Author: Khusoko

Khusoko provides market insights into Africa's business investment as well as global trends that impact East African businesses.

The British government suffered another significant defeat as MPs voted by 321 to 278 votes to reject a ‘no-deal’ Brexit’. https://twitter.com/HouseofCommons/status/1105919887015374850 French President Emmanuel Macron who is in Nairobi, Kenya on a two days’ visit, said: “The withdrawal agreement is not negotiable.” If the British ask for a delay it could perhaps be a technical delay to allow more time to put their departure in place. But if an additional delay is requested, they need to explain why,” he added. “It cannot be to allow more negotiations over something we’ve already negotiated for many months and said cannot be further…

Read More

Jumia, Africa’s largest e-commerce platform, filed with the SEC for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange which could value the firm at $1.6 billion. “This is our initial public offering, and no public market currently exists for our ordinary shares or ADSs. We anticipate that the initial public offering price of the ADSs will be between $  and $ per ADS. We intend to apply to list our ADSs on the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, under the symbol “JMIA.” Jumia said in the filing. The e-commerce platform that was set up by French entrepreneurs…

Read More

Ziki Sound, an online music streaming service that enables artists to share is now available in East Africa. The platform enables users to listen to tracks for free and engage with their favourite music artists. A beta version of Ziki is currently being tested prior to its official launch mid this year. The company  says the platform enables music artists and fans to: “Connect with Fans, Labels, Artists,” all on one platform praised for its compatibility with platforms and devices. “This is a clean, sleek user interface. Easy to use. We have adopted a simplistic approach,” says Dan Coded, its…

Read More

Taxify, the ride-hailing company from Estonia backed by Didi and Daimler is removing “taxi” from its name and rebranding as Bolt. “We are bullish that the future is fully electric and so we wanted a name that moved us away from the combustion engine,” CEO and co-founder Markus Villig said. “Taxify launched five years ago with a mission to make urban transportation more convenient and affordable. Our first product was a taxi dispatch solution that gave the company its original name,” he added. https://twitter.com/Boltapp_za/status/1103553299586994177 “While we’ve made progress on our mission, we’ve also started to outgrow parts of our brand,…

Read More

County Governments that have adopted cashless systems have diminished leakages and boosted revenues by up to 30%. The systems have made it easier for citizens to pay dues to the county governments while simultaneously enhancing the counties’ financial management allowing them to plan, control and monitor their finances. “As part of our vision to help drive a digital-first economy, we have partnered with 43 counties to enable cashless payment systems and out of the 43 counties, 17 have integrated their systems end to end,” said Rita Okuthe, Chief Enterprise Officer, Safaricom. She was speaking at the sidelines of the Sixth…

Read More