African Tech Roundup

About African Tech Roundup

The essential guide to Africa's technology, entrepreneurship, and innovation ecosystems. Since 2015, co-founders Andile Masuku and Musa Kalenga have convened the continent's most influential voices — from startup founders and investors to policymakers and tech leaders — delivering bold, pan-African insights with a global perspective. Whether you're building, investing, or leading in African tech, this is where the conversation happens.

Publisher

African Tech Roundup

Category

business · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

20 Apr 2015

Latest episode

28 May 2026

Latest episodes

370 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   28 May 2026

   Nikolai Barnwell: Why PawaPay bet on mobile money over cards, and stayed out of the fintech boom

   Episode overview: Nikolai Barnwell (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikolai-barnwell/) has been resident in Kenya since 2009, and he watched the African mobile money story arrive in real time. Fresh out of university, he joined the early Africa-focused fund 88mph (https://thenextweb.com/news/88mph-is-hoping-a-200k-fuel-injection-will-accelerate-up-to-15-startups?ref=africantechroundup.com) as a programme manager, helping build what is now Nairobi Garage (https://nairobigarage.com/), and got a front-row seat to roughly 50 investments over five years. Most went nowhere. The ones that did, betting business BetPawa (https://www.betpawa.com/?ref=africantechroundup.com) among them, taught him something more durable than any single exit: the shape of how mobile money and mobile internet would spread across the continent, market by market, with a lag you could almost set your watch by. In conversation with Andile Masuku (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andilemasuku/), Barnwell traces the line from that vantage point to PawaPay, the pan-African payments business he now runs. The throughline is a refusal to confuse the label for the thing. "Fintech" is too broad to mean much, he argues. What PawaPay actually does is narrower and harder: make it possible for businesses to transact across a fragmented continent, owning the technology end to end rather than stitching together other people's connections. Barnwell's reflections on venture capital, the founder-funder incentive mismatch, and PawaPay's decision to stay out of the last fintech funding boom were previewed in the companion op-ed, Are founders and funders on the same page? Notes from an unreleased PawaPay conversation (https://www.africantechroundup.com/op-ed-are-founders-and-funders-on-the-same-page-notes-from-an-unreleased-pawapay-conversation/). This episode opens up the rest: the mobile-money-over-cards thesis, the direct-integration moat, the customer base that runs from ride-hailing to remittances, and a candid back-and-forth on stablecoins and the limits of central bank control. Key insights: On why "fintech" is a near-useless qualifier: Barnwell's opening move is to dismantle the category that frames the whole conversation. Almost every business today touches finance and technology, so claiming to be a fintech says little. The useful question is which specific problem you solve. For PawaPay, it is the one businesses cannot avoid: in order to sell, you have to be able to collect, and on a continent where most transactions are still cash and the payment landscape is splintered across markets, collecting at scale is genuinely difficult. On betting mobile money over cards: PawaPay deliberately touches no credit cards at all. Barnwell's reasoning is that the card is a technology from the 1970s, shoehorned into modern infrastructure by legacy rather than fit, and weighed down by messy settlement, complex schemes, fraud, and cost. Where a market can leapfrog straight to something better, he sees little reason for cards to claim a meaningful share. So PawaPay built its core rails around mobile money as the alternative financial infrastructure, a bet on where consumer payments are heading rather than where they have been. On owning the technology as the actual