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Letter 46 — Never waste a crisis

Hey,  <<First Name>>!

Benjamin here.

"I hope this mail finds you before I do". If you didn't get the joke, it was from a  viral tweet

SYSK (Correction): Nigerian health-tech startup, Helium Health did not raise $7 million, as reported by Reuters on April 30, 2020. Why am I telling you this? In our last newsletter, we had quoted Reuters, but about a week later, a story came out on TechCrunch and it was $10 million that was stated. So, what did we do? We reached out to the startup and they confirmed to us that it was $10 million. "Anyone that published $7m didn't get that story from Helium. The amount raised was $10m".

Our goal is to bring you reliable information about the tech space in Nigeria, thanks for trusting us to do just that.

Now to your weekly digest.

Why has Andela laid off nearly half of its employees in nine months? 

Simple answer: The company is restructuring towards profitability. 

"Well for me I think their transformation is complete. They had the idea to move from a learning organisation to a delivery organisation in early 2019. Now they are there and will definitely be profitable. My money is on them to do so in the nearest future.", says an ex-Andelan.

If you are interested in some more backstory and simple-language analysis, click here

Egyptian startup, Instabug raised $5 million in Series A funding

US-headquartered Instabug is a software solutions company that enables users report bugs directly from an app. Coupled with user feedback, it also logs instances of app crashing that then provides the holistic  information needed by app makers to fix issues. 

Within six years of founding Instabug, it has been used by over 25,000 product companies like Lyft, and Soundcloud on some 2 billion devices. 

It's similar to the Google-owned Crashlytics, which also offers a crash-reporting solution. But seems to do a better job when it comes to engaging users directly in-app. You can compare the two solutions Instabug's comparison site or here.

While $5 million doesn't seem like a lot for a Series A (especially, if you are used to Fintechs funding announcement), it's quite common among these crash-reporting solutions. So, for instance, Crashlytics also raised $5 million in their own 2012 Series A.

We inserted ourselves into a UN + Unsplash campaign and people are loving it.

Travel agencies are seeking out innovative ways to stay afloat in this pandemic.

With major cities on lockdown and airports closed for an elongated period of time, travel agencies run the risk of going out of business. Nigeria's largest travel agency, Wakanow is not exempted. In fact, they might feel the most pressure because it wasn't too long ago they received a $40 million investment.

In a TechCabal conversation with Wakanow's new CEO, Adebayo Adedeji noted that starting from two months ago, bookings had slumped massively to almost zero demand. For their part, they will now engage in "video-selling", which will "make it possible for customers to schedule a video session with a Wakanow agent for a visual tour of potential destinations".

Other travel agencies are delving into digital advertising where they offer businesses their audience (travellers) for marketing outreach purposes. 

Indeed, desperate times call for desperate measures. Travel as we know it might never return back to the way it was, especially because of pre-existing travel bans announced by President Trump now coupled with a pandemic.

🍿 Things we found interesting

1. 📰 @0x is back on Twitter! Read about the Paystack's co-founder and CTO, Ezra Olubi's one-year ordeal with hackers. What did they really want? His Twitter handle. Thinking someone can make this into a movie. Tap Editi Effiong?

2. With more time spent indoors, there has been an uptake in TV (Linear and VOD) consumption, research by Futuresource Consulting will tell you. But despite the situation necessitating this #stayHome, more people seem to be watching Video-on-Demand more than Live TV. This Twitter poll with a tiny sample size complements broader research.

3.
🎬 Speaking of Video-on-Demand, have you watched Badla on Netflix, did you enjoy it? Or did the lies and plot twists stress you out?
🚪 Job Opportunities

In addition to the events and opportunities shared last week Monday,
  • Another Egyptian startup, Swvl which just raised $20 million is hiring. They have about 20 roles open.
  • Nigerian fintech startup, Okra which raised $1 million in pre-seed has 10 roles open.

Thanks for reading

If this letter was forwarded to you, please sign up here to receive BD Insider every Monday morning. You should follow us on Twitter too.

Got any comment, suggestions, news, or ideas? Send us an e-mail. We would love to hear from you.

 
❤️ Benjamin

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