Thepeer: How did a $2.1 million investment go up in smoke?

Our guest on this episode is Rosemond Phil-Othihiwa, Corporate and Startup Lawyer. She joins our reporters as they discuss some of the trending stories in the African tech ecosystem this week.

Let’s dive in to our first story.

At the beginning of the month, on April Fools Day, Nigerian startup, Thepeer announced that it was shutting down and would be returning investor funds. We discussed it on the podcast and if you’d like a quick refresher, here’s a link to listen or watch

This week, we reported that after generating a monthly burn rate of close $20,000 and earning only about $650 in 10 months. Rosemond and our reporters unpack questions surrounding proper shutdown processes, issues with corporate governance, and the importance of due diligence by all investors.

“We’re getting to a point where I sense that the government is going to do some serious clampdown as regards focusing on startups that do not actually go through the right procedure in terms of shutdowns,” Rosemond said.

Here’s a fun fact for you: only once have Nigerian fintech startups raised more than $1 billion in a single year (2021). The closest they’ve come since then is 2022 ($858.0m).

Our second story is South Africa granting licences to 75 crypto assets providers. Despite this, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) was very quick to note that “the South African Reserve Bank does not currently recognise crypto assets as currency.”

For our last story, we discuss Nigeria’s first first multilingual large language model (LLM). The LLM was launched in partnership with Nigerian AI firm Awarritech, global tech company DataDotOrg, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and the National Centre for AI and Robotics (NCAIR).

Chimgozirim questions why the government is spearheading the launch in the wake of continous issues with data privacy and protection. 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.

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