Bună ziua,
Victoria from Techpoint here,
Here’s what I’ve got for you today:
- Airtel Africa eyes Starlink, IPO, and crypto push
- A failed exam sparked this edtech startup
- Canal+ freezes DStv prices to win back subscribers
Airtel Africa eyes Starlink, IPO, and crypto push
Airtel Africa is quietly redrawing its playbook, and it’s not just about more towers. The telco says it’s pushing ahead with plans to list its mobile money arm, tap satellite capacity from Starlink, and even explore crypto and stablecoin services across its 14 markets.
Speaking in Nairobi, Group CEO Sunil Taldar said Airtel is in advanced talks with regulators to use Starlink kits and satellite backhaul to extend coverage into hard-to-reach rural areas. In markets like Kenya, where Airtel Kenya trails Safaricom with just over 30% market share, according to the Communications Authority of Kenya, patchy rural coverage has long been a weak spot. Satellite partnerships could help close those gaps without the high cost of building new ground infrastructure.
The timing is interesting. Satellite Internet in Kenya was once almost invisible, fewer than 1,000 users for years, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Then Starlink entered in 2023, and subscriptions exploded, jumping more than 2,500% between 2022 and 2024. For Airtel, leaning on satellite capacity could mean better network performance, stronger enterprise offerings, and fewer customers churning in underserved areas.
At the same time, Airtel says its long-awaited Airtel Money IPO is still on track, with listing locations under review. Spinning off fintech units has become a familiar strategy for African telcos looking to unlock value. And in a notable twist, management says it’s open to integrating virtual asset services, including stablecoins and crypto, once customer demand justifies it.
Why should we care? Because this isn’t just a connectivity story. Kenya is already one of Africa’s busiest crypto peer-to-peer markets, and lawmakers recently passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers Bill, 2025, placing oversight under regulators like the Central Bank of Kenya and the Capital Markets Authority. If Airtel successfully blends satellite coverage, mobile money scale, and eventually crypto rails, it could reshape competition not just in Kenya, but across its entire African footprint.
A failed exam sparked this edtech startup
When Ofure Fortunate failed a medical school exam at 16, it didn’t just sting, it changed the course of her life. What started as a bruising academic setback turned into an obsession: why do smart students fail? That question would pull her from medicine into psychology, then into data analytics and artificial intelligence, and eventually into building her own edtech startup.
Victoria Fakiya – Senior Writer
Techpoint Digest
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Today, Ofure runs AceBuddy, a platform that uses cognitive science and AI to help students study smarter and actually retain what they learn. But her relationship with tech started long before that. She remembers weekly computer lab classes feeling like an event, almost like P.E. — special, rare, important. When her parents brought a computer home at age nine, technology became personal. Later, using a Chromebook at school quietly deepened that familiarity, even if she didn’t realise it at the time.
For years, medicine felt like destiny. She began studying medicine and surgery as a teenager, following the well-worn path many high-performing science students are nudged toward. But failing that exam forced a reset. Instead of doubling down, she transferred to study psychology in Canada, a subject she had always been drawn to but never seriously considered. Psychology opened her mind, but she still felt the pull to solve problems more analytically.
That’s what led her to data analytics in 2022. After struggling to learn on YouTube, she secured a scholarship, enrolled in a bootcamp, and began building real technical skills. Python became her gateway drug into AI. The logic, the structure, the power of writing code that machines could execute, she was hooked. The job hunt wasn’t smooth; despite interviews with major companies, she didn’t secure a full-time role until December 2024. But by then, she had something else brewing.
AceBuddy was born from her own frustration. If she could fail despite studying hard, something about the system was broken. Instead of blaming herself, she decided to understand how people learn and then build technology around that insight. For more on how Ofure is blending psychology and AI to rethink studying, check out Delight’s latest for Techpoint Africa.
Canal+ freezes DStv prices to win back subscribers
For the first time in years, April is coming without the usual DStv price hike. In a move few subscribers saw coming, MultiChoice says it won’t increase prices this April, breaking a long-standing tradition that had become as predictable as load shedding.
New group CEO David Mignot, who stepped in after Groupe Canal+ acquired MultiChoice in September 2025, says the focus right now is simple: win back subscribers. “We are building subscribers, so it’s not the right time to increase pricing,” he told TechCentral. While he didn’t rule out possible adjustments later in the year, especially if the rand weakens, for now, prices stay put.
The decision makes sense when you look at the numbers. MultiChoice has lost 2.8 million linear subscribers in the two years to March 2025, with about half of those losses coming from South Africa. Revenue dropped by R4 billion to R52 billion, while trading profit plunged 49%. Mignot describes the issue not as a content problem; he insists SuperSport, M-Net, and Africa Magic remain strong, but as a commercial one. In subscription businesses, churn of 12–15% a year is normal, he says. The problem is MultiChoice hasn’t been replacing those customers fast enough.
What this means is that Canal+ is shifting to a volume strategy: stabilise prices, rebuild the base, and grow profitably. Mignot points to Canal+’s French-speaking African markets, where pricing has remained largely unchanged for more than a decade, as proof that a steady-price model can work. Whether that formula translates to South Africa’s highly competitive, streaming-heavy market is the big question.
Why it matters: DStv pricing has long been a lightning rod for consumer frustration, especially as platforms like Netflix and other streamers eat into traditional pay-TV. A freeze could slow subscriber losses and buy MultiChoice time to fix its sales engine. With Canal+ set to release its first combined financial results in March, this move signals a company trying to stop the bleeding and betting that stability, not hikes, is the way back to growth.
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Have a productive week!
Victoria Fakiya for Techpoint Africa
