West Africa
Webtrends Nigeria and Mobility Nigeria both carried the story of Zubair Abubakar who launched a blackberry app for Nigerian Constitution.
Funding for startups in Nigeria seems to be picking up as Webtrends Nigeria reported:
In what is second high-profile funding in Nigerian tech-related company this year, 2011 is really up to a good start! Just recently we wrote about Jobberman investment… this is the second in just 12days in 2011. By next week we should be able to get another funding worth talking about.
Peery Foundation, a Palo Alto-based family foundation established in 1978 by Richard Peery, has invested in Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN).
A big upcoming event in Nigeria this coming Monday is the Opera Software University Tour at the University of Lagos. Opera seems to be taking an interest in Nigeria which is a huge market for Opera Mini (surpassing even U.S.).
David Ajao wrote about planned upcoming barcamps in Nigeria:
- Barcamp Kaduna 21-22nd of January, 2011. Theme: Creating Wealth through Technology… Putting Nigeria on the Map!
- Barcamp Lagos, 11-12th of March 2011. Theme: Technology Business Models; from Idea to Profitable Business.
- Barcamp Abuja, 18th of June 2011: Collaboration and Competition: working in Synergy
- Barcamp Port Harcourt, 1st of October 2011: Exploring technology for business; stimulating business adoption of technology
In mobile, Mobility Nigeria took a tough tone with ‘those manufacturers/developers/service providers who snob us as a country‘.
The Social Innovation Camp is also going down this weekend in Nigeria, Webtrends Nigeria gives the scoop.
Loy Okezie summarised 7 Nigerian mobile payment solutions to watch in 2011, he also took a look at three ideas at the Social Innovation Camp that might get funded. The Groupon phenomenon is in high gear and Loy speculates if Groupon will buy into Nigeria’s group buying market after it recently acquired Grouper in Isreal and Twangoo in South Africa.
Finally, Oladejo Fabolude of Digital Crossings makes a very interesting expose on a host of local companies bringing in tablet computers built on the Android operating system to the Nigerian market. So it does appear that there’s a market for homegrown hardware and hardware startups.
South Africa
Group buying is all the rage right now in South Africa with about 9 different established players in this area.
Social buying, or group buying, is the new kid on the social web block. Recently the global darling of the social buying scene, Groupon, rejected a reported US$6-billion offer to be acquired by Google, which thrust it firmly into the spotlight. When Google is throwing that many clams in your direction and you’re turning up your nose at the offer, then you know that this market is buzzing.Social buying, or group buying, is the new kid on the social web block. Recently the global darling of the social buying scene, Groupon, rejected a reported US$6-billion offer to be acquired by Google, which thrust it firmly into the spotlight. When Google is throwing that many clams in your direction and you’re turning up your nose at the offer, then you know that this market is buzzing.
Groupon also faced a little snag with the Groupon.co.za domain name:
As the image above illustrates, the domain name was registered on the 8th of September, 2009 for the price of R50.00 by a company called East of Eden Trading, trading as Wicount.
Groupon has encountered this problem before, most recently in Australia, as it continues its rapid global expansion.
Writing on its blog, the company explains, “As Groupon became internationally known, opportunistic domain squatters around the world started to buy local Groupon domain names, thinking that we’d eventually be forced to buy them at an insane price.”
One of South Africa’s biggest tech companies, FireID, that’s involved in mobile authentication is facing tough times after news that one of it’s prime investors pulled out.
On the BandwidthBlog reviewed Jungle Mumble a really neat app built by South African developers for iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad (with Android and Nokia touch screen support coming soon). The app is essentially an illustrated children’s storybook.
East Africa
Kenya has not been spared from Groupon fever, Moses Kemibaro speculates
Given that Groupon is already in the one major Internet and mobile market in Africa via South Africa, its only a matter of time before they make a move to Kenya and Nigeria. At this juncture, the major players of the Groupon clones in Kenya seem to be Zetu and Rupu. Between the two, its fairly evident one of them will possibly be acquired by Groupon. Given that Zetu has been around longer and seems to have the most deals to-date, I’m placing my bets with them. In addition, Zetu looks conspicuously similar (identical?) to Twangoo which was acquired by Groupon in South Africa.
Following the .ng excitement from Nigeria, Moses also does a piece on Kenya being on the cusp of a local .KE aftermarket.
In mobile it appears Airtel is not letting up the pressure on Safaricom. Just after Safaricom finally caved into the pressure, reducing it’s SMS prices to 1 shilling from Safaricom to Safaricom and 2 shillings across networks, Airtel came out announcing a call rate of 1 shilling!
