Today we go inside Tanzania’s three biggest privately held conglomerates.

Edha Nahdi and two rivals just committed $600 million to a massive cement venture unprecedented in Kenya’s history.

Mohammed Dewji pledged $250 million to Mozambique on his way to a $10 billion target. And Bakhresa Group is quietly spending close to $1 billion while its founder’s official networth valuation hasn’t moved since 2015.

Nine more stories follow, from NMB’s share split to a new UN-backed AI network.

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1. Nahdi and Two Rivals Bet $600 Million on Cement East Africa Has Always Imported

Edha Nahdi’s Amsons Group and Kenyan industrialist Narendra Raval have committed roughly $600 million to build clinker plants in Kenya, and a third investor, Sarbjit Singh Rai, has filed plans for a plant of his own, turning a corner of the cement industry East Africa has incognito outsourced for two decades into a genuine capacity race.

Clinker is the capital-intensive material producers grind into cement, and the region has always imported most of it.

Bamburi Cement, which Amsons took control of in December 2024 for $183 million in cash after a rival bid collapsed amid fraud allegations, has now signed a $250 million deal with China’s SINOMA to build a 1.6-million-tonne clinker plant at Matuga in Kwale County, with production targeted for 2028.

Amsons has committed about $400 million to Bamburi over three years. Raval’s Devki Group already runs a similar plant in West Pokot, opened by President Ruto in 2024, and Rai has filed his own application in Nyeri.

The moment lines up with Holcim’s broader retreat from East Africa, which is handing control of long-established cement assets to local and regional owners rather than multinationals.

For Nahdi, who started importing oil at nineteen and has since built Amsons into a conglomerate spanning cement, fuel and logistics across five countries, the deal deepens his position as the region’s most aggressive industrial acquirer.

What that position is actually worth remains an open question. Billionaires Africa estimated Nahdi’s personal fortune at $90 million in August 2025, eight months after he paid $183 million in cash for control of Bamburi.

Neither Amsons nor its rivals publish accounts, so the wealth attached to Tanzania’s most active dealmaker is still mostly a matter of informed guessing, no matter how large the checks he writes.

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2. Dewji Pledges $250 Million to Mozambique as MeTL Chases a $10 Billion Target

Mohammed Dewji pledged $250 million toward new investment in Mozambique after meeting President Daniel Chapo in Maputo on August 18, telling reporters the money could create 20,000 jobs.

He did not name the sectors or set a timeline, and the Mozambican presidency described the pledge only as consistent with MeTL’s existing lines of business.

The pledge is the latest addition to a sprawling year for Dewji’s MeTL Group, which now operates in eleven African countries and which he says generates more than $3 billion a year, up from roughly $30 million when he joined the family business in 1999.

In July, Dewji committed $275 million to graphite mining in Tanzania, aiming to supply Chinese refiners initially before upgrading to battery-grade material for exporters chasing the electric vehicle supply chain, part of a stated goal of growing MeTL into a $10 billion company by 2030.

Dewji is also the most visible of Tanzania’s major private business owners. He gives interviews, discusses MeTL’s finances publicly, signed the Giving Pledge in 2016, and is the only Tanzanian Forbes currently lists as a billionaire, valuing him at $2.1 billion.

That openness sets him apart from peers like Amsons Group’s Edha Nahdi and Bakhresa Group’s Said Salim, both of whom operate with far less public disclosure despite their companies committing hundreds of millions of dollars of their own.

A pledge made at a state house meeting is not the same as a signed deal, and MeTL has made similarly large, sector-unspecified commitments before.

Whether the Mozambique money materializes will say as much about how Dewji spends political capital as it does about where MeTL is actually headed next.

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3. Bakhresa Is Spending Close to $1 Billion While Its Founder’s Official Net Worth Sits at $600 Million

While Amsons chases acquisitions and MeTL chases diversification, Bakhresa Group’s approach to its own stated $2 billion revenue target is older and plainer. It focuses on building more of what already works.

Perhaps the best evidence sits in Mkuranga District, where Bakhresa Food Products is doubling daily soft-drink output at its Mwandege factory from 150,000 to 300,000 cartons, part of a $500 million expansion announced for the company’s 50th anniversary and expected to finish this year.

