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Jumia’s shares have fallen by 14.6% after US short seller Andrew Left called it a fraud. Left’s Citron Research in a report said that there were major differences between a confidential investor presentation from October 2018 and what Jumia told the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). It specifically said the e-commerce company inflated active customer and active merchant numbers by 20% to 30%; and that 41% of orders were returned, not delivered or cancelled. While there were major concerns about Jumia’s business model and its profitability, fraud wasn’t a label many gave the business. One thing that seemed apparent was that the company was under pressure to provide an exit for its major shareholders including MTN which we reported wanted to sell off some of its Jumia shares after the lock-in period. Still, there are good reasons for scepticism about the credibility of Andrew Left and his Citron Research. It will need to present evidence about its claims. Also, there’s an ongoing four-month-old petition asking SEC to investigate Citron Research for publishing falsehoods in order to manipulate the market for their gain. Left was banned from trading in Hong Kong for making false allegations about a Chinese property developer. He makes millions betting against stocks and as the New York Times noted two years ago: “though he makes mistakes, he has an unusually high success rate”. Expect a response from Jumia but we’ll have to wait to see how this goes.

Pan-African fintech startup, Chipper Cash has raised a seed round of $2.4 million. The round which was led by Deciens Capital and joined by 500 Startups, as well as Liquid 2 Ventures, will provide funds for the company to launch a merchant-focused, C2B mobile payments product. It will also expand beyond its current operations in Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Chipper Cash was launched in 2018 by Ham Serunjogi (Ugandan) and Maijid Moujaled (Ghanaian) has processed 250,000 transactions for more than 70,000 active users. The startup offers no-fee, P2P, cross-border mobile-money payments. Fintech startups continue to attract the bulk of the funding to African startups, for last year Partech reported that the sector got 50% of total funding.

Game developers in Africa can now apply for Google’s Indie Games Accelerator programme. The programme which is a special edition of the Launchpad Accelerator will receive applications until May 19, apply here.

Google has announced the 20 selected organizations for its AI Impact Challenge. The company called for applications and received 119 of them from 6 countries by organizations with ideas for how they could use AI to help address societal challenges. The African organizations on the final list of 20 are Makerere University (Uganda) and Full Fact, the mother company for Africa Check.                                                                                                                   

Ride-sharing startup SafeBoda has raised an undisclosed amount from Allianz X, the investment arm of the Allianz Group and also Go Ventures. The funds from the Series B investment will be used to continue its Africa-wide expansion. The company will also be building fintech and insurance solutions for its consumers.

The Kenyan Aviation Authority has put together a draft document for the regulation of drones. It is now calling for feedback from the public about the draft. African governments are usually sceptical about drones and have handled them either through outright bans or setting very tough requirements.

US-based media analytics company, Comscore is expanding to nine African countries. It will focus on West and Southern African countries including Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Namibia, South Africa, eSwatini, Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The company is expected to provide credible and transparent data about box office earnings that is not readily available in many African nations.

There’s been a hike in data prices in Zimbabwe. Telcos in the country had to raise their prices following the devaluation of the currency and an increase in fuel prices which resulted in an increase in the cost of doing business. Three months ago, a new currency was introduced by the government with a value of 1:1 to the US dollar but the value of the currency fell by about 4 times causing the prices of commodities to rise.

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