Year: 2021

In 2018, Carbon, a Nigerian fintech startup, made its financials public for the first time. Although typical for foreign private startups, it’s almost an anomaly in Africa. There have been rare cases in the past, for instance, when Rocket Internet had to include Jumia’s financials in its yearly reports after going public. At the time, the German investment outfit was a founding shareholder in the African-based unicorn.

While Carbon has been hailed for transparency and openness, it remains to be seen if it’s a trend other African startups are willing to follow. Posting audited financials can prove detrimental for a private African company for several reasons ranging from bad marketing and PR if huge losses are incurred to regulatory clampdown if the company performs well.

A $15.8 million VC-backed company, Carbon was founded by Chijioke Dozie and Ngozi Dozie in 2012. The brothers started the company in a niche digital lending market, but now, the company offers a plethora of services from savings to payments and investments.

When Chijioke Dozie, the CEO, spoke to TechCrunch in 2019, he cited recruitment purposes and clientele trust as reasons why the company made its financials public — an exercise it has done every second quarter for two years. It’s a tradition Dozie hopes the company will keep this year.

“Our annual report will be released in the second quarter after our financial audit has been concluded. If you recall, we released a year in review in January 2020 before we released the fiscal year of 2019 report,” he told TechCrunch.

The company’s annual reports reveal numbers on gross earnings, profit/loss before and after-tax, net impairment loss, total assets, liabilities, and equity, among others. The company’s year on review, on the other hand, highlights payments processed, customer base, loans disbursed, and investments made on the platform. 

As we wait for its annual report for 2020, its year in review offers a sneak peek into how Carbon grew the past year.

For the fiscal year 2020, the company which has about 659,000 customers said it processed ₦96.54 billion (~$241.35 million), up 89% compared to the same period a year ago. For its lending arm, disbursement volume was ₦25.21 billion (~$63 million), up 9.1% from FY2019. Also, ₦13.02 billion (~$32.55 million) worth of investments was made on the platform, representing a 365% increase from the previous year.

According to the company, factors that influenced these numbers last year included launching an iOS app for customer acquisition, introducing its USSD banking feature for lower-income customers; and a social chat feature for faster transactions. 

Also, in its quest to become a digital bank, Carbon acquired a microfinance bank license. According to Dozie, the license means that Carbon’s customers are afforded additional protection through depositors’ insurance via the NDIC. The Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation, a federal insurance agency, protects depositors and guarantees the settlement of insured funds when a financial institution can no longer repay their deposits. With that in place, Dozie says the typical Carbon wallet is now a full-fledged bank account, and customers can perform transactions on the platform as they would with any bank.

Like Carbon, other startups on the continent have followed suit by releasing year-on-year metrics. In recent memory, most of these startups play in the fintech and crypto-exchange space. But Carbon remains unique amongst these crop of companies as it releases both transaction stats and real insights into its financial performance.

Whereas transaction stats tend to highlight a seemingly explosive year-on-year growth of a company, a comprehensive view of financials will likely show a mixed performance. For instance, Carbon generated $17.5 million in revenue for FY2019, up 68% from 2018. For that same period, it recorded a 23% decrease in its profit after tax numbers, a 222% rise in total liabilities and 107% increase in assets finishing the year off with a 6% increase in total equity.

It’ll be interesting to see what these numbers look like for 2020. But that’s not the only event to keep an eye on. In addition to its $10 million Series A from SA-based Net1 UEPS Technologies and a $5million debt financing in 2019 from Lendable, Dozie says the digital bank is ramping efforts to raise a Series B round soon to consolidate the company’s position on the continent.

New space startup bluShift wants to bring a new kind of propellant to the small satellite launching market, with rockets powered by bio-derived rocket fuels. These differ from traditional fuels in that they offer safety advantages during handling, and ecological advantages during production and use. The startup has been working on its solid rocket biofuel since its founding in 2014, and has received grants from the Maine Technology Institute and NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to refine its fuel formula and rocket engine design to help it get to this point.

The company achieved a milestone on Sunday with its first rocket launch – a low altitude flight of a small sounding rocket, called Stardust 1.0. It’s a single-stage prototype, which can only carry 18 lbs of payload, and it’s designed to achieve suborbital space. That may not seem like much, but it is enough to put small research equipment up into suborbital space, at costs that put launches within range for small companies and academic institutions.

