The Infamous Internet Disruption in West Africa

What’s happened this Week:

• Uber makes a sizeable investment in Mobility Fintech Moove

• Neobank Kuda gets licensed in Tanzania and Canada

• and more!

In The News This Week:

Vietnamese Automaker VinFast Auto Signs Deal With Jospong Group To Enter Into African Market

Vietnamese automaker VinFast Auto has signed a distribution agreement with Jospong Group of Companies, Ghana’s leading multi-industry conglomerate, in Ghana and the West African market.

Idris Elba Wants To Turn An Island In Sierra Leone Into a Smart City

Popular actor Idris Elba is planning on developing Sherbro Island, an island off the coast of Sierra Leone into an eco-friendly smart city.

Zone Raises $8.5 Million in Seed Funding to Scale its Decentralized Payment Infrastructure

Zone, one of Africa’s fast-growing payment infrastructure companies has raised $8.5 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round led by VC firms Flourish Ventures and TLcom Capital.

In the rest of the news:

• Uber Reportedly Leads $100M Investment in Moove In Series B Funding Round

• Ghana’s Cabinet Approves Shared Neutral 4G and 5G Networks For Telecommunication Operators

• Digital Commerce Platform tappi Expands to Cote D’Ivoire In Collaboration with MTN

• Social Commerce Platform ChitChat Launches In Zambia with Integrated Digital Wallets

• Johannesburg Stock Exchange Partners With Amazon Web Services To Overhaul Its Systems

• Kuda Bank Secures Payment Licences in Tanzania and Canada

• Africa Business Angel Network Invests In Ghana Food Startup Legendary Foods

Deep Dive

What You Need To Know About The March 14th Internet Outage In West Africa - On Thursday, subsea cable providers were affected by major cuts to undersea submarine cables, disrupting internet traffic in major parts of the continent.

This disrupted the services of banks and telecommunications companies in Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, and Senegal.

What Happened: Although there hasn’t been solid confirmation, it’s likely that the submarine cables were damaged due to a landslide under the sea.

Cable Damage - The cables that were affected included the SAT3, WACS, ACE, and Main One. The only two submarine cables in Africa that weren’t affected were Aquiano & Glo-1.

Starlink Coming To Ghana in 2024 - Starlink has a date on its website for being operational in Ghana in Q3 of 2024. Ghana’s Minister of Communications said the company is in the process of being licensed.

Africa Ecosystem Activity

• African VC firm P1 Ventures completes 2nd $35m close of Fund II - Disrupt Africa

• SA car subscription startup Planet42 raises $15.8m funding from Standard Bank - Disrupt Africa

• Egyptian B2B e-health startup 30Med secures pre-seed round of funding - Disrupt Africa

• Moroccan super app ORA Technologies closes $1.5m seed round - Disrupt Africa

• Egyptian ad-tech startup dKilo raises $3.2m seed funding round - Disrupt Africa

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Stat of The Day

Ghana is having its general elections later this year in December.

Previous administrations have always overspent when in office and that has contributed to Ghana’s financial issues.

Will this year be any different? We’ll shall see.