<h4>Entersekt</h4>
<p>Entersekt is a global pioneer in transaction authentication for financial institutions. The system combines electronic certificate technology with encrypted cloud messaging and the convenience of mobile phones to give banks, and their customers, full protection from cyber criminals looking to steal users login details and passwords. Entersekts clients, who include Investec, Absa, Old Mutual, Nedbank and Capitec, have allegedly reported an elimination of online banking fraud since implementing the system. Over 12 million customers are protected by Entersekt’s security software which has authenticated more than 250 million transactions since being launched in 2010. The start-up has so far raised around $10 million and has been implemented in Swiss financial institutions with plans to expand to Nigeria, Britain, Netherlands and the United States.</p>
<h4>iono.fm</h4>
<p>Described as PVR for radio, iono.fm is an audio-on-demand platform that publishes content from radio stations, podcasts and audiobooks. Listeners create their unique playlists and download content for later use. The revenue model centers on short audio adverts and all the content is currently free but going forward they may charge for exclusive content and added functionality. Where traditional radio stations can only monetize their content once as it is streamed live, iono.fm can monetize the content multiple times with different advertisers as the audio is stored online for repeat use. The platform currently generates over a million page views and 800,000 downloads per month. In the second quarter this year, iono.fm saw a 400% increase in downloads. The company has been self-funded since 2008 but is now engaging with venture capital investment to expand operations to the rest of Africa, India, and South America.</p>
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<h4>wiGroup</h4>
<p>wiGroup is a specialized point-of-sale integration platform that enables retailers of any size to tap into the mobile money market. Retailers that plug-in to the wiPlatform are able to accept any kind of current or future mobile payment, loyalty, reward or couponing application that exists on the platform. MTN Mobile Money, FlickPay and M-Pesa are some of the apps that have been integrated into the system which services over 50,000 till lanes across South Africa and has processed close to $250 million in mobile transactions. wiGroup’s clients include Pick n Pay, Shoprite, Vodacom and KFC, and the revenue model is based on transaction fees and monthly licensing subscriptions for apps that run on the platform. The company has a presence in Namibia and Mauritius, with plans to expand into Nigeria, Zambia and Britain in the near future.</p>
<p>CapeRay</p>
<p>CapeRay develops and manufactures advanced breast cancer screening equipment combining X-ray and ultrasound technology to enhance a clinician’s ability to detect cancer in women &#8211; especially those with dense breast tissue where conventional methods often miss a cancerous lesion. The technology is the first of its kind globally. The start-up spun away from the University of Cape Town around four years ago and has so far raised $2.26 million in funding pre-revenue. Clinical trials have been completed and an offering memorandum is now in front of 15 major multinational companies with CapeRay looking to raise an additional $10 million to begin rolling out the product in the United States, Europe and South Africa.</p>
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<h4>iKubu</h4>
<p>iKubu specializes in developing computer vision and commercial radar systems. The small team of engineers have a deep understanding of embedded software solutions and electronic hardware with a strong focus on algorithm development. The start-up developed a 3D scanning system for automated baggage check-in that has been implemented in major airports, including Heathrow, Sydney and Singapore. The company has, up until now, been bootstrapped by the founders who are engaging with international investors to expand operations.</p>
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<h4>Nomanini</h4>
