👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Day by day – Leatherback stitches a brand new path

Cross-border funds startup Leatherback is making an attempt to show the web page after a bruising 18 months marked by EFCC scrutiny and its founder’s sudden resignation. 

After the corporate was cleared of any wrongdoing, it has now put in a brand new govt crew: VP of Product Usman Amusat, Mayowa Afe-Ogundele as its new CTO, and Ochebhoya Ekpete as CEO. 

Leatherback can be betting that enterprise infrastructure, not client wallets, is the trail ahead. In conversations with TechCabal’s Muktar Oladunmade, the executives outlined a refocus from retail into monetary plumbing, the place it should use its a number of licenses, current rails, and entry to over 180 currencies to assist join African companies to international commerce. 

Why it issues: Leatherback’s story echoes a broader fintech playbook: pivoting from consumer-facing apps to the extra sturdy, higher-margin enterprise of promoting picks and shovels. By specializing in enterprise prospects and positioning itself as a trusted spine for cross-border funds, Leatherback hopes to emerge from its reset not simply secure, however indispensable.

Leatherback’s management believes the pivot performs to its strengths: technical depth, regulatory preparedness, and the power to scale throughout areas. Be careful for our article, which drops by midday in the present day, to study extra in regards to the firm’s new path and the way its new crew hopes to get it there.

Whether or not the brand new crew can execute—and persuade banks, regulators, and enterprise purchasers to belief its rails—will decide if this reset sticks.

Lagos is placing cash the place its mouth is.

Lagos state is drafting a invoice that might pull $20.26 million from its $1.35 billion annual price range to gas startups, innovation hubs, accelerators, researchers, and perhaps even that revolutionary concept that you just’ve been cooking in secret. 

The proposed analysis and improvement innovation (RD&I) fund is bigger than the state authorities’s earlier investments.

Previous makes an attempt. Lagos didn’t simply get up and resolve to fund innovation. The state had made makes an attempt through the years. Should you’ve by no means heard of the Lagos State Science Analysis and Innovation Council (LASRIC) fund, it disbursed $330,000 to over 40 startups as of December 2024. 

For a state that attracted over $252 million in startup funding in 2024 alone, LASRIC was a good begin, however fragmented and too small to cowl its 600 startups. This new invoice units up a heavyweight fund, with penalties for misuse by beneficiaries (sure, fines and even jail time).

The invoice isn’t nearly funding startups. It’s additionally sponsorship of doctoral and post-doctoral analysis, tax incentives, reimbursements of R&D prices, and devoted assist of as much as 20% of the fund for ladies and youth-led initiatives. The draft invoice states that Lagos is promising a gentle 1.5% of its annual price range for innovation (which can finally rise to 2%).

Right here’s how Lagos stacks up: Whereas Abuja rolled out the Startup Act, different states are tailoring theirs. Enugu is making intentional strikes in innovation with its domestication of the Startup Act and the launch of a $10 million Startup Seed Fund. In Kwara, the state authorities is constructing the Ilorin ICT Innovation hub to place the state on the map within the tech ecosystem.

Let’s be trustworthy: innovation funding is skewed in Nigeria. Lagos is the principle stage, and different states are enjoying catch-up. With this invoice, Lagos is just doubling down on that dominance.

Issues are shifting excitingly in Africa’s banking business.

If one way or the other, you haven’t been following the information, listed here are the highest highlights:

• Nigeria’s banking sector is present process a recapitalisation train for business and microfinance lenders; the nation has additionally introduced capital pegs for insurers.
• Kenya lifted a 10-year moratorium for international banks to enter the nation and function below capital guidelines mirrored in Basel III.
• Ethiopia, for the primary time in half a century, opened its doorways to international banks with a most holding of 49%.

All these occasions have led to a crisscrossing pattern the place massive banks try to develop their operations, open new income sources, and strengthen their stability sheets.

Nigeria’s Zenith Financial institution desires to amass a tier-2 Kenyan financial institution (hush hush) to enter East Africa. South Africa’s FirstRand Financial institution desires to compete in the identical market. Kenya’s KCB and Fairness Financial institution are splurging on Tanzania. And—don’t maintain your breath—KCB desires to develop into Ethiopia, presumably turning into the primary international financial institution within the nation.

Why does Ethiopia make sense for KCB? One-third of KCB’s income (36.6%) already come from exterior Kenya. Ethiopia, with 120 million folks and a newly opened banking sector, provides the prospect to stretch that development additional. 

The financial institution’s remittance and cross-border cost providers are additionally rising income drivers in East Africa. Ethiopia’s diaspora, greater than 2 million folks overseas, makes this market look engaging. A profitable entry would give KCB a first-mover benefit within the nation.

Solly Malatsi, South Africa’s telecoms minister, stated the federal government is contemplating a coverage overview that might permit satellite tv for pc web suppliers, corresponding to Elon Musk’s Starlink, to develop into the nation with out giving up possession stakes.

Catch up: Till now, Starlink has been locked out of South Africa due to strict Black Financial Empowerment (BEE) guidelines that drive telecom operators to promote 30% of their fairness to Black buyers. Musk has repeatedly pushed again in opposition to the requirement, calling it discriminatory. 

But in July, Starlink softened its stance and stated it was prepared to adjust to the legislation by means of a R2 billion ($113 million) pledge to native empowerment initiatives. 

Now the federal government is reviewing whether or not equity-equivalent programmes like that may very well be accepted as an alternative of an possession switch. Greater than 19,000 public submissions are below overview, with early indicators pointing to assist for change.

Between the strains: South Africa’s BEE scheme has lengthy aimed to right historic financial exclusion. Critics say inflexible possession guidelines can block funding in sectors the place giant international gamers dominate. Permitting satellite tv for pc web suppliers to conform in another way indicators a concentrate on entry over formality. 

The upside is best broadband for rural South Africans, the place solely near 23% of the nation’s inhabitants had residence web in 2024. The danger is that particular guidelines for one sector might set off complaints of double requirements.

Zoom out: Approval of this coverage tweak would clear the trail for Starlink to start service inside months. South Africa desires common broadband by 2030, and the door now appears extra open than ever for Starlink to lastly flick the change.