Author: Elan

Listen to this article Tokyo is redefining its engagement with Africa, transitioning from traditional aid-based approaches to strategic venture capital (VC) investments focused on long-term partnerships, innovation and capacity building. Several Japanese private companies are making Japan’s presence felt in Africa’s VC landscape, particularly in high-growth sectors such as fintech, climate tech and mobility. Growing demand for innovative, technology-driven solutions in Africa has drawn increasing interest from international investors. VC funding in Africa rose from over US$2 billion in 2019 to a peak of US$5.2 billion in 2022. Though investment declined to around US$3.6 billion in 2023, the continent’s start-up…

Audio By Vocalize Hiruy Amanuel, Managing Director, Gullit VC. [Courtesy] Something is changing inside African venture capital, but it is not the kind of change that announces itself loudly. There are no defining moments or dramatic turning points that clearly mark the transition. Instead, it is unfolding gradually through changing investor behaviour, shifting founder expectations, and a growing emphasis on discipline across the ecosystem. It is quiet, but it is real. For years, Africa’s venture capital playbook was authored abroad. It was driven by a compelling narrative: a young and rapidly growing population, underserved markets, accelerating technology adoption, and…

Business hopes for continuity after ‘mixed bag’ Zambian election – African Business Business hopes for continuity after ‘mixed bag’ Zambian election – African Business

The integration expands access to USDU, the UAE’s first central bank-registered US dollar stablecoin, as it builds distribution beyond institutional channels.

How do you prepare millions of young people for an economy that cannot provide enough salaried jobs? Over the past two decades, university enrolment in Nigeria has risen from roughly 448,000 students in the 1999/2000 academic session to more than  2.15 million in 2019.  For generations, higher education has been viewed as a pathway to better economic prospects. A degree could open the door to professional, white-collar and salaried employment and, ultimately, a more stable middle-class life. But Nigeria’s labour market cannot absorb most workers into formal, salaried employment. In Q1 2024, 92.7% of employed Nigerians were in informal employment…

When tasked with building a highly interactive, tactile web experience, the architecture must serve the art direction. In this article, Alexey Kopytin explains their architectural rationale for building a digital stress-relief squeeze toy game using Lottie animations, DOM events, and distance-based math to maintain absolute control over their designers’ intentional motion.When front-end developers and UX engineers are tasked with building a web interface that feels tactile, bouncy, or destructive, the industry instinct is almost always the same: reach for a physics engine. Frameworks like Matter.js, Cannon.js, or custom WebGL solutions have become the gold standard for creating immersive, gamified websites.When…

Image credit: Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels Johannesburg, 18 August 2026 The Southern African Fraud Prevention Service (SAFPS), a South African industry body that enables organisations to share fraud intelligence and strengthen fraud prevention, saved its Members more than R7.44 billion in potential fraud losses during 2025, underscoring the growing value of shared fraud intelligence as criminal networks become increasingly organised, technologically advanced and difficult to detect. The figures, released in the 2025 SAFPS Annual Report, represent a 47 per cent increase in fraud savings compared with the previous year. The number of enquiries into the SAFPS fraud database reached 131…

By PwCWe’re pleased to share our latest publication, Nigeria’s Capital Gains Tax reforms: What the new 30% rate and indirect transfer rules mean for investors.Following the commencement of the Nigeria Tax Act on 1 January 2026, Nigeria’s Capital Gains Tax (CGT) regime has entered a new phase. The changes introduce a higher CGT rate for companies, broaden the scope of transactions that may be subject to tax, and raise important questions around the application of the new rules and their practical implementation.The reforms have important implications for investors, businesses and Nigeria’s investment landscape:For investors and businesses: Transactions involving Nigerian assets…

Partner Content: Africa’s Business HeroesThe Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) Prize Competition, a philanthropic initiative of Alibaba Philanthropy, has announced the 20 entrepreneurs who will advance to its 2026 Semi-Final, taking place in Nairobi, Kenya, on 21–22 August.The Top 20 were selected from an expanded Top 100 cohort drawn from more than 24,000 applications across all 54 African countries. Candidates advanced through three-person judging-panel interviews that assessed leadership, innovation, impact, scalability and commercial strength. The process was reinforced by on-the-ground visits to every company advancing to the Semi-Final and comprehensive due diligence conducted by PlusVC, allowing ABH to test the written…

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