Hola,
Victoria from Techpoint here,
Here's what I've got for you today:
- Bento's internal crisis deepens
- Canal+ finds a loophole to own MultiChoice
- Khazna’s $16M pre-Series B
Bento's internal crisis deepens

Word on the street is that Bento is in serious trouble. Just a week ago, the Lagos tax collector was investigating the HR tech company for allegedly scamming clients and forging tax receipts. Then, co-founder and CEO Ebun Okubanjo resigned, and Bento paused transactions. Now, things have taken another turn.
TechCabal reports that on Friday, Bento fired its entire 10-person tech team after they protested a delay in their January salaries. Okubanjo, despite resigning on January 30, was still hanging around in the company’s group chat the next day, acting like business as usual. Employees, already on edge after the fraud allegations, were then told their salaries would be “strategically delayed” until Bento cleared all pending payroll for clients.
Frustrated, the tech team decided to stop working until they got paid. Okubanjo didn’t budge — instead, he deactivated their work emails and treated their protest as resignations. He even made a last-ditch offer: anyone who stayed to process payroll could split the withheld salaries. If just two employees agreed, they’d get ₦3 million each. No one took the bait.
With no tech team left, Bento’s payroll system is basically in shambles. They’ve already been struggling with manual salary processing due to payment processor issues, and now there’s no one left to fix things. But instead of admitting their mess, Bento sent out an email to customers claiming it "intentionally" paused transactions to transfer platform credentials from Okubanjo to an interim overseer. Sounds like a cover-up, doesn’t it?
Employees are already jumping ship. One even said he first heard about the tax fraud allegations online and quickly removed Bento from his LinkedIn profile. The whole situation is spiraling, and at this rate, it’s hard to see how Bento recovers from this.
Khazna’s $16M pre-Series B
Khazna, a fintech startup from Egypt, just raised $16 million in pre-Series B funding, taking its total funding to over $63 million. This comes as the company is rapidly expanding, with plans to apply for a digital banking licence in Egypt and move into Saudi Arabia.
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Founded in 2019, Khazna focuses on providing financial services for low- and middle-income workers who often don’t have access to traditional banking. Their offerings include salary advances, microloans, and digital payments — helping people access financial tools they’ve long been excluded from.
In just a couple of years, Khazna has grown its customer base from 150,000 in 2022 to over 500,000 today, with 100,000 of them receiving their salaries directly through the platform. This allows Khazna to offer other services like loans and insurance, making it easier for workers to access financial products directly tied to their paychecks.
The company’s big win came last month when it hit profitability after focusing on its credit products for payroll recipients and gig workers. This has been the core of their business and what’s helping them break even.
But Khazna’s ambitions don’t stop there. They’re eyeing a full digital banking setup, but there’s a catch — they don’t have access to customer deposits yet. Right now, they rely on debt financing, which is expensive. To bring down those costs, they’re working on securing a license that would allow them to accept customer deposits, putting them in a much stronger position for the future.
Khazna isn’t just focusing on Egypt. They’re expanding into Saudi Arabia, where they see a huge opportunity for financial services, especially with the large Egyptian community there. In fact, Khazna plans to have about 40-50% of its business coming from Saudi Arabia within the next few years, which could set them up for a public listing on the Tadawul stock exchange.
Canal+ finds a loophole to own MultiChoice
Canal+ is going all in on its R32 billion takeover of MultiChoice, and even though South Africa’s media rules say a foreign company can’t own a majority stake in a broadcaster, they’ve found a clever way around it.
Their plan? Split MultiChoice into two parts — one called Licence Co, which will hold the broadcasting licence and manage South African DStv subscribers, and the other, MultiChoice Group, which will focus on video content and operations, per TV with Thinus. Technically, MultiChoice won’t be a broadcaster anymore, just a content supplier. Sneaky but smart.
This means that while Licence Co will be an "independent" company on paper, it’ll still be working closely with MultiChoice. So, in reality, Canal+ will still have influence, just without breaking any rules outright.
And here’s something interesting — because MultiChoice carries local news channels like SABC News, eNCA, and Newzroom Africa, a French company will essentially be paying to keep South African TV news on the air. That’s a massive shift in how media is controlled in the country.
To make it all look good on paper, MultiChoice and Canal+ are making sure Licence Co is majority-owned by South African shareholders. The ownership is split between Phuthuma Nathi (27%), Identity Partners Itai Consortium, Afrifund Investments, and a Workers' Trust (ESOP). Meanwhile, MultiChoice Group will keep a 49% stake in Licence Co but only hold 20% of the voting rights — the exact legal limit for foreign ownership. It’s a masterclass in playing by the rules while still getting what they want.
Of course, the deal isn’t a done deal yet. They still need approval from multiple regulators, including Icasa, the Competition Tribunal, and the Takeover Regulation Panel. There are also financial surveillance checks and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) requirements to meet. But Canal+ and MultiChoice are confident they’ve structured everything just right to get the green light.
For Canal+, this is about more than just MultiChoice — it’s about building a global media powerhouse with a strong African presence. Their CEO, Maxime Saada, is talking about how this move will help them scale up and compete with bigger players in the industry. MultiChoice’s CEO, Calvo Mawela, is equally excited, saying this will lead to better content for subscribers while keeping their BEE commitments strong. Everyone's making sure to say the right things, but the real power shift is hard to ignore.
So, what’s next? If regulators approve everything, MultiChoice will essentially become a French-backed media giant, with Licence Co keeping things "local" in South Africa to satisfy the law. DStv subscribers probably won’t notice much change, but behind the scenes, the country’s biggest media company is getting a serious makeover. Whether this works out smoothly or runs into roadblocks will be interesting to watch.
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Have a wonderful Wednesday!
Victoria Fakiya for Techpoint Africa.