moat: The continent's payments market splits into a handful of genuinely pan-African players and many smaller local providers serving one or two countries deeply. PawaPay sits in the first camp with a distinguishing choice: no downstream partners. It integrates directly into the mobile money wallets across its markets rather than reselling other providers' connections. For a payments business living on slim margins and dependent on volume, that direct, broad footprint and end-to-end quality control is what separates it from the aggregators. On the customer base nobody pitches: What PawaPay collects and disburses reveals more than any deck. Beyond the betting companies that anchor its volume, it serves ride-hailing operators like Yango and Bolt, cash-transfer outfit GiveDirectly, broadcasters DSTV and Canal+, international money transfer operators moving remittances in, and, notably, the Jehovah's Witnesses. The common thread is organisations that need the mobile money infrastructure to simply work across twenty-odd countries, and would rather not build and babysit that plumbing themselves. The hard part, Barnwell stresses, is not the integration but the operational resilience when hundreds of millions of dollars move in both directions every month. On stablecoins and the central bank problem: Barnwell is openly enthusiastic about distributed ledgers, which remove the third-party verification that banks, cards, and even mobile money still require, and he calls crypto the joker in the room. PawaPay already offers a stablecoin product. But his optimism is tempered by a structural catch: once a country opens the faucet between local currency and hard-currency stablecoins, its central bank loses the ability to control the flow of funds and, with it, a tool for propping up artificially supported currencies. He expects regulators across Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, and Nigeria to take a step or two back once they grasp the implications, just as South Africa is now reclassifying crypto as a capital asset to close a capital-controls gap that stayed open for over a year. Notable moments: The 88mph rollercoaster: Barnwell's account of a fifty-company portfolio funded largely by friends and family, structured as a holding company rather than a conventional fund, with the emotional whiplash of watching most bets fail while a few compounded slowly into something large. His candour about not really knowing what they were doing at the time anchors the whole conversation in earned humility. The BetPawa-to-PawaPay path: How a payments capability built in-house to serve a betting business became its own company. Because payments is merchant-agnostic, the same infrastructure could be opened to other industries at little additional cost, turning an internal tool into a pan-African platform almost opportunistically. The "I didn't renew my card" confession: Barnwell admits he let his Kenyan bank debit card lapse around 2022 and now disdains every online merchant that will not take mobile money. The anecdote captures, in miniature, a conviction that runs through the business: mobile money is simply the superior technology. The betting and human-potential exchange: A long, frank stretch in which Masuku presses his own deep reservations about the gambling industry, the gamification of being online and its cost to the continent's most valuable resource, human potential, while Barnwell, a former betting-industry operator, makes a defensive case for nuance and responsible participation. Masuku's VC scepticism, explored fully in the companion op-ed (https://www.africantechroundup.com/op-ed-are-founders-and-funders-on-the-same-page-notes-from-an-unreleased-pawapay-conversation/), surfaces here too in lighter quips, with Barnwell conceding he sits closer to that camp than listeners might expect. Connect and engage: African Tech Roundup: LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/african-tech-roundup/) and X (https://x.com/africanroundup) Andile Masuku: LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andilemasuku), (https://www.youtube.com/@MasukuAnd...)