Stardust 1.0 is designed to be reusable, though it’s still a prototype, and the company is also working on Startdust 2.0 which is a second prototype that’s expected to increase the payload capacity and act as the primary building block for its subsequent production commercial rockets, including Starless Rogue, a two-stage launcher for suborbital missions, and Red Dware, a three-stage, 66-lb capacity launch vehicle that can reach low-Earth orbit.

Sunday’s launch looked like it might not have been on track to go well at first, with an initial attempt seeing the rocket’s ignition light – but without a takeoff. After resetting for a second try, there wasn’t any ignition. Finally the company did take off late in the day, with a flight that it said “went perfectly” on a follow-up call with media.

Twitter blocked access to over a dozen high-profile individuals in India on Monday to comply with a “legal request”, prompting confusion and anger among users who are seeking an explanation for this action.

Among those whose accounts have been restricted in India include Caravan, a news outlet that conducts investigative journalism, political commentator Sanjukta Basu, activist Hansraj Meena, actor Sushant Singh, and Shashi Shekhar Vempati, chief executive of state-run brodcasting agency Prasar Bharti. Accounts of at least two politicians with Aam Aadmi Party — Preeti Sharma Menon and Jarnail Singh — that governs the National Capital Territory of Delhi have also been withheld.

At least two popular accounts linked with recent protests by farmers — Kisan Ekta Morcha and Tractor2Twitr —  in India have also been restricted.

At this point, it remains unclear who all have pursued the legal action that prompted Twitter to restrict these accounts in India. The accounts are accessible to users out of the country. But at least in the case of political commentator Basu, Twitter told him that Indian authorities had issued the legal demand against some accounts that included his and that it was talking with the authorities.

In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson said, “many countries have laws that may apply to Tweets and/or Twitter account content. In our continuing effort to make our services available to people everywhere, if we receive a properly scoped request from an authorized entity, it may be necessary to withhold access to certain content in a particular country from time to time. Transparency is vital to protecting freedom of expression, so we have a notice policy for withheld content.”

India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed a handful of benefits for the startup ecosystem and to accelerate the growth of digital services in the annual budget Monday as the South Asian nation looks to revive the economy that plunged into deepest recorded slump amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Sitharaman said the nation has earmarked 1,500 crore Indian rupees ($205.3 million) to incentivize the adoption of digital payments. Paytm, Google Pay, and PhonePe are locked in an intense battle to drive people in India to pay digitally, but the firms have struggled to find a viable business model with their core payments service.

Many firms were hoping that the government will permit them to charge for merchants transactions. No announcement on this front was made today.

The budget also proposed to extend social security benefits to gig workers and other platform workers and launch a website to help these workers find employment, said Sitharaman. These workers will be protected by minimum wages, she said. Additionally, she said women will be allowed to work in all categories with adequate protection.

The South Asian nation also proposed broadening the definition of small businesses, increasing the threshold for capitalization to 2 crore Indian rupees (about $275,000), up from existing limit of 50 lakh Indian rupees ($68,750). This will allow many more businesses to come under small business umbrella and avail relevant benefits such as some tax concessions.

The budget also proposed incentives for incorporation of one-person companies, a move that Sitharaman said will help companies “grow without restriction on paid up capital and turnover, allowing conversion into any other type of company at any time, reducing the residency limit for an Indian citizen to set up a one-person company from 182 days to 120 days, and allow also non-resident Indians to incorporate one-person companies in India.”

Industry executives in recent weeks said they were hoping that India will further relax angel investment tax in the country and address the digital services tax the country began imposing on foreign firms last year. These matters were not addressed in the new budget.

This is a developing story. Check back later for more information. 

As I write this Elon Musk has joined Clubhouse for his first ever in-person session and the boundaries of the app have already been tested. Only 5,000 people are in the room, BUT… the session is being live-streamed from here or here.

We are live blogging the session and will update this post (apologies for typos in the interim).

Musk initially talked about going gong to Mars and said it was likely to be a “hard” for the early pioneers, but that it would be a matter of keeping the “candle of civilization alive in the dark”.

