This is a blog copy of the 83rd version of our weekly newsletter, BD Insider. Subscribers get to read it first and can take action based on it.

Hello BD Insider,

Tomorrow will make it a year since many Nigerians were killed at the Lekki tollgate for protesting against police brutality. The average Nigerian was shocked by what happened and many are still nursing that grief.  

Talents in Nigeria's tech ecosystem are some of the victims of this brutality. In 2019, tech leaders launched #StopRobbingUs campaign to protest the common practice where Nigerian police officers stop young people with laptops and unlawfully arrest, attack or, in extreme circumstances, kidnap them, forcing them to withdraw funds from their bank accounts in order to regain their freedom.

As we reflect on this day, we laud the efforts of tech companies that were at the forefront of the #ENDSARS campaign and we hope that the demands of the living and deceased protesters will be met.

Going back to the news, Nigeria was ranked as the third most attractive country for foreign investment in  the Africa Absa Africa Financial Market Index 2021. The report which sampled 25 countries on the continent assessed the countries’ performance through six pillars including; market depth, access to foreign exchange, market transparency, tax and regulatory environment, the capacity of local investors, macroeconomic opportunities and enforceability of the standard master agreement.

According to Absa, “Nigeria continues to make strides in creating an enabling investment environment for foreign investors, with the necessary regulatory developments and policy initiatives”.

Recall that, 52% of startups that received financial support from Google’s Black Founders Fund for Africa were Nigerian. The funding landscape in the country has continued to expand; with Paystack’s acquisition by Stripe and the attainment of unicorn status by Flutterwave, Opay, Andela, Nigerian startups’ are expressing their viability.

Find a copy of the research here to dig deep

In today’s issue, we covered:

• Zero to Scale with Ayodeji Balogun, CTO and Co-founder of Terragon.
• How Pan-African networks for social investors are partnering to further promote impact investing across Africa.
• Tech Word of the Week: Growth Hacking

We also shared job opportunities in Ghana and Nigeria, then we compiled a list of a few things that we found interesting over the past week.

Welcome to Issue 83!

💡Zero to Scale with Ayodeji Balogun, CTO and Co-founder of Terragon

In this episode, Ayodeji talked to us about how Terragon transitioned from a digital marketing agency that built websites for top Nigerian media brands like Guardian, Punch to being a product-led company.

He said that the company relied “heavily on partnership” to scale its business. Aside from partnerships, Ayodeji said, Tarragon is “always thinking of how to ensure customer success as a way to help us keep our competitive edge. I think it is important for any company in Africa to be product-focused”.

Read more about the conversation here

Zero To Scale (ZTS) is a new web series that focuses on the journeys of African founders and their startups from day zero until the day they achieve scale. ZTS is produced in partnership with Oneroute.io, an all-in-one tool for your customer communication needs.

🤝🏿AVPA partners Investor Flow to promote impact investment in Africa

With the highest potential impact investment globally, Africa is poised for strong economic growth but these opportunities require innovative and capital investments that address social needs with financial returns in specific instances.

The partnership between these networks of social investors will provide a platform to connect investors to work together on a list of vetted and investable deals that can help grow and scale social investments across Africa.

Read more about the partnership here

✍🏿Tech Word for the Week: Growth Hacking

Growth hacking is the use of cost-effective digital marketing strategies and frameworks to expand your customer base, sell products and gain exposure. The goal of growth hacking is to grow, expand, and retain an active user base.
Find out more about this term that was coined by Sean Ellis (marketing manager of PayPal) in 2011 when he was looking for someone to replace him.

💰 Fundraising

Here are some of the recent startup fundraises across Africa that you should be aware of:

• Mono raised $15 million Series A round
• Nigerian digital bank Sparkle raised $3.1 million seed round to help it scale
• Eden Life raised $1.4 million seed round to build Africa’s first home services App
• Sundanese alsoug raised a $5 million Series A funding round in order to build an associated fintech platform, Cashi Tip: If you're looking to improve your take-home (salary) by moving jobs, companies that have just raised are a great place to apply. Companies almost always hire after a significant raise.

🔍 Things we found interesting.

Here are some of the most exciting stories we've written and read over the last seven days:

• Klasha has launched in Ghana as part of an expansion to enable swift cross border payments and e-commence across Africa.
• OurPass to change the way online shoppers complete their purchases with its one-click checkout technology.
• Is it true that African startups focus on growth at the expense of people? Read what this HR expert is said.
• Linkedin has shut down operations in China. However, it will launch inJobs amidst “a challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China”.
• Tech communities providing learning opportunities for girls in Africa

💼 Job Opportunities

In addition to last week's list of jobs, events, and other  opportunities, check these out, too:

• Zoom is hiring a Technical Content Manager (Accra, Ghana)
• Helicarrier is hiring an Operations Associate (Lagos, Nigeria)
• Stears Business is hiring a Managing Editor  (Remote)
• AREAi is hiring a Community Engagement Associate (Abuja, Nigeria)
• Eden Life is hiring a Food Quality Assurance and Safety Manager (Lagos, Nigeria)
• Google is hiring a Vendor Operations Manager, Ads Content Curation ( Accra, Ghana)

Thanks for reading.

As part of our goal to provide relevant information to you. We intend to compile a list of the most active seed and pre-seed investors in Africa. Help us build this database by sending suggestions to [email protected]


Have a great week.
Johnstone