The Flip

Today's guest is Adia Sowho, one of the most experienced and thoughtful operators in the African tech ecosystem. After starting her career in …

Today's guest is Ham Serunjogi, the Co-founder and CEO of Chipper Cash.

In 2021, Chipper raised $150 million Series C extension, valuing the startup at $2 billion, but has since cut its valuation, reportedly by 70 …

Today's guest is Dare Okoudjou, the Founder and CEO of MFS Africa, which this week has rebranded to Onafriq. 

The new name represents a new chapter in the company, which is a very different looking company than when we …

Today's guests are Michael Seibel, the Managing Director of Y Combinator, and Kwamena Afful, a Founding Partner of Microtraction. 

Michael has been an …

Today's guest is Kiaan Pillay, the Co-founder and CEO of Stitch. My conversation with Kiaan comes on the heels of their recent fundraising announcement, a $25 million Series A extension led by the global fintech fund …

Today's guest is Olugbenga Agboola, better known as the one and only GB - the Co-founder and CEO of Flutterwave. 

It's been a trying last year or so …

The future of work in the African context is going to be a lot of different things. It mimics the nature of work itself for many individuals on the …

There is a perception that there's a tech talent shortage in the African tech ecosystem, and that it's hard to find high-quality local talent.

There …

We're dropping one more episode of our new show, crypto@scale, on The Flip's feed today. In this episode, we interview our first guests on what might be Africa's killer crypto app, stablecoins. According to data from …

We interrupt this season on the future of work to drop a special episode today in The Flip’s feed. Introducing crypto@scale, a new show from The Flip, co-hosted by MFS Africa's Head of Crypto, Gwera Kiwana, and The …

Where there is fragmentation, informality, and a dearth of infrastructure, there are questions about what the path to formality and standardization will look like. One intriguing answer to that question is conversion …

African markets are largely informal. So while our examination of workforce and training programs in the fast few episodes focused on formal and salaried jobs, we know that most Africans aren't going to get these types …

Throughout this season, we've heard about this disconnect between supply and demand in the labor marketplace. It's often a skills and training issue. 

Even where there are jobs, there's still this disconnect between …

How do we tie interventions - whether traditional education or boot camps or training programs - to job outcomes? As we'll explore in this episode, it requires a demand-led approach and starts with employers. 

In this …

What's particularly exciting about remote work is that it's not constrained by the demand from the local market. The jobs can come from anywhere in …

We know that local economies are not going to create enough jobs or income-generating opportunities for such a rapidly growing African population. …

In the first episode of this season, we argued that the future of work is a traditional development playbook. Considering the nature of most African markets today - informal, fragmented, subscale -  and considering the …

How are jobs created? While throughout the season we're going to be looking at that question primarily through a technology and innovation lens, in …

Introducing The Flip Season Four. African countries will be adding more people to the workforce in the next 10 years than the rest of the world combined. Where are the income-generating opportunities going to come from? 

Read Sabi: Platforming Trade in Africa on The Flip.

We’re trying something new - an audio version of this week's partner edition of The Flip Notes, together with Sabi. Along with narration from The Flip's Justin Norman, …

In this episode, we're going to explore web3 in the African context.

The premise of web3 technology, and tools like NFTs, in particular, is that they …

African culture and content is taking over the world - from Afrobeats and amapiano, to Nollywood and Netflix originals, to fashion. To what degree …

Food prices are disproportionately expensive in African markets. In some countries, consumers spend 50% or more of their income on food. It's a logistics problem and a retail fragmentation problem, and it's also an …

How can Africans receive greater access to quality healthcare? That's the problem we'll attempt to explain in this episode, and it's a wicked problem.

In this episode, we go deep into the healthcare value chain from …

As MFS Africa announces its $100 million Series C, The Flip's Justin Norman and Sayo Folawiyo sit down for a conversation with MFS Africa's Founder …

As we began our exploration into retail and the so-called B2B commerce platforms, we kept asking about the nature of last-mile retail. Why is it so …

As we continue our season on value chains, in this episode, we explore logistics. 

The cost of goods and food is disproportionately higher in Africa than anywhere else in the world, with consumers in some markets, …

This episode concludes our three-part fintech series this season. In the first two episodes, we tackled payments. In this episode, we explore the other layers of the financial services stack - namely, identity and data. 

In episode one of this season, we explored how money moves within borders in Africa. In this episode, we explore how money moves across them. 

[01:27] - Africa is the most expensive region in the world to send money to, …

We hear a lot, in the African tech ecosystem, that the competition is with cash. Virtually every country in the world is on some form of a journey to move from cash to cashless. Many African markets, however, are quite …

Introducing The Flip Season Three. This season is about value chains - we pop the hood across sectors and take an in-depth look at what's going on underneath. 

Each episode during our narrative episodes, The Flip's b-mic, Sayo Folawiyo, and founder, Justin Norman, sit down for a retrospective conversation on …

 In this episode, we talk edtech with Wambura Kimunyu, the Group CEO of Eneza Education.

Throughout the series of episodes, we’re exploring the entrepreneurs in start-ups digitizing informal and fragmented industries on …

In this episode, we explore entertainment for mass-market consumers in Africa with Guy Kamgaing, the Founder and CEO of StarNews Mobile.

