Ngozi Chukwu

1 week ago | techcabal.com | Ngozi Chukwu

Nigerian B2B e-commerce startup Sabi laid off roughly 50 staff members, about 20% of its workforce, in a broad restructuring to pivot to traceability services in Africa’s minerals and agricultural commodities market. In recent months, the company, founded in 2021 to provide digital tools for logistics and financing to merchants, has scaled back certain products to focus on its TRACE platform, which tracks minerals and agricultural goods for global buyers.

2 weeks ago | techcabal.com | Ngozi Chukwu

One Friday night in 2016, Godswill Adie, a second-year computer science student at the University of Calabar, slipped off-campus to attend a friend’s girlfriend’s birthday party. The night was a blur of laughter and celebration. The next morning, another friend’s call jolted Adie awake with an unexpected opportunity: an internship interview at Nugi Technologies. With only ₦100 for the ₦150 bus trip, the two walked half the distance and then boarded a bus midway to the office.

2 weeks ago | techcabal.com | Ngozi Chukwu |Muktar Oladunmade

Silverbacks Holdings, an African-focused private investment firm, has sold a portion of its stake in OmniRetail, a Nigerian B2B e-commerce startup, securing a 5x return on its initial investment. This comes one month after securing a 29x return from its Lemfi exit. The exit follows OmniRetail’s recent $20 million Series A raise, which saw participation from 64-year-old manufacturing titan, Flour Mills of Nigeria, alongside other backers. This partial exit marks Silverbacks’ ninth profitable exit.

3 weeks ago | techcabal.com | Ngozi Chukwu

It used to be simple. You built something people wanted, got investments to buy the tools you need and create the team you need to scale exponentially—maybe a few smart hires from abroad. The tech ecosystem was flush with cash and hope for startups and their technology, so the numbers worked. Until 2023, the numbers stopped working for startups in Nigeria; the naira value has depreciated against the dollar.

3 weeks ago | techcabal.com | Ngozi Chukwu

Thirteen logistics and mobility startups raised funding in the first quarter of 2025. This matched the number of deals inked in Q1 2024, but the total amount plummeted to $44.9 million. Funding this year saw a 69% decrease from the $146 million raised in the same quarter last year. Despite the decline in funding, the number of deals reflects continued investor appetite for vehicle financing platforms. The largest deal was in the mobility-fintech subsector in both years.