JUMIA, the leading online retailer in Nigeria, has raised $35 million in fresh funding from Millicom to expand in its domestic market and move into a new 90,000 square foot warehouse located in Lagos.

The company is celebrating its first anniversary today and has served over half a million customers in the country to date. The new milestone means that JUMIA is now the fourth most visited Nigerian website.

“We started with three employees building up an e-commerce platform in Nigeria,” Raphael Afaedor, co-founder of JUMIA said. “Now, we have more than 500 employees and offer Nigerian’s youth great opportunities to work in one of the leading e-commerce companies in Africa.

“JUMIA delivers the widest range of products in the country and our new warehouse allows us to even grow further. We focus every day on delivering a fantastic shopping experience for our customers – fast, secure and stress-free.”

At least 500 employees will be based at the warehouse in Lagos, although it’s not clear if this will consist of new or existing staff. Regardless, the company claims that it will be the largest e-commerce campus in West Africa, which is no small feat.

To coincide with its first birthday, JUMIA is also announcing a new partnership with Mastercard, which will enable it to use the company’s Internet Gateway Service to make credit card payments safer and easier for its users. JUMIA is also entering exclusive partnerships with high-profile technology companies such as Dell, Intel and Nokia, which will give the retailer access to exclusive products and some knock-down prices.

JUMIA’s growth over the last year highlights the increasing demand for robust e-commerce options in the region. The company is celebrating the one-year milestone with an e-commerce conference, a number of special fashion events and all sorts of changes to its website, which will include new discounts and product partnerships.

The $35 million in funding secured from Millicom will be shared between JUMIA and its partners Kaymu, Vamido and hellofood. The company was originally launched by Rocket Internet, the German e-commerce startup incubator started by the Samwer brothers.

The funding from Millicom is perhaps not surprising, given the company closed a deal last summer which means it can claim 20 percent of two holdings owned by Rocket Internet – Latin America Internet Holdings (LIH) and Africa Internet Holdings (AIH).

Outside of Nigeria, JUMIA is already active in Egypt and Morocco, and it’s likely that expansion will continue with this fresh batch of funding. Alongside Namshi and Zando, Rocket Internet looks dead-set on leading the e-commerce boom throughout Africa.

Image Credit: PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/GettyImages

Kenya is at the forefront of the open data movement in Africa thanks to initiatives such as crowdsourcing software Ushahidi and government tracker Uchaguzi.

At the recent The Next Web Conference Europe held in Amsterdam, Marina Gorbis, Executive Director of the Palo Alto based Institute For The Future (IFTF) made a presentation on the “Nature Of The Future – Socialstructed World.”

Gorbis defines ‘socialstructing’ as “creating value by aggregating micro contributions by large networks using social tools and technologies”. In her talk and presentation she touched on topics around socialstructed work, socialstructed learning and socialstructed governance.

One of the key points raised by Gorbis in the presentation was the shifting of governance away from politicians and governments towards the citizens thanks to open data and social technology solutions.

Kenya’s citizens with the help of technology tools such as Uchaguzi and Ushahidi have proved that with the buy-in of citizens, technology can be used to a certain extent in improving the transparency and accountability of governance — in this case elections — and putting that power in the hands of citizens.

But will such initiatives work in countries that have repressive regimes?

Africa has many tales of disputed election results, violence breaking out during elections and some regimes abusing their powers in the usage of state funds etc., thus it is a valid concern, despite Kenya’s successes to an extent, to question whether before considering open data, a country perhaps needs a government open to such solutions?

Open government before open data?

I caught up with Gorbis and her colleague Tessa Finlev (Research Manager, Ten-Year Forecast) to hear their views on and expand more on this and how they see open data shaping governance in Africa.

Gorbis explained that socialstructed governance means using open data tools to somehow shift governance from governments to citizens, i.e. “governance beyond government”. This, according to Gorbis, includes citizens actively participating in provisioning of services that are traditionally provided only by the government.

She concurred though, that repressive governments (in Africa and the rest of the world) can play a negative role and have the potential of sabotaging or manipulating the use of any such open data tools to further pursue their agendas. Although, with the rising power being put in the citizens hands through social, mobile and internet technologies this will slowly change as the years go on.

Finlev agrees that as years go by things will change as “Future Forces” are inevitable, and change in the way governments are elected and they govern is going to happen and will most likely be determined by citizens as more power shifts into their hands.

She further added that although in some instances using technology and open data tools is “dangerous” as part of a country’s political processes given some countries have repressive regimes, she made an example of how such tools can be used in other spheres of government citing BudgIT in Nigeria.