Asked if he believed in aliens, he said there wasn’t a single piece of conclusive evidence for the existence of aliens, although it’s “quite possible” there is such a thing as Alien tech, at least at a “7/11” level, and a joked that they evidence so far suggests they might be at the “500 Megapixel camera” or “at least iPhone 6 level”.

He said his kids were not quite into the idea of going to Mars.

Asked about memes online he quipped: “He who controls the memes controls the universe” and it’s about what influences the zeitgeist. Memes are a complex form of communication – unlike pictures, memes are “10,000 words not 1,000 words”. They are aspirationally funny. “I love memes, they can be very insightful”

Does he try to sound crazy on Twitter? “I started crazy on Twitter,” he joked.

I don’t follow them, but some “are sent by “meme dealers” who are friends.

He posted about Neurolink but said Tesla had one of the strongest AI teams in the world.

With AI, it’s about “how to we stay relevant” and at least “stay along for the ride” in the good scenario” and couple to AI.

“People are already a cyborg.” We already have a tertiary layer in the form of smartphones. The bit-rate of us typing into a phone is 100 bits. So it’s like trying to talk to a tree, for our smartphones. So with a direct neural interface, we increase it with a huge magnitude. And also spend longer with a higher magnitude.

You can decide if you want to be a robot of a person. But when you wake in the morning you wouldn’t have to be the same as you were yesterday. It’s analogous to a video game, not unlike the “Altered Carbon” Netflix series.

There are primitive versions s the Neurolink idea, with tiny wires into your brain.

He said they will be releasing new videos in a month or so, such as of a monkey playing videos with their mind.

The value of the early implant will be enormous and outright the risks.

Question: What should we educate a 5-year-old about in this world?

Musk talked about how video games engage children, but explaining “the why” was important. “We are programmed to forget the low “probability of things” if they aren’t relevant.

Such as, taking apart an engine and putting them together. We will need tools, so we understand the relevance. It’s better than having a “course of wrenches”

He was asked “why are there not more Elon Musks”? “If you need encouraging words, don’t do a startup”.

A friend sent him a slice of cake in 2013. So “I should have bought it 8 years ago” “At this point Bitcoin is a good thing. I am a supporter. I am late to the party, but I am a supporter.”

He said it was clear Bitcoin was getting broader acceptance by the finance world. “I don’t have a strong opinion on other currencies.”

Dogecoin is a made aa joke to make fun of cryptocurrencies, but “fate lives irony”.

“The most entertaining outcome is the most likely.” The most ironic outcome would be dogecoin becoming the currency of the future.

He made a joke about bitcoin and his account got locked.

TESLA: They want to make 20 million cars and trucks per year as a target.

Autonomous driving could reach a significant amount of time you would rely on it in a week, so autonomous cars would do a third of the hours in a weeks, so 60 hours instead of 12.

Making sense of objects with technologies like Lidar would effectively make cars “superhuman”.

Working remotely on zoom has been tricky for him, but remote working has not been perfect. “Fear is not the mind-killer, context switching the mind-killer” he said.

Would he start another company? It joked that he pretty much has his hands with Tesla, Space X, The Boring Company and others to date.

Speaking is one of the hardest parts of learning a new language, especially if you don’t have someone to practice with regularly. ELSA is an app that helps by using speech recognition technology to correct pronunciation. Based in San Francisco and Ho Chi Minh City, ELSA announced today it has raised a $15 million Series B, led by VI (Vietnam Investments) Group and SIG. Other participants included returning investors Google’s AI-focused fund Gradient Ventures, SOSV and Monk’s Hill Ventures, along with Endeavor Catalyst and Globant Ventures.

The capital will be used to expand ELSA’s operations in Latin America and build a scalable B2B platform, allowing companies and educational organizations to offers the app’s coaching services to employees or students. Founded in 2015, ELSA, which stands for English Language Speech Assistant, now claims more than 13 million users. Its last round of funding was a $7 million Series A announced in 2019.