2. 

   6 Apr 2026

   Russell Southwood: An outsider's take on 25 years of Africa's digital story

   Episode overview: Russell Southwood has been watching Africa's digital story unfold since 2000, when the number of people involved in the continent's internet could be counted in the hundreds. Armed with yellow pages and a willingness to show up unannounced at ISP offices across Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Uganda, he began documenting what he saw in a weekly email newsletter that would, over time, assemble what he describes as "a village of people who are interested in things digital in Africa." In conversation with Andile Masuku (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andilemasuku/), Southwood (who runs the consultancy Balancing Act and authored Africa 2.0: Inside a Continent's Communications Revolution (https://www.amazon.com/Africa-2-0-Continents-Communications-Revolution/dp/152615482X), published by Manchester University Press in 2022) traces the arc from state-controlled telecoms monopolies to the mobile revolution, from M-Pesa's accidental brilliance to the VC hype cycle's oversimplifications. Along the way, he and Masuku wrestle with a tension that runs through the entire conversation: Africa is the same as everywhere else, and Africa is different. The ability to hold both of those truths simultaneously is what separates useful analysis from noise. What emerges is less a victory lap and more a candid reckoning with what a quarter-century of digital transformation has actually delivered, what it hasn't, and why the timelines matter more than the headlines. For a deeper exploration of the themes in this conversation, including Southwood's outsider vantage point, the luxury of hindsight, and the gap between observation and execution, read the companion op-ed: Lessons from 25 Years of Africa's internet story: a preview of Russell Southwood's reflections (https://www.africantechroundup.com/op-ed-lessons-from-25-years-of-africas-internet-story-a-preview-of-russell-southwoods-reflections/). Key insights: On the "digital imaginary" versus the real economy: Masuku and Southwood frame the conversation around a distinction that deserves wider use: the imagined digital economy (aspirational, projection-heavy, sometimes naively futuristic) versus the real economy where plantain gets bought, goats get sold, and WhatsApp messages close deals. Southwood's quarter-century of observation sits at the intersection, and his sharpest insights emerge from refusing to collapse one into the other. On what mobile actually disrupted: Before smartphones, before apps, before fintech, the foundational disruption was simply walking into a shop and walking out with a phone. Southwood argues that this broke a patronage system in which access to communication was rationed by the state to civil servants and political allies. It was capitalism, competitive pricing, and mass distribution that upended it. He acknowledges he might frame that differently today, but it shaped everything that followed. On M-Pesa's real lesson: Southwood pushes past the standard M-Pesa origin story to land on what he considers the underappreciated insight: it worked because it bridged classes. The middle classes used it, the unbanked used it, and the two groups transacted with each other through it. Paying gardeners, drivers, and domestic workers instantly rather than in delayed cash. That cross-class utility, not the technology itself, is what made it stick. On the long road ahead, and who gets to be patient about it: Southwood suggests Africa's real economic transformation may take another 15 to 20 years, and that the digitisation of government and large enterprises is part of a "long march" that is already underway but far from complete. He is candid about the difficulty of drawing firm conclusions from a story still being written, a posture the companion op-ed explores further. On the VC narrative's distortions: Without dismissing venture capital outright, Southwood identifies a structural problem: VC funds raised partly from development finance institutions carry a double mandate. Deliver unicorn returns and reach women in villages. That tension forces overselling. The result is a gap between pitch-deck Africa and the Africa where a Kenyan job site might list 2,000 real positions for a population of 40 million, compared to Finland's 40,000 for five million. Notable moments: The yellow pages playbook: Southwood's account of arriving in Africa in 2000 with almost no contacts, looking up ISPs in the yellow pages, and simply turning up at offices to introduce himself as a London-based journalist. The anecdote captures both the smallness of the early ecosystem and the particular kind of access his outsider status afforded, a dynamic explored at length in the companion op-ed. The jacket-rack computer: Southwood recalls visiting an African ministry of education where the computer was used by staff to hang their jacket on. The image is funny, pointed, and now outdated, but it captures how far the digitisation of institutions has come, even if the process remains uneven. The Kenyan cab driver who discovered Google Maps: A turning point Southwood witnessed firsthand. After years of cab journeys involving multiple phone calls to locate destinations, a driver pulled up Google Maps on his phone. Southwood uses it to illustrate that technology adoption is fundamentally about behaviour change, not capability, and that what seems obvious to analysts is rarely obvious to users navigating real constraints. The Twiga Foods cautionary tale: Southwood admits to being an early enthusiast of Twiga, the Kenyan logistics startup that recently ceased deliveries. His willingness to own that call, and to use it as evidence that single-country startups face structural ceilings, lends credibility to his broader argument that pan-continental scale is a prerequisite for transformative African businesses. Connect and engage: African Tech Roundup: LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/african-tech-roundup) and X (https://x.com/africanroundup) Andile Masuku: LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andilemasuku/), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@andilemasuku), X (https://x.com/masukuandile), and Email (mailto:andile@africantechroundup.com) Russell Southwood: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/russell-southwood-84527914/), X (https://x.com/BalancingActAfr), and Substack (https://russellsouthwood.substack.com/) Image credit: Balancing Act

3. 