BudgIT came about as an idea at a hackathon held at Nigeria’s Co-Creation Hub in 2011. As explained by Finlev, it is a tool that engages Nigerian citizens and allows them to participate in governance by making it easier for them to make sense of the country’s national budget in a simpler way and also allowing them to provide feedback on it.

One of the examples of how BudgIT encourages civic engagement and governance was during the Occupy Nigeria protests in 2012 where it analysed and concluded that the President’s food budget was 1 billion Naira ($6.2 million) per annum and yet he was calling for fuel subsidies to be cut. They sent a tweet to this extent and it went viral and fuelled a part of the riots that took place with citizens, amongst other things, asking the President to consider cutting his food budget first before cutting fuel subsidies.

Currently BudgIT has extended its services to include helping some of Nigeria’s states to make their budgets transparent and easy to understand by the citizens.

In response to my question to Finlev asking whether then the solution to some of Africa’s governance problems can be solved by technology and open data, she was quick to point out that people still need food, roads, schools, healthcare, etc. thus as much as technology and specifically mobile technology are driving the move towards a socialstructed world and governance, citizens still have “real” needs.

Image: Ushahidi members. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

South African mobile operator, MTN, and one of the country’s top four bank’s, ABSA, have collaborated to form a task team whose main aim will be to combat the increasing number of ‘SIM Swap’ fraud cases in the country.

The formation of this task team was a result of an urgent meeting between both organisation’s executives to discuss the increase in the number of SIM Swap fraud cases affecting both their customers in South Africa.

SIM Swap fraud is an elaborate scam which starts with a potential victim disclosing their mobile or internet banking logon details along with their mobile number by responding to a phishing e-mail.

Once the scammers have this data they then pose as the victim by presenting fraudulent identity and proof of address documentation to a mobile operator requesting a new SIM card. Once a new “SIM Swap” is done, with the victim’s current SIM card cancelled, the scammers are now able to receive by SMS the victim’s “One Time Pin” in order to effect payments from their bank account.

SIM Swap fraud has mainly affected retail banking customers with ABSA and MTN customers being the most scammed. Some customers have been reported to have lost up to approximately 30,000 euros in some SIM Swap fraud cases in South Africa.

The newly appointed task team will start with implementing an “improved authentication process” to protect MTN customers when carrying out a SIM Swap, as announced on Friday.

Eddie Moyce, MTN chief customer experience officer said “Protecting our customers means tightening up our systems development to both improve security and service delivery,”

ABSA’s Head of Digital Channels and Payments, Adrian Vermooten added that they take this type of fraud seriously and have started to work with other organisations to combat it. He said “We are working tirelessly with MTN and the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) to ensure that the systems and security are comprehensive and robust. Collaborating with MTN on reaching a joint solution has allowed us to tighten the screws on this method of eCrime,”

Recently in May 2013 the South African police with the help of MTN’s forensic services were reported to have arrested a key suspect who played an important role in the rising SIM Swap fraud cases in the country. This is hoped will go a long way in minimising or even eradicating cases of SIM Swap fraud.

Last week at the World Economic Forum on Africa held in Cape Town, South Africa the Nigerian National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and MasterCard announced their collaboration with plans to roll-out an initial 13 million MasterCard-branded National Identity Smart Cards with electronic payment capability.

The 13 million cards will form part of a pilot program which will see the West African country’s citizens who are 16 years and older and those who have been residents in Nigeria for more than two years being issued with the new National Identity Smart Cards.

This announcement by Nigeria sees it following in South Africa’s footsteps as the country’s Department of Home Affairs has announced that it intends starting to issue smart ID cards to citizens starting in July, 2013 at a rate of  3 million smart ID cards a year.

It is hoped in both cases that the smart ID cards will help curb the prevalent fabrication of false identity documents in both Nigeria and South Africa as they will be embedded with microchips and with the South African smart ID cards being reported to incorporate biometric features that will also prevent identity theft as a result of the fraudulent use of a stolen or lost smart ID card.

There is also a notable difference between the South African and Nigerian smart ID cards with the West African country’s smart ID cards coming with immediate payment capability’s courtesy of MasterCard’s prepaid payment technology. The cards are also reported to come loaded with 12 other applications.

In making the announcement Michael Miebach, President, Middle East and Africa for  MasterCard said “Today’s announcement is the first phase of an unprecedented project in terms of scale and scope for Nigeria,”

He added “MasterCard has been a firm supporter of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Cashless Policy as we share a vision of a world beyond cash.  From the program’s inception, we have provided the Federal Government of Nigeria with global insights and best practices on how electronic payments can enable economic growth and create a more financially inclusive economy”.

