

November 13, 2023

Would Waitrose’s fortunes improve with an Amazon deal and what could it mean for customers?

October 14, 2023

My son and his partner bought a new build with Help to Buy – do they now lack the income to remortgage?

September 14, 2023
About Us
About Us

We are dedicated to bringing you news from around the world that is entertaining, educative, informative and self inspiring.. Your source for the lifestyle news.

We're accepting new partnerships right now.

Email Us: updatemedia050@gmail.com

Subscribe to Updates

Get the latest news from Update Gigs Media about entertainment, sports, lifestyle, art, design and business.

Facebook Twitter Instagram
© 2023 Designed by Ntechy Digital System.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.