Founders & Future – Everything Moving in the Startup Ecosystem

Hello, it’s Sena.

A lot has been happening in the tech world over the past few days! In this issue, you’ll discover which startups are raising beaucoup bucks, meet the new young founders building an exciting solution, explore opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs, and catch the must-attend tech events. Without further ado, let’s dive in!

Latest News:

African fintech giant Flutterwave processed nearly $1B in payments from East Asian companies in H1 2025, reflecting growing global demand for African goods. It also expanded into Cameroon and Senegal, widening access to digital payments across the continent.
Moniepoint has launched Moniebook, a new POS system that does more than process payments. The device helps small businesses track sales, manage inventory, and print receipts in real time, solving a big headache for merchants who usually rely on manual record-keeping. The machine is already being tested by over 4,000 shops, supermarkets, and even toll gates.
In a major deal for South Africa's small business sector, Nedbank acquired fintech firm iKhokha for $93.3 million. The acquisition will equip small and medium-sized enterprises with better digital payment tools. This move underscores a clear trend of major banks investing heavily in technology to serve the SME market more effectively.
Nairobi fintech HoneyCoin raised $4.9M seed funding led by Flourish Ventures with backing from Visa Ventures, TLcom, and Stellar. Already profitable for two years, it’s building stablecoin rails to cut Africa’s $329B cross-border payment costs and expanding into Africa, LatAm, and Asia.
South African fintech Street Wallet has raised $350K to scale its low-cost payment solutions for street vendors, reducing lost sales and boosting financial inclusion in this underserved sector.

Insights:

Our case study for the week is on Edukoya, a Nigerian Edtech start-up founded in 2021.

The Play: Targeted students directly with free prep resources to build massive user base.

Win or Miss: Hit 80,000 students and 15M answered questions — but no paying customers.

Outcome: Returned investor capital, shut down in 2025.

Lesson in One Line: Scaling a free product before proving willingness to pay is a dangerous bet.

PMF Insight

The $10M ARR Death March

Looking at the other side of the spectrum, you can hit $10M ARR and still be on life support. I’ve seen it.

Big revenue hides ugly churn. I’ve met founders here who hit impressive sales numbers but had customers vanishing faster than new ones came in. That’s a death march, not growth.

Breakdown:

Revenue can fool you—retention can’t.
Scaling a leaky bucket means you’re paying to lose customers.
Slow, progressive and profitable growth is better than fast, fragile growth.

Opportunities:

Have you been sitting on a startup idea but don’t know where to start? Do you feel the drive to build, but need the right structure, skills, and network to take action? Future Studio is launching a Pre-Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for aspiring founders to gain clarity, structure, and mentorship. In 4 weeks, you’ll develop what it takes to build a globally relevant and scalable start up, build your entrepreneurial spirit and get access to the skills and tools you need for success.With limited slots available in this cohort, Future Studio is offering a discounted fee of 203,900 FCFA for early birds (first 10 applicants) and 327,500 FCFA thereafter. Register here or contact info@futurestudio.bj for more information.
The Itana Digital Residency Launchpad connects bold founders, investors, and operators building for scale in Africa. Get 1:1 advisory sessions, partner matchmaking, thought leadership opportunities, and more in a 3-month high-impact program. Spots are filling fast! Apply by August 25.

Events:

On Friday, 29th August, five Beninese startups will take the stage at the Founders Live Cotonou pitch event to present their projects, happening at Epitech Cotonou from 6 PM. Join the audience, experience the energy, and cast your vote to help decide the winner — register here.
Africa Money & DeFi Summit – Happening Sept 24–25 in Accra, the summit will host 500+ fintech and Web3 leaders. Startups can apply for the Investment Showcase to pitch to investors. Apply here.
GITEX Nigeria 2025 – Happening this year’s lineup the Tech Expo & Future Economy Conference (Sept 3–4, Eko Hotel Convention Centre, Lagos), and the Startup Festival (Sept 3–4, Landmark Centre, Lagos). Registration is now open.

Start-up Spotlight:

This week on Start-up Spotlight, we sat down with two brilliant young Beninese founders, Elisée Ouéffa and Elikem Medehou, who are building an exciting product in the heart of Cotonou, with a global vision and already making waves with users in Benin and Togo.

Q: What is Mollet, and what inspired both of you to create it?

Mollet is a mobile app that helps people in Africa track and manage their cash and mobile money spending across operators. It offers real-time expense summaries, weekly and monthly reports, transaction details, budgets, and manual entry options.

We built it because we and many around us struggled to understand where our mobile money was going. Managing multiple SIMs and apps was messy, so we created Mollet to bring clarity and control in one place.

Q: What has been your biggest challenge as co-founders, and how did you overcome it?

Our biggest challenges were building trust since we deal with personal finance and understanding our own product through actual user behavior. We overcame this by releasing early, listening closely to feedback, and keeping the product simple and transparent so users felt in control.

Q: Looking back, what’s one lesson about building Mollet you wish you knew before starting?

That building the product is only half the work the other half is distribution. At first, we thought solving the technical challenge of aggregating mobile money data would be the hardest part. But we quickly realized that getting people to discover, trust, and adopt the product required just as much creativity, iteration, and persistence as the technical part.

Q: What’s the proudest moment for your team so far?

The day we saw our first real users outside of our friends and family download Mollet and give us feedback. Knowing that strangers found value in what we built and even asked for more features was the clearest signal that we were solving a real problem.

Q: What advice would you give other young founders trying to build a startup today?

Start small, but start real. Don’t wait until your product is “perfect,” launch something people can use, even if it’s basic, and learn from them. Be obsessed with the problem, not just your solution. And most importantly, build a team where you trust each other, because the founder journey is too tough to walk alone.

Click here to download the Mollet App to track your expenses and follow them on social media.

Fun Contents:

View Image

Office hours with Future Studio:

Got questions about your startup journey? Need guidance before you launch?

Join our open office hours and get direct insights from the Future Studio team.

Limited slots. Apply here to join.

Look at you at the finish line. That’s all I have for you for now, see you in the next one!

Bye!