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With the race to becoming the next Flutterwave on the way, we’ve started seeing a couple of witty startup pitches. “It’s like Flutterwave but for ____ “
What would your startup pitch sound like?
In today’s edition:
- What’s a Unicorn, you ask?
- My Life in Tech: Rolake Rosiji
- Salesforce’s in-house Venture firm
- Walmart’s Wobbly African Retail arm
- TC Live
What’s all the fuss about being a Unicorn?
A startup is a company designed to grow fast. One key metric for determining growth is what a company is worth; this is why unicorns are a fascinating topic.
A unicorn is any private startup company started after 2003 that is valued at more than $1 billion. The description was coined by Aileen Lee, a US-based investor, in 2013. She defined a “super-unicorn” as being valued at more than $100 billion.
In response to the Nigerian fintech startup, Flutterwave becoming Africa’s newest unicorn, Olumuyiwa Olowogboyega & Alexander Onukwue explore what you need to know about the race to unicorn status in this article.
Want to get smarter about fintech in Africa? Listen to the Decode Fintech Podcast by Paystack!
How do you leverage customer interactions to grow your business? In this episode, Paystack’s Customer Success Manager shares the key metrics he tracks, the tools his team uses, how to turn unhappy customers into brand advocates, and how Paystack uses customer service data to improve the product.
▶️ Listen to Episode 3: How Paystack Drives Growth with Customer Service
My Life in Tech: Rolake Rosiji
At Oxford University, one of the most competitive courses to get into is Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE). Over 60% of applicants get rejected without even an interview and only about 14% get admitted.
When the time came for a 16-year old Rolake Rosiji to go to university, for her, it had to be PPE at Oxford. And while she had interviews, she didn’t get an offer and she ended up studying the course at Durham University.
In her conversation with Edwin, she admits that her rejection from Oxford was very upsetting but unknown to her it was the beginning of a journey that would lead to becoming CEO of Jobberman Nigeria, the largest jobs website in West Africa.
Rolake Rosiji’s journey through the world of business and tech has taken her from England to Denmark and back to Lagos. In this time she has taken on several roles in global organisations and helped them scale in Africa. She’s taking on a new challenge as the CEO of Jobberman.
Read more: Jobberman CEO Rolake Rosiji has done it all
Salesforce’s in-house VC firm is unlike others
Large tech companies like Google, Amazon and Intel have in-house VC firms, but few of them have been making a killing like Salesforce, the cloud software giant that’s worth over $190bn.
Yes, continue
Last week, Salesforce reported a $2.17 billion annual gain from its investments in other tech companies.
Break it down
Last Wednesday, Cloud security vendor Okta acquired its smaller rival Auth0 for $6.5 billion, eight months after Salesforce Ventures led a $120 million investment at a $1.92 billion valuation. Salesforce more than tripled its investment.
Other notable investments are:
- A $250m investment in Snowflake, a data warehousing firm is now worth three times more.
- A $100m investment in Zoom when it was going public was exited last year after a 3x gain.
- Its over 12% stake in nCino built up over many years is now worth $800m+ after the fintech firm went public last year
In the past two years, Salesforce has doubled the team of Salesforce Ventures, its venture arm to keep up with the tempo.
Why do startups like Salesforce?
Typically, big companies like Salesforce invest in startups with their own agenda – to gain market insight or product ideas from potential disruptors. Salesforce doesn’t seem to be keen on that, it keeps a distance as it doesn’t take a board seat and doesn’t block deals.
Big Picture: In recent years, late-stage growth investments have proven to be the fastest way to generate a hefty profit. Salesforce is definitely proof that this formula works.
Read more: How Salesforce became Silicon Valley’s best late-stage tech investor
Walmart’s Wobbly African Retail arm
In 2019, the U.S.-based retail giant, Walmart, sent a long-time top official, Mitchell Slape, on a mission in South Africa. The task before Slape, who has been with Walmart since 1995, was to orchestrate a turnaround in Walmart’s ailing retail business in South Africa.
Walmart owns Massmart Holdings Limited; a South African firm that owns local brands such as Game, Makro, Builders Warehouse, and CBW.
With Slape overseeing the company over what seems a short period, the company has cut jobs, shut its Dion Wired chain, disposed of underperforming Masscash stores, and stopped selling fresh food in its household-goods chain, Game. The result? Some healthier numbers, it seems.
Read more:Will Austerity Measures Save Walmart’s Wobbly African Retail Arm?
An Opportunity to build a Career in Tech
If you want to build a career in software development (backend or front end), UI or UX, take advantage of this free training opportunity and Bootcamp powered by Ingressive for Good and HNG Internships.
The best part is, you might end up with a Job or/and laptop
Register here: training.zuri.team/enrollment
Watch this episode of TC Live
“Insurance is a product that carries quite a bit of sophistication,” said Adia Sowho, CEO of Thrive Agric. Not every Nigerian places enough value on their possessions to be disturbed by the possibility of loss, and insure against it.
Adia believes insurance in Nigeria is elitist at the moment, but while it’s important to design affordable products, Bayo Adesanya, Chief Digital Officer at AXA Mansard says they also have to be relevant.
Achieving mass-market adoption of insurance is not the easiest process, but the second episode of Digital Identity Matters explains why it’s important.Watch the full episode here.
Digital Identity Matters #2 was put together byVerifyMe Nigeria in partnership with TechCabal.
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