<p>Nomanini develops and manufactures rugged mobile point-of-sale terminals to sell products such as airtime and electricity in emerging markets. The technology enables vendors in the informal sector to efficiently distribute prepaid vouchers and facilitate micro cash payments with plans in the works to enable additional transactions such as mobile money and insurance premium collections. Nomanini has partnerships in Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Namibia, Guinea and Mozambique with active terminals processing over a million transactions in September with the company expecting to process a million payments per month by December. Nomanini has so far raised more than $2.3 million in funding and is engaging with venture capital players in foreign markets for further expansion.</p>
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<h4>8bit</h4>
<p>8bit is a content recommendation platform that connects online publishers to a larger network of content producers driving traffic to members’ websites by showcasing their most popular content on other sites in the network. 8bit’s system automatically detects a site’s top content based on time, click rate and social media engagement and shares impressions across the network of publishers. It is currently in a closed invite only beta stage with South Africa’s leading independent publishers and has begun trialling with the country’s largest media houses. 8bit will officially launch at the upcoming Web Summit conference in Dublin in November after being named as one of Africa’s top 10 start-ups. In the upcoming months the company will be launching its paid promotions platform where publishers and advertisers can promote sponsored content not only on 8bit’s network but on traditional advertising exchanges. Since being founded earlier this year 8bit has raised around $135,000 in seed funding with plans to expand into Kenya, Nigeria and Denmark. 8bit processes over 20 million recommendations per month and in many instances, directs more traffic to publishers on its network than Google, Facebook and Twitter.</p>
<h4>OrderCloud</h4>
<p>OrderCloud integrates all the sales channels of a business, whether telephone, web or mobile, into a single online dashboard for simple and effective order management. The system automatically locates the closest outlet to the customer and links it with the necessary delivery services to process the order. Whether customers pay with credit, cash or mobile money, all your funds are instantly aggregated into a single account which distributes the lump sum to all the relevant parties in the supply chain. OrderCloud is being integrated into large franchises in South Africa though the start-up cannot say who at this point as the information is classified. The company is busy putting together a prominent board of directors and has so far raised $226,000 with plans to raise an additional $900,000 from local and international investors.</p>
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<h4>WhereIsMyTransport</h4>
<p>This month, WhereIsMyTransport will be launching Africa’s first official multi-modal transport application for Cape Town. Commuters using the app are able to seamlessly plot their journey from point to point linking various modes of public transport such as Golden Arrow buses and Metrorail trains with minibus taxis to come online in the near future. The application generates valuable data regarding commuter traffic and congestion enabling cities to more efficiently develop their transport networks. The start-up, still in its infancy, is engaged in talks with investors in three foreign markets to develop similar applications for major metros. The long-term vision of the company will be to open up its application programming interface to allow other developers to build apps using their technology.</p>
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<h4>Ekaya</h4>
<p>Ekaya has created an online marketplace where you can list, find and rent property from your phone or on the web. Landlords can vet and rate tenants, collect rent and freely advertise their property on the platform. Tenants applying for property pay an administrative fee of less than $10 for all necessary criminal and credit record checks, whereas property agents usually charge around $100. Also, instead of paying a fat deposit upfront, Ekaya offers an insurance scheme where tenants pay a smaller monthly fee that can be used to cover damages. Ekaya makes money by taking a small commission of the rent and is looking to expand its insurance, micro-loan and deposit components with added loyalty and reward features. Ekaya recently raised $126,000 in angel funding and has over 1,000 estate listings in Cape Town since the beta version went live about two weeks ago with the platform aiming to launch in Durban and Johannesburg in the next few months.</p>


