Latest content
The Quiet Force Behind African Fintech: Inside the Crossfin Playbook
Colin Iles · 20 Jul 2026
Dean Sparrow and Anton Gaylard on backing founders, surviving the wiGroup crisis, building iKhokha against the banks, and the case for patient capital.
From Paper Loans to AI Banking
Chijioke Dozie · Co-Founder & CEO, Carbon
Chijioke Dozie on Nigeria's $5bn credit gap, Carbon's 7-minute loans, and how AI is reshaping digital banking in Africa. Full recap and video.
AI Meets the African Bush
Willem Kellerman & Dirk Strauss · Co-founders, Veriphy
Chisl co-founder Willem Kellerman on how Veriphy and Project Gaia used AI drones to census South Africa's biggest reserves, backed by AWS H200 GPUs.
Building Where Incumbents Won't
Alan Knott-Craig · CEO, Fibertime
Alan Knott-Craig on how fibertime reached 415,000 township homes on 5-rand-a-day fibre, why wireless fails, and the REIT model funding a 100-billion-rand mission.
Inside the $205M Bet on African Tech
Hans Otterling · Founding Partner, Norrsken22
Hans Otterling backed Spotify and Klarna, then turned south. He tells The Backroom why Norrsken22's $205m fund treats Africa as a timing play, not charity.
Farzam Ehsani on Why VALR Sacrifices Money for Values
Colin Iles · 3 Mar 2026
VALR CEO Farzam Ehsani on building Africa's largest crypto exchange, profitability, USDC minting, stablecoins, and why regulation must catch up to the technology.
Charles Savage on Scaling Easy Equities and Backing ZARU
Colin Iles · 3 Feb 2026
Easy Equities founder Charles Savage on ZARU, the AI accelerant, and building a listed fintech from a nine-cent share price to 1.2 million clients.
Africa Must Bet on Itself: Aboyeji on Building From the Continent
Colin Iles · 11 Dec 2025
Future Africa co-founder Iyinoluwa Aboyeji tells the AWS Founders Series why global capital will not return, why fintech copycats bore him, and what actually builds a unicorn.
GB Agboola on Flutterwave and Africa's Payment Superhighway
Colin Iles · 19 Nov 2025
Flutterwave founder GB Agboola on why Nigeria was the hardest market to start in, the $1bn quarter, and how PAPS and stablecoins could reshape African payments.
How Mounir Nakhla Built MNT-Halan Into Egypt's First Unicorn
Colin Iles · 10 Nov 2025
Mounir Nakhla started by financing tuk-tuks in 2010. Fifteen years on, MNT-Halan has served 8 million customers and disbursed over $15 billion. Here is how he did it.
Melvyn Lubega on Building Africa's First Edtech Unicorn, Go1
Colin Iles · 13 Oct 2025
Go1 co-founder Melvyn Lubega on building Africa's first edtech unicorn from Oxford to Y Combinator, why customer obsession beats Silicon Valley funding, and the discipline of purpose.
Clickatell's Pieter de Villiers on 25 Years From Four Lines of Code
Colin Iles · 8 Sept 2025
Clickatell co-founder Pieter de Villiers on building the world's first SMS gateway from a Cape Town flat, raising from Sequoia, and why he wishes he had taken more risk.
Vuyo Mpako on Building Old Mutual's Venture Arm, Next176
Colin Iles · 7 Aug 2025
Vuyo Mpako, managing director of Next176, unpacks how Old Mutual's venture arm built an 18-company portfolio and why African corporates should be backing startups.
TymeBank's Tjaart van der Walt on Building a Bank by Design
Colin Iles · 10 Jul 2025
Tyme Group's Tjaart van der Walt on how design, distribution and crazy belief built an 18.2 million customer digital bank across South Africa and Asia.