Investing in The Future of Developers in Africa
Africa’s Talking is a company with one single vision;
To support a viable entrepreneurial technology ecosystem for Africa.
Started in 2010 as an e-commerce company, Africa’s Talking pivoted in 2012 to build APIs. With this shift, our focus moved to delighting software developers in Africa through reliable and accessible technology.
Since then, we have grown organically, supporting a growing community of more than 20,000 developers across 7 African countries. During this time, we have been able to build an exceptional team of engineers who have built this unified API platform that gives developers access to powerful local infrastructure.
Along this journey, we have met, collaborated and shared ideas with many developer communities in Africa, hence strengthening our resolve to empower and support them as they transform their lives and those of their communities
Eight years in, we are at a point of inflection. We know that there is more we can provide the developer community through technology. To do this, we need to accelerate our expansion in Africa and open up more opportunities for them.
This is why we looked for partners. Partners who are aligned to our vision and are willing to be part of our story.
We are happy to announce that we have just closed our first major round of funding. IFC Venture Capital has led Series A funding round of $8.6M equity investment together with Orange Digital Ventures and Social Capital. As part of this round, we are happy to welcome to our board, Wale Ayeni who leads IFC venture capital activities for Africa.
Our plan
Africa’s Talking Studio
This is a concept that we have been experimenting with for a while. AT studio is a space where we take in brilliant engineers and support them as they build tech products. They will sit with us in our office and we will provide them with support and mentorship.
Africa needs skilled developers to build out technology that empowers the continent. This is what we believe and are betting on. Providing an environment for learning and experimenting is part of the process of encouraging digital transformantion in Africa, through its own people.
Expansion
Africa’s Talking started in Kenya and by the end of 2017, we had a presence in 6 more countries. This expansion has allowed us to understand how different markets work, how infrastructure varies from country to country and what opporunities exist. One thing that we can confidently bank on is that developers are the same — tech knows no boundaries. With that in mind, we are hoping to go into 20 more countries by the end of 2019, with the help of our partners.
IFC have a lot of expereince in Africa, and Orange Digital Ventures can help us get into to Franco-phone Africa, a region where they dominate.
Product Development
There is no limit to what can be built. With the added resources, we will put more time and work into the research and development of infrastructure products for developers. We have already started this by researching on IoT, Analytics and Video APIs, with many more to come.
We are excited to have partners who are committed to opening up infrastructure for developers to make use of as they build solutions.
Africa’s Talking is a Pan African tech company that works on helping developers in Africa make their ideas come to life with ease. We do this by giving them access to communication and payments infrastruture through easy-to-use APIs. Want to explore our APIs? Learn more about us and join the conversation on Slack!
