On today's episode of the Techpoint Africa Podcast, we have Oyindolapo Olusesi, Lead, Legal Services, Kora, to discuss two of this week's trending stories in African tech.
First, we dive into the Brass acquisition
Nigerian digital bank for small businesses, Brass, got acquired by an investment group led by Paystack. PiggyVest, Ventures Platform, P1 Ventures, and angel investors, Olumide Soyombo and Oo Nwoye complete the group.
This acquisition will see the company's co-founders, Sola Akindolu and Emmanuel Okeke, exit the business.
This comes three months after Brass was unable to give customers access to their deposits, blaming a funding freeze and the economic situation of the country. Before then, it had raised more than $2 million from investors.
Oyindolapo believes while this is not the scale of a Paystack exit, it is still worth celeberating due to the company not shutting down and livelihoods being spared.
But other important questions surrounding an unaccounted sum of ₦2 billion also need answering.
Next we took a lot at Bolt and it's decision to introduce a bidding system.
Bolt has implemented a bidding system that allows drivers to negotiate prices with riders to incentivise drivers and increase riders' chances of receiving rides during peak hours.
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This move is said to reflect inDrive's customer-driver negotiation model as ride-hailing becomes more popular in the country. It also aims to encourage more ride drivers to take up gig work, as pricing has been a common issue for drivers.
There's quite a bit to unpack here in terms of repositioning and competition.
Oyindolapo says this is a good opportunity to level the battlefield. Implementing a bidding system provides leeway for drivers and riders to choose based on their comfort.
You can catch up on the conversation on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also send your questions and observations to podcast@techpoint.africa or share your thoughts using the hashtag #TechpointAfricaPodcast.