Image credit: AFP/Getty Images

VoIP services like Skype and dating websites are the target of a government crackdown in Gambia where they have been deemed a threat to national mobile operators and telecom firms.

Update: PURA has told TNW that it will not be shutting down access to Skype or other VoIP service. The organization’s original message did seem that way, but it has now clarified that it will clamp down on individuals that sell VoIP services out of Internet cafés and other places, rather than the services themselves.

The country’s telecommunications watchdog, ‘Public Utilities Regulatory Authority’ (PURA), is aiming to stamp out use of the free services, which it claims are responsible for taking business from operators in the country and are therefore “illegal”. PURA regulates a range of industries in the country, including telecoms and communications.

The organization went public with its position on the free calling services and, also, Internet dating sites in a statement — via IT Web Africa:

It has come to its notice that there are companies and/or individuals operating through Internet cafés and offering dating services and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services as a commercially available service to the public in The Gambia. Therefore, all are hereby informed that such practices are not authorised.

Furthermore, PURA wishes to make it abundantly clear that the offering of ‘international and national Calling Services’ within Internet cafes using VoIP services (Viber, Skype, etc) is strictly prohibited.

Anyone who is engaged in this activity is depriving the country of the much needed revenue from international and national calls, required for the development of The Gambia.

The increased use of VoIP, and more recently mobile messaging, services that allow users to make calls for free gave rise to the theory that mobile and fixed-line telecom firms were losing out on valuable voice and SMS revenues. However, companies like WhatsApp — the messaging app with more than 200 users — have rebuffed such claims, instead saying that their services are helping users get hooked on mobile data services.

The argument in Gambia is on a more basic end of scale and concerned with a loss in revenue due to diminished volume of voice calls, both international and local.

The comments are not without parallels. Fellow Africa country Ethiopia outlawed Skype and VoIP services last year, a move thought to have been made to protect local operators, while Saudi Arabia banned VoIP services on account of national security.

Gambia has a population of 1.7 million people, but it is not clear how widely used Skype and other services are there. While the country has 100 percent mobile penetration, smartphone adoption remains low so most Skype activity will likely be on PCs, and at Internet cafés as the PURA statement suggests.

We contacted PURA for further information about its position on VoIP services.

Update: Here’s the PURA statement:

First of all, PURA would like to clarify that it has never released any statements to say that VoIP services are illegal in the Gambia.What PURA said in its press release dated 18th April 2013 is that companies and/or individuals operating through Internet Cafes are not authorized to offer international and national calling services on commercial basis using VoIP services.

Headline image via Mario Tama/Getty Images, hat tip @gwendolynregina

The number of PCs shipped in Europe, the Middle East and Africa decreased by 20.2 percent in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the same period the year before, according to new data published by IDC today.

Total shipments dropped to 21.8 million over the three-month period, made up of 8.3 million desktop PCs, down 19.6 percent, and 13.6 million laptops, down 20.6 percent.

It’s a familiar story. Consumers are interested in other hardware form factors, particularly tablets and smartphones, which in turn has caused traditional PC sales to slip. As these devices become more powerful, so does their functionality, relegating the old tower and external monitor combo to only heavy-duty and work-related tasks.

IDC says the contraction in Western Europe was particularly severe, with an overall decrease of 22.5 percent. The market research, analysis and advisory firm reported today that almost all countries experienced a double-digit decline, with southern European countries the most affected due to problems in the eurozone.

“Tablets and phones continued to capture customer attention and spending, while in the corporate space decelerating renewals and the lack or delay in IT investment directly impacted commercial results,” the IDC said in a statement.

“The public and education sectors across most countries also remained under pressure, announcing further cuts and austerity measures, adversely impacting PC demand.”

Businesses, government departments and educational institutions have for a long time been a reliable source of PC sales. The economy continues to struggle in these areas, however, and that’s forced many business owners to hold on to their existing hardware and operating systems. For large companies in particular, a full upgrade can be particularly impressive, so holding out for an extra year can represent huge savings.

Hewlitt-Packard is still top dog

Hewlitt-Packard (HP) shipped the highest number of desktop PCs and laptops over the first quarter of 2013, with 4.039 million units. Lenovo, in second, was the only hardware manufacturer to see its shipments increase from the same period in 2012, rising by 11 percent to 2.595 million.

Acer experienced a 30.4 percent drop, down to 2.374 million, while Dell sunk to 2.228 million, down from 2.673 million the previous year. The latter’s poor market share has encouraged Blackstone to withdraw its bid to buy the company, citing revised operating income projections and a “rapidly eroding financial profile”.

The outlook might be bleak for PC shipments in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, but for tablets and smartphones, it’s never been stronger.