Ten Technology  Start-Ups To Watch

<p>Observing Mitchell Elegbe, the founder and chief executive of Interswitch, it’s hard to believe that his first encounter with an automated teller machine (ATM) left him feeling intimidated.</p>
<p>Before he led the technological development of Nigeria’s financial sector by pioneering transaction switching among Nigeria’s financial institutions, his card was seized by an ATM on his first attempt at using the machine.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2311" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC_3769-210x300.jpg" alt="" width="210" height="300" /></p>
<p>The incident occurred while he was an expatriate in Scotland, at a time when technological innovations like the ATM did not exist in Nigeria.</p>
<p>Elegbe developed the idea to create the system infrastructure that would enable electronic payments in Nigeria while working at his first job where he was involved in a project to implement SWIFT—the network for global interbank financial telecommunication—for Nigerian banks.</p>
<p>He quietly nurtured the vision to establish an electronic payment system in Nigeria while charting a course for his fledgling career. On his return to Nigeria, Elegbe was employed by Telnet, a telecommunications company he had worked for before he moved abroad. He successfully pitched the idea of the transaction switch to his boss and was authorized to execute it, but the process did not go according to plan.</p>
<p>“I started by trying to sell the software for switching to traditional players. Most of them were not interested. I thought if I created an organization that would buy the software, I could meet my targets.”</p>
<p>“We would get some other person to run that organization because I could see it was going to be a very viable business. So I went about creating Interswitch.”</p>
<p>Elegbe and his team were able to get the assistance of Accenture in establishing the company. This was instrumental in getting local banks to put down a portion of the start-up capital. However, they faced a challenge with finding an experienced CEO to run the company.</p>
<p>“All the CEO’s we could get were expatriates and what they wanted to earn was more than the entire capital of the company. Somebody in Accenture said ‘Mitchell it was your idea, why don’t you go run it.’ For the first time I thought about it. I had just left school; I would say I became CEO of Interswitch four years after I finished NYSC (compulsory national service) and I didn’t really have a lot of experience. But somehow the shareholders and my former company were willing to take that risk.”</p>
<p>Despite the fact that the company was built on his idea, Elegbe began life at Interswitch as an employee with no shareholding. His priority was not ownership of the company, but rather to see out the execution of what he believed was a brilliant idea.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t fixated on being the one to run it, neither was I fixated on having a majority shareholding or even having any shareholding. I was just happy to see the idea blossom, and that my company, Telnet, got the value that I had promised would be created if they went in this direction.”</p>
<p>Elegbe’s stellar leadership of the company eventually earned him and his team stakes in the enterprise. With the benefit of hindsight, he is convinced that his decision to forgo ownership of the company at inception was the correct and had a significant impact on the company’s stable growth in its early days.</p>
<p>“I was willing to let go of the whole business and I think it was one of the best decisions we took because from day one Interswitch was never run like a typical one-man business. A formal structure was in place; the vision being delivered meant more to us than how much money we were going to make from the business.”</p>
<p>In 2004, Interswitch won a gold medal for innovation at the Computerworld Honors, an international award program which recognizes individuals and organizations whose achievements in ICT have impacted society. Before receiving the award, the company had seven local banks on its network. Thereafter, the number increased to 13, and the first set of non-banks, including an ATM consortium and Globacom, a mobile telecommunications provider, were added. Today, the company has almost all Nigerian banks and 11,000 ATMs on its network.</p>
<p>Eight years after it was set up, Interswitch’s shareholders reached a decision to tweak the ownership model of the company. With the company valued at over $170 million, a private equity deal was structured and two-thirds of the company was sold to a consortium.</p>
<p>The equity injection bolstered Interswitch’s balance sheet and paved the way for it to begin realizing its ambition for the continent, which was soon reflected by its acquisition of Bankom, Uganda’s leading transaction switching company. Elegbe points out that an expansion across Africa is a no brainer.</p>
<p>“You see a lot of players in Africa transcending more than one country and if you want to remain relevant you need to be able to provide a similar service. In Nigeria we do business with large organizations that have aspirations to expand to other countries. We discovered that the infrastructure they use in Nigeria to make payments seamless for their customers is not available in other countries. Interswitch sees that as an opportunity to tap into,” he says.</p>
<p>“Southern Africa is quite developed and so chances are that any payment infrastructure you need to have in those markets already exists. But in West, Central and East Africa, there is still room for development, so we felt we should begin to spread our tentacles across these regions.”</p>
<p>Elegbe believes there are significant opportunities for the integration of the financial systems of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, despite the differences in technology and the states of readiness of the markets.</p>
<p>“Opportunities are huge, but they vary from country to country. Not all countries are at the same state of readiness, so even though country A could be bigger in terms of opportunity, country B may be more ready, despite being smaller. For example, we have a joint venture with the Central Bank of The Gambia and some other banks to replicate a national payment infrastructure in that country with Interswitch acting as management contractors. Gambia is not a very big country but it was ready. The central bank was very focused and wanted this to happen,” says Elegbe.</p>
<p>While agreeing that there is significant scope for growth on the continent, he recognizes that there are challenges for payment switches in markets that lack the volumes required to achieve profitability solely based on the market factors.</p>
<p>“Payment is a game of volumes. So you have what I call a chicken and egg situation; you need the infrastructure to see the volumes to sustain itself. No serious shareholder will want to invest in the market where in two to three years they will not begin to see some returns on their money. Unfortunately, some markets cannot give you that return within this period,” he says.</p>
<p>“We are now looking at a concept where Interswitch needs to be able to approach certain donor agencies to make a case for payments in Africa to be handled from a not-for-profit perspective based on the developmental impact of payments. There is a strong argument for organizations that make money available for social projects to consider payment as a social project worthy of grants to grow payments in some of these countries.”</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Elegbe is confident that prospects are bright for the business across the continent.</p>
<p>“There is no market in Africa today where if you have a first mover advantage you won’t do well as a payment switch. The opportunities are huge.”</p>


Tag: Financial Institutions

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Ten Technology Start-Ups To Watch

Spreading Tentacles Across Africa