Wednesday, 03 August 2022

Partner(s)

Good morning!

Dennis here,

African startups are still far from out of the woods, as the ripple effects of a very terrible first quarter hit the continent. Founders all over the world have had to cut staff or pause hiring completely; in one case shut down operations entirely.

A new report shows that Sendy, the Kenyan startup has let go of 10% of its workforce.

Below are the tech stories and news you need to know to start your day, carefully curated by Technext.

Summary of the news

Kenyan logistics startup Sendy has laid off 10% of its workforce
The founders of the crypto startup, Forsage have been accused of a $300m fraud scheme
MTN Nigeria shareholders lost over N609 billion in July on sustained sell pressure
TikTok is poised to overtake Facebook in influencer marketing spend

Sendy cuts 10% of its workforce

Kenyan logistics startup Sendy has laid off 10% of its 300-strong workforce, or 30 employees, TechCrunch reports. This is the latest public layoff news from Africa over the past couple of months after Swvl, Vezeeta and Wave trimmed their staff sizes to reduce costs amid a series of global downturns and venture capital slowdown events.

In a statement, CEO Mesh Alloys said Sendy made this decision in June in response to the “current realities impacting tech companies globally.” He further stated that it was in July that the company downsized its workforce, “which affected 10% of our headcount.”

See below an excerpt from the CEO of Sendy's statement:

This move was done in full adherence to applicable laws and industry best practice. All employment and contractual terminal benefits were duly paid to every affected employee.

Our staff have always been our biggest asset as a company. We have always valued their diverse talents and, more critically, their welfare. Decisions impacting them are not taken lightly. We will continue to focus on creating solutions for businesses across the continent in line with our mission of empowering people and businesses by making it easier to trade.

Forsage $300 million fraud scheme

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has indicted 11 individuals for their roles in the global crypto Ponzi and Pyramid Scheme, Forsage. The crypto scheme was popular in Nigeria during the pandemic year.

Technext reports that according to the release by the SEC this week, of the 11 individuals charged, four were the founders of the crypto pyramid scheme. Their names are Vladimir Okhotnikov, Lola Ferrari, Mikhail Sergeev and Sergey Maslakov.

Additionally, members of an American group called “The Crypto Crusaders” who promoted the scheme, as well as three other US-based promoters, were also indicted.

According to Carolyn Welshhans, the acting chief of the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit, which oversaw the probe, Forsage is purely a fraudulent pyramid scheme which cannot escape law accountability just because it was built on smart contracts and blockchains.

MTN shareholders lose N609 billion in July

Shareholders of MTN Nigeria, one of the major telecommunications companies quoted on the premium board of the nation’s stock market recorded a loss of about N609 billion in the month of July following sustained sell pressure witnessed on the stock during the month.

According to Nairametrics, the telecom stock dropped by 13% to N200.10 per share from N230 which was the opening figure for the trading month. Analysts believed investors should, however, take caution of MTNN’s recent poor performance, having lost 13% of its value in the past four weeks.

The market sentiment for the telecom firm has remained very low amidst buy-interests and sell-offs as bears dominated proceedings during the period under review.

This is despite the fact that telecom companies are currently taking advantage of remote working which most companies have adopted following the COVID-19 pandemic to rake in gains from data subscriptions and voice calls.

TikTok inches further to the top

Instagram may be worried about TikTok’s threat to its business, but in the near-term, it’s still far ahead when it comes to the influencer marketing dollars spent on its platform in the U.S. According to a new analyst report, Instagram is on track to capture nearly 3x the amount of influencer marketing spend compared to TikTok in 2022 — or $2.23 billion spent on Instagram compared with the $774.8 million spent on TikTok.

However, while Instagram is faring well against TikTok on this front, Meta’s other app, Facebook, is not as lucky. The new data, which hails from analysts at Insider Intelligence (previously eMarketer), indicates that TikTok is now on track to overtake Facebook in terms of influencer marketing spend this year and will overtake the No. 2 platform, YouTube, by 2024, TechCrunch reports.

Currently, YouTube is seeing $948.0 million in influencer marketing dollars spent on its platform in the U.S., ahead of Facebook’s $739.0 million. In addition, TikTok has already overtaken YouTube based on marketer usage for influencer-based marketing, the report notes.