In addition to Latin America, ELSA will also focus on expanding in Vietnam, India and Japan, where it saw high demand last year. The company recently formed a partnership with IDP and British Council, which owns the widely-used IELTS English language test and now recommends ELSA to for test preparation. ELSA is also working with language schools in Vietnam like IMAP and Speak Up, online learning platform YOLA and corporate clients including Kimberly Clark, Intel and ATAD.

ELSA co-founder and chief executive officer Vu Van told TechCrunch that many users want to improve their English speaking proficiency for job opportunities and to increase their earning potential. In Vietnam, India and Brazil, people with higher English speaking proficiency can earn about two to three times more than their colleagues, she said.

“This motivation drives a lot of demand for our English learner community in Vietnam, India and Brazil, especially during COVID-19 when we’ve seen enormous interest from the LatAm region as well,” Van added.

In Vietnam, where Van is from, English learners spend a lot of their disposable income on online or offline English training. “However, the majority of English learners still struggle to improve their speaking skill because other people don’t understand them or they’re afraid to speak it,” she said. ELSA was designed to give them an accessible resource to help improve their pronunciation and confidence when speaking English.

Other apps focused on English pronunciation include FluentU and Say It. Van said one of ELSA’s main advantages is its proprietary voice recognition AI tech.

“What’s unique about our AI is that we’ve collected the largest amount of accented English voice data from millions of users that we have used to train our AI model over the last few years, which gives us a higher accuracy in recognizing and understanding non-native English speakers around the world,” she said. “The other existing voice recognition technologies available, by comparison, might understand native speakers well but have a hard time understanding non-native accented English learner communities.”

Instead of providing feedback about individual words, ELSA’s app also corrects individual sounds and gives users detailed information on how to improve their pronunciation, including “very advanced prosodic speaking features like intonation, rhythm and fluency to help them speak English more naturally, something that our competitors don’t offer,” Van added.

Ben, a London-based employee benefits and rewards platform, has raised $2.5 million in funding. The seed round is led by Cherry Ventures, and Seedcamp.

A number of angel investors with backgrounds in fintech and HR tech also participated. They include Paul Forster (founder of Indeed), Taavet Hinrikus (founder of TransferWise), Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas (previously an exec at GoCardless but now a partner at Index Ventures), Philip Reynolds (VP of Engineering at Workday), and Matt Robinson (founder of Nested).

Part fintech, part HR play, Ben has built an employee benefits platform to enable SMEs to offer much more personalised and flexible benefits to employees. The U.K. startup does this via a SaaS for managing benefits, including a benefits marketplace, combined with per-employee debit cards powered by Mastercard.

The idea is to give employees more individual choice around which benefits they choose, while making it easy to on-board additional providers. This can be via the marketplace or through whitelisting merchant or merchant categories via the employer issued Mastercards, such as food and drink or travel and mobility, or a specific co-working space etc.

“While most companies offer benefits in order to attract and engage team members, and ultimately drive productivity, most solutions don’t deliver the desired outcomes,” Ben co-founder and CEO Sebastian Fallert tells me. “To have impact, offerings need to work for the individual employees; after all, a ‘benefit’ that’s relevant for somebody working from home in their mid-40s could be next to useless for a new starter in their 20s”.

Fallert says that providing the required level of personalised benefits has been impossible for most small to medium-sized companies due to the “high cost and complexity” of creating and administering personalised programmes. This has seen only large enterprises able to offer flexible benefit programmes where employees get to pick from a range of options. Ben aims to remedy this.

“The Ben software platform allows companies to load funds and set individual spend rules on how these can be used,” explains Fallert. “Employees are then able to choose from group benefits, such as private medical insurance, mental wellbeing services, or dental plans, while a real per-employee Mastercard opens the door to pretty much any product or service in a tax-efficient and compliant way”.

The result is a “win-win,” says the Ben CEO. “Employees get tailored benefits, and companies only pay for what’s used, take advantage of tax exemptions and preferred pricing, while streamlining the administration”.

The Ben platform is currently used by smaller and mid-market companies, especially those with a distributed team. “It’s these firms in particular that have to deal with the growing complexity of their programmes to keep up with a more diverse and increasingly remote/distributed workforce,” says Fallert.

Meanwhile, Ben has three revenue streams: a SaaS fee; interchange revenue every time its cards get used; and, of course, affiliate revenue from its marketplace.

