T2S2

As investments lead for Flourish in Africa, Ameya Upadhyay has been helping build African unicorns for a decade. His acumen is as impressive as his success rate, including notable startups like Flutterwave and Lidya (listen here). He tells Stuff Studios editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak about “baking” an African unicorn – which he has done multiple times. His insights into investing in Africa, especially in fintech, are a master class. Read more on Stuff Studios.

Arguably the most important step in digital and financial inclusion is getting people online in the first place. The largest provider of free public wifi in sub-Saharan Africa is BRCK, a truly remarkable Kenyan start-up that has grown from its revolutionary first BRCK v1 to a SupaBRCK to connect rural villages in Rwanda to its brilliant Moja free public wifi. Co-founder Erik Hersman, who also co-launched renowned tech firm Ushahidi and the iHub in Nairobi, tells Stuff Studios editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak about why the internet should always be free. Read more on Stuff Studios.

Sim Tshabalala is a modern-day Medici. Appearing like a conventional banker in his immaculate suit and tie, he's a deep-thinking man who understands the power of commerce to uplift the country, the role of arts in society and democracy. He’s also the CEO of Standard Bank, the largest financial institution in Africa, who isn’t afraid to compliment (and name-check) smaller competitors. He spoke to Stuff Studios editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak about the 159-year-old bank’s evolution in this new cloud computing era, and how small fintechs are helping revolutionise financial inclusion in Africa. Read more on Stuff Studios.

With a valuation reportedly of $3bn, Nigeria's Flutterwave is one of the most successful – and inspiring – startups in Africa. Stuff Studios editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak spoke with its CEO and cofounder Olugbenga Agboola during a recent trip to Lagos, where he also interviewed Lidya co-founder Ercin Eksin. Read more on Stuff Studios.

Fintech app Shyft won a prestigious innovation award from global banking organisation Efma in Barcelona in 2016 before it even launched. The innovative forex app – which was the first to offer virtual credit cards in South Africa, about five years before they became mainstream – has grown significantly, adding investment. Having won a stream of awards – including a Stuff App Award – its head Arno von Helden tells Stuff Studio's editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak how it is planning to Shyft digital banking. Read more on Stuff Studios.

Naked's clever app took the insurance industry by storm when it launched, offering a fully digital way for consumers to insure their cars and homes. Most innovatively is Naked's option to turn off driving insurance when your car is parked at home. A sign of its success is how Naspers Foundry has invested R120m ($8.3m) investment in the AI-driven insurtech firm. Stuff Studios editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak speaks to Fabian Whate, head of Naspers Foundry, and Naked co-founder Ernest North about its legacy-free services. Read more on Stuff Studios.

Visa South Africa country manager Aldo Laubscher tells Stuff Studios editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak that despite Covid and its effects, the last two years have accelerated digitisation and digital ways of paying. Visa found that 51% of over-50s in the country used ecommerce for the first time. Visa, which has 3,3bn card credentials and processes 65,000 to 70,0000 transactions per second, is looking at “credentials” instead of cards. Or, as Laubscher calls it, it is “plastic with a digital feel”. Read more on Stuff Studios.

Andre de Ruyter is the most important businessman in South Africa today. If the Eskom CEO can’t deal with its debt, its notorious inefficiency, and the load-shedding problems, the whole country will suffer. Or suffer more. An explosion in Medupi the week of the interview, also can't help. Stuff editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak is more interested in how De Ruyter plans to turn Eskom into a modern power utility. And yes, solar is in the mix. Read more on Stuff.

Checker's Sixty60 delivery app was the hands-down winner grocery delivery was of Covid. Even before lockdown, I was a regular, and very happy, user of the app which promised your delivery within 60 minutes. It has been downloaded more than 1.5m times and, rather than take away jobs, its has created has created 2,870 new ones. It's a project run by Shoprite's chief of strategy and innovation Neil Schreuder tells Stuff Studio's editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak about its latest innovation: a cashier-less "rush" store which automatically tracks (using cameras) what its staff select in the pilot store. Read more on Stuff.

Deep insight into the plumbing of banking and no legacy business model enable the latest challenger bank to offer zero fees and other canny innovations. Bank Zero co-founder and chairman Michael Jordaan is a strange combination of brilliant geek and humble venture capitalist, which is perhaps why his magic potion of a bank is already so intoxicating to South Africans weary of high bank fees. He speaks to Stuff editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak about how the bank was conceived and how it plans to shake up banking. More