Throughout the series of episodes, we're exploring the entrepreneurs in start-ups …

In this episode, we talk about cryptocurrency with the Co-Founder and CEO of Bundle, and the Founding Partner of Microtraction, Yele Bademosi. Beyond …

In this episode, we talk about savings and credit cooperative societies, or SACCOs, and the outsize role these member-owned community banks  play in …

In this episode, we continue our exploration of the entrepreneurs digitizing informal and analog markets, with Nomanini's Vahid Monadjem. Nomanini is a fintech platform for informal retail merchants in cash-heavy …

In this episode, we open the black box of last-mile retail distribution with MarketForce 360's Tesh Mbaabu. 90 percent of trade in Africa is informal, and MarketForce's software-as-a-service platform to better manage …

In this episode, we explore digital savings with PiggyVest's Odunayo Eweniyi. PiggyVest's competition is the wooden box that Nigerians were using to save cash. We'll talk about how the company designed the product to …

In this episode, we speak to Jihan Abass, the Founder and CEO of Lami, an insurance-as-a-service startup based in Nairobi, Kenya. Lami's platform enables insurers, banks, and other partners to offer  digital and …

Our exploration of the entrepreneurs and startups digitizing analog and fragmented industries takes us to Nigeria, for a conversation with Helium Health's Co-founder and CEO Goke Olubusi. Helium's electronic medical …

On October 15, 2020, Paystack and Stripe announced the acquisition of the former by the latter, in a deal reported to be worth over $200 million. This marks Stripe's largest acquisition to date and is an incredibly …

The very nature of a high-growth startup means that the company is always growing and hiring at a rapid rate. And for African startups, in …

In this episode, we explore and unpack the relationship between the tech ecosystem and the media. We'll seek answers to questions such as - what …

This season we've talked about the relationship between African tech and other emerging markets across the Global South, as well as with China. In this episode, we talk about the ecosystem's relationship Japan - and in …

In this episode, we explore the evolution of mobile financial services and the opportunity to deepen financial inclusion in African markets. This …

This week, we explore a hypothesis - that the lessons and models from Chinese tech companies have merit in African markets, given certain similarities between China’s development and the current conditions on the …

Last episode, we went on a hypothetical startup journey from idea to exit. In this episode, we go on a real one.

In June of 2020, MFS Africa announced the acquisition of Beyonic. Together, the combined company of 95 …

This episode, we go on a hypothetical startup fundraising journey, from idea to exit. 

2:04 - At the earliest stage, angel and venture investing is quite subjective, says Zachariah George, angel investor and Managing …

We dedicate this episode to Fahim Saleh, the Founder and CEO of Gokada, who was killed in New York City on July 13th. Our heartfelt condolences go …

We've had prior discussions on Africa's market size (S1E5) and on Africa-focused investors' pursuit of scale (S1E7). Both topics ultimately lead to …

In this episode, we explore high-touch venture investing models - in particular, venture development and talent investing, as well as peer-selected …

Introducing The Flip Season Two - the podcast exploring contextually relevant insights from entrepreneurs changing the status quo in Africa. This season, we explore venture building, geographic expansion, valuations and …

They say never waste a good crisis. And while COVID-19 has had a horrible, crippling effect on individuals and economies alike, if there's one positive to the pandemic, perhaps it's that it's compelling and facilitating …

As we continue to weather the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, and its second order effects on the economy, hat lessons can we learn from those who have lived, survived or even thrived through somewhat similar …

MicroEnsure’s origins date back in 2002 when its founder, Richard Leftley, started asking a simple question of traditional insurance companies – why is it that insurers only create products and services for the wealthy? …

Rebecca Enonchong (@africatechie) is widely known for her evangelism of the African tech ecosystem. But she's much more than merely an evangelist. Rebecca started the US-based enterprise software company in 1999, …

To solve problems on the continent, entrepreneurs are building sustainable, impact-driven, infrastructure-building, tech-enabled, for-profit …

Venture Capitalists, generally speaking, are looking to fund high-growth ventures that have the potential to scale and achieve virtually infinite returns. But achieving that scale is hard, even more so in Africa, where …

We talk so often of venture capital that it's more or less assumed that raising VC funding is an inextricable part of the entrepreneur's journey. But …

One of the most exciting aspects of opportunities in Africa is a function of market size - over 1.2 billion people on the youngest and fastest-growing continent. But the conversation around total addressable market, and …

In nuanced and fragmented environments, how are startups in African markets getting their products and services in the hands of their customers at the last mile?

1:55 Maxime Bayen, of GreenTec Capital partners and …

Leapfrogging - what is it? What is it not? What is it good for and what are its limitations? We speak to Yoco's Head of Expansion, Marcello Schermer. 

They say that the difference between the US and Africa is that the US has competition while Africa has complexity. And a big reason for its complexity is a lack of infrastructure.

It compels many startups to build …

A tenet of entrepreneurship getting as close to the customer or end-user as possible, to best understand and implement solutions for them. But what …

Introducing The Flip - an editorial-style podcast exploring contextually relevant insights from entrepreneurs and investors changing the status quo in Africa. 

The name The Flip comes from the opportunity to flip the …