Adds the Ben CEO: “One of our core hypotheses is that there are so many amazing services out there that simply can’t get through to companies as they’re often not relevant for all employees, such as debt consolidation or fertility treatment. With Ben, they get easy distribution on standard commercial terms while companies get to offer an additional benefit without any additional overhead”.

Despite China’s history of stringent media control, an industry of uninstitutionalized, individual publishers has managed to flourish on social media platforms like Tencent’s WeChat and ByteDance’s Toutiao. These self-publishers are called “We Media” in the Chinese internet lexicon, denoting the independent power of citizen journalists and content creators.

Meanwhile, self-publishers have always had to tread carefully on what they post or risk being targeted by censors who deem them illegal or inappropriate.

The topics they cover are myriad, ranging from fashion and food to politics and current affairs. WeChat, a major destination for self-publishers, hinted last July it had 20 million “public accounts”, platforms for individuals to broadcast content and in businesses’ case, reach customers. In 2020, 360 million users read articles published on WeChat public accounts, WeChat founder Allen Zhang disclosed recently.

Sina Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, has long attracted citizen journalists. In the early days of COVID-19, millions of Chinese users rushed to Weibo seeking facts from accounts like that of Fang Fang, an author who chronicled what she had witnessed in Wuhan.

Now, a new development in China’s internet regulation is about to further restrict China’s tens of millions of self-publishers.

Public accounts that “provide online news service to the public shall obtain the Internet News Information Permit and other relevant media accreditation,” according to a new regulation (translation here) published January 22 by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet watchdog.

In the following days, WeChat, Baidu, Sohu and other online information services began notifying publishers of the new rule. “If your account lacks relevant accreditation, you are advised not to edit, report, publish or comment on news about politics, the economy, military, foreign affairs or other major current events,” according to the notice sent by WeChat.

“The WeChat Public Account Platform always commits to providing a green, healthy online environment to users,” the message adds.

The requirement of news accreditation will likely be a death knell for independent social media publishers that have taken on journalistic roles, particularly those covering politics. “It’s not something you can obtain easily unless you’re an official news outlet or an organization with unmatched resources and background,” a WeChat account publisher told TechCrunch.

China’s control on news reaches into every corner of the internet, and regulations are always playing catchup with the pace at which new media, such as microblogs and live streaming, flourishes.

From 2017 to 2018, the cyberspace authority granted news permits to a total of 761 “internet news services,” which together operated 743 websites, 563 apps, 119 forums, 23 blogs, 3 microblogs, 2285 public accounts, one instant messenger, and 13 live streaming services. In other words, hard news is off limits for internet services of these categories that operate without a news license. It remains to see how platform operators like WeChat and Sina Weibo work to enforce the rules.

Heightening oversight on online information could have merit when it comes to battling misinformation. The new regulation also calls on operators to set up mechanisms like a creator blacklist to root out fake news. But the regulation overall could have an adverse impact on freedom of expression in China, the International Federation of Journalists warned.

“The vaguely defined new rule comes at a time when ‘self-media’ has gained huge popularity in China and journalists have begun using such platforms to publish work which was axed by their organisations,” the IFJ said in a statement published on January 28.

Access to the internet in Myanmar dropped sharply after the military detained leaders of ruling party National League for Democracy, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and declared a state of emergency. The NLD won a wide majority of parliamentary seats in November’s general election, which the military alleges was the result of election fraud. In a statement on military-owned television, the army said a year-long state of emergency would be declared in Myanmar and power handed to military chief Min Aung Hlaing.

According to NetBlocks, a non-governmental organization that monitors digital rights, cybersecurity and internet governance around the world, internet disruptions began around 3AM Monday morning local time, with national connectivity falling to 75% of ordinary levels, and then reaching about 50% around 8AM. Data shows that the cuts affected several network operators, including the state-owned Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) and Telenor. NetBlocks said “preliminary findings [indicate] a centrally ordered mechanism of disruption targeting cellular and some fixed-line services, progressing over time as operators comply.”