   9 Mar 2026

   Seyi Ebenezer of Payaza Africa: Bookkeeping is the new black

   Episode overview: Seyi Ebenezer (https://www.linkedin.com/in/seyi-ebenezer-aca-cma-aci-acib-ctp-cisa-21099b22/) didn't come to fintech from a hackathon or an accelerator. He came from KPMG's audit desks and Access Bank's corporate finance floors. These are environments where the numbers had to add up before anyone was allowed to dream out loud. That training shows in everything about how he has built Payaza Africa (https://payaza.africa/), from claims of launching profitably with a single gas station client to rejecting six or seven VC approaches in favour of bootstrapping a business he could defend on paper. In conversation with Andile Masuku (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andilemasuku/), Ebenezer — who co-founded Payaza in 2020 and launched in March 2022 — lays out a philosophy that cuts against the grain of Africa's startup narrative. Where the dominant playbook says raise fast, grow faster, and worry about unit economics later, Ebenezer argues that African founders face a structural reality that makes that approach uniquely dangerous: a "natural prejudice rating" on the continent that means even Aliko Dangote isn't immune to credit downgrades. His conclusion: if the system is stacked against you, your books had better be immaculate. The conversation covers Payaza's origins solving payment reconciliation for Nigerian fuel stations, why Ebenezer treats every product that isn't profitable within six months as a candidate for shutdown, and how securing investment-grade credit ratings from Augusto & Co, DataPro, and GCR (with a Moody's rating to boot) has transformed the company from price taker to price giver in investor conversations. Along the way, Ebenezer draws a direct line from the 2008 financial crisis to the recent VC funding winter in African tech, and argues that the founders who built structure survived both. But the conversation's most striking moment comes near the end with Ebenezer's call for the creation of a pan-African credit rating agency; one that uses community-based risk models suited to how African business actually works, rather than importing Western frameworks wholesale. Key insights: On why debt creates discipline: Ebenezer's central thesis is that debt financing forces founders to confront profitability from day one. Unlike equity, where capital can mask weak fundamentals, debt has interest that "does not sleep on Saturday, does not sleep on Sunday." He argues this constraint is a feature, not a bug, particularly for African founders who face structural disadvantages in how the market perceives their businesses. On building from the books outward: At Payaza, corporate governance came before scale. Ebenezer engaged Deloitte as an auditor from the company's earliest days. It's a decision he says he initially regretted when the first audit surfaced over sixty exceptions. But those painful early investments in structure are what enabled Payaza to access capital markets, raise commercial paper without collateral, and achieve investment-grade credit ratings — outcomes virtually unheard of for a Nigerian fintech. On the "prejudice rating" African businesses carry: Ebenezer points to World Bank data showing that Africa's default rate on infrastructure funding is just 1.9 per cent (second only to the Middle East at 0.9 per cent) while Western Europe sits at 9.1 per cent. Yet a business headquartered in Western Europe would still receive a higher credit rating. His response: African founders must over-prepare, building the kind of documentation and governance that neutralises bias before they walk into any room. On rejecting the VC playbook — without rejecting VC: Ebenezer is careful not to demonise venture capital. His argument is about sequencing: build structure first, demonstrate profitability, then engage equity investors from a position of strength. He turned down six or seven approaches during the VC boom, telling his team to trust the longer game. The result: when he now sits across from potential investors, he sets the terms. "Evidence dominates argument," he says. On why African businesses can't emulate Amazon's playbook: When pressed on whether his conservative approach stifles ambition, Ebenezer invokes the Dangote example. If Fitch can withdraw the credit rating of Africa's wealthiest industrialist, and downgrade Afrexim Bank, then no African founder can afford to assume the market will extend them the patience it gave Jeff Bezos. "If they could touch Dangote," he asks, "who are we?" On Payaza's efficiency-first growth model: Rather than competing on price — a "race to the bottom" — Payaza competed on settlement speed, offering same-day payouts to merchants using its own capital while competitors operated on T+1 or T+2 cycles. This earned trust and referrals, creating organic growth with thin but real margins. Every merchant is evaluated against an activity-based costing model: if onboarding them isn't profitable, the relationship doesn't proceed. Notable moments: 1. The Petrocam origin story: Payaza's first client was Petrocam, a Nigerian fuel retailer with 57 filling stations. The problem: reconciliation chaos and shrinkage across distributed locations. Payaza built "Branches," a product that gave the group CFO a centralised, real-time view of collections across every station — eliminating accounting discrepancies, reducing theft, and cutting the finance headcount needed at each site. The product was profitable from day one. "We are solving a problem for them and then we're charging them fairly," Ebenezer recalls. That first deal set the template for everything that followed. 2. The credit rating upgrade that broke the rules: After raising commercial paper on the Nigerian capital market and making an early repayment, Payaza received a credit rating upgrade from BBB- to BBB+ in a matter of months. The norm is a 24-month cycle between upgrades. The rating agency told them they had "a very good case" — a vindication, Ebenezer argues, of prioritising fundamentals over flash. 3. The SME Tribe experiment yielding zero bad debt: When Instagram went down for several days, Payaza saw an opportunity. It built SME Tribe, a web-based marketplace that mirrored what small traders were selling on Instagram, then layered on "Payaza Boost": uncollateralised working capital advances of 25 per cent of a merchant's three-month average collections. The result: zero non-performing loans. Ebenezer uses this as evidence that African credit risk models need to account for community-based accountability, not Western-style board structures. 4. The pan-African credit rating pitch: In the episode's most charged exchange, Ebenezer pivots from discussing his own business to issuing a direct challenge: Africa needs its own credit rating infrastructure, potentially housed under Afrexim Bank or the African Union's APRM framework. He argues that the global rating oligopoly (agencies built "200 or 400 years ago" that keep acquiring regional competitors) cannot adequately assess African risk because Africa is "community-based." His proposed model would incorporate social accountability mechanisms alongside financial metrics. And then, live on the podcast, he nominates Andile Masuku to lead the convening. Connect and engage: Connect and engage: African Tech Roundup: LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/african-tech-roundup) and (h...)

Who has been a guest on African Tech Roundup

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Andrew Hall
• Bernard Laurendeau
• Guidione Machava
• Wabo Majavu
• Ola Oyetayo

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.9 / 5

15 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 50 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

80

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

51