IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Good morning ☀️ ️
While I search for the strength to move from my bed to my desk this fine morning I’m thinking about the UAE’s new satellite now in Mars’ orbit.
If we are leaving this planet, my bags are packed and ready.
But while we’re still here…
In today’s edition:
- Looking to find love?
- The crypto account closures have begun
- Tuning in to IrokoTV
- Show Me The Money
Looking to find love? These brothers can help
To tell the story of the Olatoye brothers, it might be best to start with the idea that gave birth to their company, Trueflutter.
I’ll set the scene.
The year is 2018. Ayo, the older of the brothers, is living in Dubai with his wife Bolaji. His brother Dare flies in from Lagos to pay him a visit.
After years of being away from each other, there’s clearly a lot to catch up on. As they talk about everything from the stress of Lagos to life in Dubai, the night carries on.
Conversations have a way of morphing and soon they are on the topic of Dare’s non-existent love life.
That night, Ayo and Dare decided not to make another dating app. There were several of those already. Theirs would be a matchmaking platform.
Dare would end up meeting his wife on the platform. Talk about serendipity.
In this week’s My Life In Tech I speak to them about what it’s like in the lovetech business.
Read more: The Olatoye Brothers are making your love life their business
PARTNER CONTENT
Discover unique, thoughtful gifts made with ❤️ from Paystack creators in Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. Paystack.com/giftguide
They talked about it. Now they’re doing it.
Several people with accounts in Access Bank woke up to an email from their bank informing them that their accounts were now closed.
What? Why?
Following a directive from the country’s apex bank, Nigerian banks were asked to close any accounts used for crypto transactions. While debates sprung up about the problems with this directive, it seems no one guessed the account closures would come so soon.
So what happens now?
The accounts closure appears to be the enforcement of a new law on activities that were not illegal when they were performed. Until the CBN’s recent circular, it was okay for people to trade crypto with their bank accounts. So the rationale behind the CBN’s directive is unclear.
Either way, we have our ears to the ground and we’ll be letting you know how the story unfolds.
PARTNER CONTENT
As industry experts and architects of continuity, Vertiv collaborates with customers to envision and build future-ready infrastructure. We leverage our portfolio of hardware, software, analytics, and services to ensure a customer’s vital applications run continuously, perform optimally, and scale with business needs.Vertiv | LinkedIn
IrokoTV might be heading to the London Stock Exchange
In case you hadn’t heard, IrokoTV is looking at getting listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market in the next 12 months.
What are the figures like: The sale would aim to raise between $20m and $30m, and would value the whole business at between $80m and $100m.
In 2020, Iroko made the decision to halt any scaling efforts on the continent and the CEO Jason Njoku attributes this decision to the region’s ‘weak currencies and the reduced levels of disposable income due to the pandemic.’
Read more: Nigeria’s IROKO plans to go public on the London Stock Exchange AIM in 2022
PARTNER CONTENT
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Show me the money
Ivorian fintech startup Djamo has been selected into Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 batch. This comes with USD 125 K in seed funding as well as further support.
The governments of Ivory Coast and Luxembourg will invest a total of EUR10 million (US$12 million) into Bamboo Capital Partners’ BLOC Smart Africa, a technology impact fund with a target of EUR100 million (US$120 million).
Egyptian Healthtech startup DilenyTech received a non-equity grant of USD 160 K from the Information Technology Academia Collaboration (ITAC) programme affiliated with the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA)
Nigeria’s Xend Finance, a decentralised finance (DeFi) platform for credit unions and cooperatives, has topped up its funding round to US$2 million
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