Update: Internet connectivity in #Myanmar has fallen to 50% of ordinary levels as of 8:00 a.m. local time amid an apparent military coup and the detention of civilian leaders; pattern of disruption indicates centrally issued telecoms blackout order

https://t.co/Jgc20OBk27 pic.twitter.com/71fHI3sRv3

— NetBlocks (@netblocks) February 1, 2021

The United States Embassy’s American Citizen Services said on Twitter that internet and phone connectivity are both limited throughout Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw.

Update: We are aware that internet and phone connectivity is limited throughout Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw.

— American Citizen Services – Burma (Myanmar) (@ACSRangoon) February 1, 2021

Aye Min Thant, a former correspondent for Reuters who is now the Tech for Peace program manager at Phandeeyar, a tech accelerator in Yangon, tweeted that she had been logged out of Signal and Telegram overnight, and can’t log in again because cell service is shut down, preventing her from getting verification codes.

The detainment of Suu Kyi and other National League for Democracy leaders comes days after Myanmar’s military attempted to downplay concerns about a coup by stating it would protect the country’s constitution, despite its allegations of vote fraud in November’s election.

Myanmar came under direct military rule after a 1962 coup replaced the civilian government. In 1990, free elections were held and the NLD won, but the military refused to give up power, placing Suu Kyi under house arrest. After 2011, a transition to democratic rule gradually began, but the military still controlled much of the government.

The NLD has also been accused of being complicit in the military’s ethnic cleansing campaign against Rohingya Muslims and disenfranchising opponents.

While Myanmar’s government does not practice direct censorship of internet content, Freedom House gave the country a score of only 36 out of 100 in 2019, citing manipulation of online content by both the military and NLD, and prosecution that forces individuals to self-censor. In June 2019, the government banned the internet in parts of Rakhine and Chin State, the sites of ongoing fighting between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army. Human rights observers including the Human Rights Watch have said that the internet ban prevents people in those areas from communicating with their families, getting information about COVID-19 or accessing aid.

You’ve just landed on the web version of my weekly newsletter, Human Capital. It’s where we look at the recent events of the week pertaining to diversity, equity, inclusion and labor in tech.

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Let’s jump in.

Alpha Global forms to unite Alphabet workers around the world

Alpha Global announced its formation earlier this week to unite Alphabet workers around the world, including those from the Alphabet Workers Union in the United States, The Verge reported. Alpha Global, which is affiliated with the UNI Global Union, aims to create a common worker strategy, support fellow workers and more. 

“A just Alphabet has wide-ranging implications for our democracies and societies,” Alpha Global said in a statement. “That is why we are joining together to demand fundamental human rights for all workers in Alphabet operations, including the right to form or join a union and the right to bargain collectively.”

I should mention that you’ll be able to hear more about Alphabet Workers Union at Alpha Global at TC Sessions: Justice directly from Parul Koul, the executive chair of Alphabet Workers Union. You can snag your tickets here for just $5. 

Apple Watch launches a Black unity collection 

In celebration of Black History Month, Apple introduced the Black Unity Collection for Apple Watch.

Something feels off about the watch band, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it’s the commoditization of Black culture. 

 

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative launches the Justice Accelerator Fund

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has created a new criminal justice reform group, Recode reported this week.

With $350 million put toward the new Justice Accelerator Fund over the next five years, the organization will focus on criminal justice advocacy. JAF will be led by Ana Zamora, CZI’s current director of criminal justice.

NLRB gets a new acting general counsel

Biden named Peter Sung Ohr the new acting general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board. As Vice’s Lauren Kaori Gurley noted, Ohr’s appointment has the potential to be very good for gig workers and workers rights, in general.

ServiceNow launches racial equity fund

With $100 million set aside for the fund, the enterprise software company’s racial equity fund aims to “drive more sustainable wealth creation by funding homeownership, entrepreneurship, and neighborhood revitalization within Black communities in 10 regions across the United States,” according to a press release.

Here’s a nugget on how it’ll work:

The ServiceNow Racial Equity Fund will buy smaller community loans to increase the lending capacity for local banks. By increasing access to capital, the investment will facilitate homeownership and entrepreneurship in Black communities, leading to job creation and wider economic growth. The investment, which is the first of its kind for ServiceNow, will initially focus investments in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, New York, Orlando, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. – locations where ServiceNow has significant operations and community presence.