Image Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

There is a lot of hype surrounding Africa’s nascent technology scene today. As all shrewd investors know, it is often best to avoid the wisdom of the crowd. The louder the hype, the more bearish one should go and vice-versa. Of course, this is not an exact science but it is more often right than wrong.

This hype has led to a lot of unrealistic expectations and it is unfortunate. A few weeks ago, Naspers shut down its online business directory, Mocality in Nigeria and Kenya to much dismay. Many were shocked. They were shocked as well when mobile advertising company, InMobi shut down its Africa office late last year. The truth is that they needn’t be.

Winning in tech in Africa and elsewhere has never been an easy race. The situation is further compounded in Africa where weak systems and fast-growing but young digital advertising markets make it even more difficult to make money online. Anyone looking to make a quick buck will be sent scampering. Everyone else brave enough to wait things out has no choice but to enjoy the ride, for better or for worse.

Africa’s Internet market is young and growing – a market filled with boundless opportunities for long-term investors. The length of time required for success is unknown but in the meantime, the ride would be bumpy. These are simply growing pains and nothing more. Ultimately, only the patient will survive.

What are we waiting for?

Investors and entrepreneurs building Internet-based tech companies are essentially banking on two things – exponential growth in the earning potential of the average African and massive increase in the availability of the Internet to more and more Africans over the next decade.

The economic growth numbers of many African countries and decreasing bandwidth prices show that these are good bets. However, the time horizon might be extremely long or short depending on how quickly these bets materialize. In a sense, their actualization should be viewed best as a journey where the absolutes should not be as important as the growth rates.

Questions such as how quickly is Africa’s middle class growing should be asked. By all indications, this number continues to accelerate, with the sweet spot being Africans with a per capita daily consumption of between $2 – $20 according to the African Development Bank (AfDB) with the AfDB giving the caveat that about 60% of Africa’s middle class are vulnerable and face the constant possibility of dropping back into the poor category.

This highlights how much of a journey the African growth story is. African countries would have to continually grow year after year until there is a clear and thriving middle class. Along the way, robust infrastructure (payments, broadband, transportation & logistics) e.t.c. would need to be built to allow for substantial monetization to support online business models. Then there is the issue of building the local digital advertising market into one that is a lot more mature and that can support advertising based Internet businesses. Some of these issues are being tackled by a myriad firms, but as we can see with the recent shutdowns, it is still early days.

However, we live in the real world where companies and entrepreneurs have to hit certain revenue targets to stay afloat. Inevitably, the long-term winners would be companies with a near endless amount of financial runway to support their businesses for the long haul or technology entrepreneurs with such lean overheads that near term revenues convert to mostly profits.

Both classes of people/companies have one factor that they are not concerned with – time. The best way to view the experience is as a journey. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be a part of what would arguably be one of the fastest economic transformation stories that the world has ever seen. Instead of participating in this growth story as a hit and run driver would, the only way to succeed is by patiently going all in – an incredibly risky but potentially high-reward proposition.

Nmachi Jidenma writes on technology and entrepreneurship. She is Founder of CP-Africa, a website that chronicles Africa’s technology and economic progress. To get in touch, follow her on Twitter or e-mail nmachijidenma@gmail.com

Image credit: Photodisc / Thinkstock

Kenyans in the tech industry have been cautioned to stop copying Silicon Valley’s model by a panel of experts attending the Mobile Web East Africa conference in Nairobi. The experts warned copycat models “simply don’t work”.

Will Mutua, founder of Afrinovator, said Kenya is still far from deserving the ‘Silicon Savannah’ title.

“I have my own doubts if Kenya should really be called Africa’s ‘Silicon Savannah’, as we have witnessed a worrying trend in the type of companies being started, most of which are based on apps,” Mutua said. He expressed his concern that many Kenyans, and Africans as a whole, expect things to happen within a short period of time, yet the likes of Silicon Valley have been developing for close to 50 years.

“Some things simply take time. Let us not assume things will happen overnight,” Mutua added. He advised startup companies and technopreneurs in particular to move away from merely basing their companies on one app and calling it a business, and to ensure that they have all the other details and plans that make a company complete.

“To have a company, you need to have a vision, plan, strategy etc, and this is something that is currently missing in the ‘Silicon Savannah’,” Mutua explained. He said that only companies that have these things in their plan will be termed as real sustainable businesses that can stand the test of time.

Contributing to the same discussion, TMS Ruge, co-founder at Project Diaspora USA/Uganda, said: “Kenya should be more of a ‘Digital Savannah’ and not ‘Silicon Savannah’. We are yet to manufacture things here, and most of the companies we have here are based on digital solutions.”

