Introducing Africa Built
Fintech is Easy is getting a microphone
Some housekeeping and headlines
If you missed the last post on Swoop, the latest Super App in Nigeria, please catch up here.
Congratulations to Rodri and Spain for winning the 2026 FIFA World Cup and Golden Ball ⚽️
Uber is acquiring Delivery Hero
Fintech is Easy has partnered with Condia, one of the leading technology publications in Nigeria, to become a content partner for their Borderless Experience, an in-person conference happening on August 21, 2026, in Nigeria. Expect conversations with leading practitioners on Agentic Payments, Stablecoins, cross-border payments, remittances, and more. More details and tickets to the event here.
There is an announcement at the bottom of this post; please stay till the end.
Hello there,
When I started Fintech is Easy, the goal was simple. Explain how the Nigerian and global financial systems work in plain English. Cards, payments, banking, foreign exchange, crypto, regulation, trends and the infrastructure that quietly moves money around the world.
The more I wrote and researched, the more it became clear to me that understanding and writing about an industry is not only about how it works. It is also about how it got built.
In The Business of Trust, I wrote about how Industry lore became an obsession of mine at the beginning of my career. One of my favourite entertainment genres on the internet of late has become the long-form company story.
Beyond funding announcements and launch posts, the version of the story that starts years earlier and explains why a company made the decisions it did, who argued for them, what almost happened instead, and how a whole market changed because of a handful of choices.
There are hundreds of these about Stripe, PayPal, Twitter, Facebook, OpenAI, Google, Amazon and Nvidia. Africa deserves the same.
We have built marketplace unicorns, payment networks that move billions of dollars, agency banking businesses that reach millions of people, and companies that clear transactions across dozens of countries.
These headlines, fundraising announcements and acquisition numbers survive, while the interesting parts, which we can learn from, disappear into the forgotten parts of history.
How did we get from 89 banks to 23? Who first brought the ATM and USSD banking to market? How did Telnet incubate Interswitch, IPNX, and OPay? Why did Interswitch build Verve? How did TeamApt become Moniepoint? How did MTN and DSTV achieve pan-African scale? How many founding stories does Andela have? How did Paystack and Flutterwave build successful global businesses when it seemed Interswitch had cornered the market? How did Piggyvest scale when every bank had a savings product? What makes Jumia an African company?
What arguments happened inside those companies before anyone outside knew their names?
Those are the stories I have always wanted to consume. For a while, I hoped the founders would write them. Some will. Most won’t.
The Communiqué newsletter wrote about Africa’s missing tech canon, nailing the point I have been trying to grapple with for years. We have built serious companies without documenting them with the same care.
I have frequently collaborated with Muyiwa, who writes the Notadeepdive newsletter, over the years, and somewhere in our discussions, we kept arriving at the same conclusion: The format for these stories does not lie in written form; rather, it needs well-researched conversation pulled from the memories of people who were in the room when these decisions were being made.
So we built it.
Africa Built is a podcast about the companies, products and people that shaped African technology.
Episodes tell the story of a company, following their product trajectory, and sitting with decisions that changed everything.
By going deep on the companies that built Africa’s tech and business landscape, from founding to IPO and beyond, we’re telling a researched story of how these companies actually got built: the strategies, pivots, competition, successes, and failures along the way.
Occasionally, we will have friends, guests, and insiders join us to add more detail to these stories.
African startups of today are standing on the shoulders of giants before them. It’s time to tell their story.
The first episodes on Jumia are out now - Available every where you get your podcasts and on all social media channels (Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, Threads.)
For more details, spoilers, teasers, transcripts, show notes and access to our research materials, visit africabuilt.xyz
Feedback, recommendations, corrections, comments, and additional context to previous and future episodes can also be shared via email to africabuiltpod@gmail.com
Listen now on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts.
To celebrate the launch of this podcast, I got my friends at SettleySend to participate in a podcast launch giveaway for 5 readers who live in Nigeria. To win, all you have to do is answer the simple question below.
“Jumia is to NotaDeepDive as _______ is to Fintech is Easy”
Kindly send your one-word answer to @settleysend on X. The rewards will be sent to the first 5 correct answers.
Till next time - Listen, Like, Subscribe, and Follow 🎙️.