This story originally appeared on HumanIPO.

Image credit: Thinkstock

Already licensed in a bunch of European countries and the United States, open digital music platform provider 7digital had earlier announced that support for additional territories was “on the horizon”.

That day has now come, as 7digital this morning announced that its digital music services are now available in India, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and South Africa, following music licensing agreements with both major and independent labels in said markets.

The markets London, UK-based 7digital is expanding to have something in common: they all boast high mobile penetration.

Ben Drury, CEO at 7digital, says:

“We’ve seen strong growth in mobile throughout 2012, and believe it will become the largest platform for music in 2013. The natural route for us is further international expansion in territories where we’re seeing strong mobile growth.”

All in all, 7digital is now licensed in 42 countries, and its catalog of legal music currently boasts over 22 million tracks. The company was originally founded in 2004 and has offices in Los Angeles and Luxembourg aside from its London headquarters.

In 2012, the company signed up a number of streaming partners, including Samsung and Pure, and enabled its users to stream purchased content on Sonos devices.

Other 7digital partners include RIM, Toshiba, HP, Acer, HTC, Ubuntu, Shazam, Universal Music, EMI, Warner Music and Sony.

Image credit: Thinkstock

BiNu, the cloud-based service that brings apps and other smartphone-like experiences to feature phones, has followed its $4.1 million Series A round announced in November with news that it has passed 5 million monthly active users worldwide. In conjunction with the milestone, the 2010-founded company is introducing a range of new features, including cloud storage and a Snapchat-clone.

Backed by Eric Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures, 500 Startups and others, Australia-headquartered biNu’s cloud-based platform hosts apps and services — including Facebook, browsers and other services — which can be run through any kind of Web-enabled phone. Now it’s going beyond that to bring (clones of) the Web’s sexy startups to a decidedly unsexy market.

BiNu’s primary focus is feature phones in the developing world, since it brings new features and possibilities to owners of basic devices and optimizes their use of mobile data.

Since the service is cloud-hosted, biNu is able to introduce new features very easily and, crucially, users don’t need to adjust or update their device to get them. The latest set of new additions includes unlimited Dropbox-like storage, a Snapchat-style ‘Flashchat’ service — cue a joke about sexting — and a push-to-talk feature ‘Voicechat’. The service now also has its own link shortener for sharing content: bi.nu.

“There are billions of people in the world who have never heard of Dropbox or WhatsApp, and it will be years until they have the devices and the networks to use these kinds of services. We are bringing first world services to everyone regardless of where they are or what device they have, skipping the decade-long adoption curve,” says biNu co-founder and CEO Gour Lentell in a statement.

The idea of sophisticated services for feature phones may seem misplaced for some, but today’s basic devices include an Internet connection, camera, music/video player as standard. That makes them ripe for taking their experience to the next level.

Lentell tells TNW that, of the 5 million active users, Africa and Asia “have always been the strongest”, but the company is also charting promising growth in Latin and Central America, and in Mexico in particular.

But biNu is not exclusive to feature phones. Lentell says that the service offers a more efficient and faster experience to all smartphones, particularly those at the low-end of the market.

Interestingly, he explains that the company is seeing increased traction among low-end Android devices. That pattern is particularly noticeable in Africa — and among biNu users in Ethiopia, for one market — but it is evident of a wider trend that is taking hold in other developing markets too.

There’s even growth among Android users in first world markets like the US, although Lentell admits that comes “from a very small base” which has provided “great feedback”. These signs have prompted biNu increase its focus on the Android experience, which it is trying to make slicker and smoother to help gain a foothold in this segment of phone owners.

The biNu global strategy remains focused on building its service off its own back, and that is primarily through word of mouth, using viral hooks in the service.

Last year, Lentell told TNW that biNu was engaged in early-stage discussions with operators. There’s no update on that and he reiterates his belief that it is better for the service to grow independently, rather than taking the “dangling carrot” of potential new users via operator partnerships. Nonetheless, the startup has hired experienced Africa telecom exec Jeremy George to explore opportunities within the continent.

“We’re always interested in engaging with operators, but we want to build our market share independently because it helps validate what we’re doing,” Lentell says. “[With George on board] we are looking to at least have discussions with operators, and talk about what value we might bring to a partnership.”

One area of cooperation that biNu is actively exploring is music. The company recently introduced a music store for users in Nigeria and it is looking into opportunities in that space in other markets.

You can install biNu to any device via the website, where a Web-based emulator can also be found. The company is one of the many that will be at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.

Headline image via Philippe Desmazes / Getty Images, other images via biNu