The project follows a familiar pattern.

Bakhresa has separately spent about $300 million on a sugar plant in Bagamoyo, $120 million on a fruit-processing factory outside Dar es Salaam, $30 million acquiring Zimbabwean flour miller Blue Ribbon Industries, and, as recently as January, added a soap factory in Malawi behind an earlier $100 million soya investment there.

The group now counts more than forty companies, buys crops from over 100,000 farmers, and reports a daily manufacturing capacity of 2,100 tonnes across its milling and food operations.

Those four investments alone total close to $950 million, by Billionaires Africa’s count, against a founder’s Forbes net worth of $600 million that has not moved since 2015.

Bakhresa gives almost no interviews and has never discussed his fortune publicly, leaving his sons to run the operating companies while outside estimates lag years behind what the group is visibly building.

Whatever Bakhresa Group or Said Salim Bakhresa is actually worth, it is a number nobody outside the family can currently verify with confidence.

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4. NMB’s Split Sent DSE Trading Past TZS 52 Billion

NMB’s shares split ten for one on August 24, and trading followed.

Weekly turnover on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange jumped 124.77% to TZS 52.37 billion, with NMB alone generating TZS 36.06 billion of it.

The Banks, Finance and Investment index gained 9.95%, even as foreign investors extended a fourth straight week of net selling.

5. NBC and DSE Now Let You Trade Shares With Just a National ID

NBC Bank and the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange launched a new integration for NBC Kiganjani on August 26, folding the exchange’s Hisa Kiganjani platform into NBC’s banking app.

Customers open an account with a National ID number and trade shares from their phones.

NBC becomes the second bank to build stock trading into its app, after NMB did the same for over six million potential users last year.

6. TCRA Heads to Kenya to Learn Satellite Licensing

Tanzania’s telecom regulator spent two days last week with Kenya’s Communications Authority (CA) studying how it licenses satellite broadband, including Low Earth Orbit (LEO) services.

Kenya has regulated satellite providers since Starlink arrived in 2023.

The trip suggests Tanzania is preparing its own framework before more providers enter, following a similar benchmarking visit TCRA made to Ghana’s regulator in June.

7. Airtel Adds Tanga to Its Digital Skills Push

Airtel Tanzania relaunched its Fursa Lab center at Kijitonyama Secondary School on August 24, having now reached more than 5,800 people since the program began.

Days later, it announced a fourth site at Magaoni Secondary School in Tanga, its first in the region, aimed at giving young people access to digital training and entrepreneurship coaching.

8. Fintech Joins Gold on Tanzania’s Pitch to European Investors

Tanzania and the European Union met in Dar es Salaam on August 26 to review an investment pipeline covering 68 projects worth $30.1 billion, including digital innovation and fintech alongside gold and agriculture.

Tanzania will pitch the projects in Finland, Italy and the Netherlands this fall, targeting more than 300 European investors.

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9. NM-AIST Joins a New UN-Backed AI Network

The Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology became Tanzania’s only member of the Global AI Capacity Development Network (AICDN) this month, a body under the UN’s Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies (ODET).

Membership opens access to university training programs, researcher exchanges and curriculum alignment with global AI standards.

10. Fintech Festival Recap: AI Agents and Legacy Banks Dominate the Debate

A week after Fintech Festival Tanzania concluded in Dar es Salaam, a recap from the Africa Fintech Network highlighted where the industry’s attention actually landed.

Panelists described artificial intelligence moving past simple automation toward autonomous agents that operate under human supervision, and named legacy banking systems as the biggest obstacle to adopting either.

The two-day event, held August 20 and 21 at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre, also produced sessions on interoperable digital infrastructure, cross-border payments and stablecoin infrastructure.

The DSE, the ICT Commission (ICTC), and Tanzania’s investment authority TISEZA endorsed the festival alongside organizer Mikono Expo Group.

The recap suggests the real competition isn’t over the flashiest AI feature, but over which bank or fintech commits first to replacing the legacy systems most attendees named as the industry’s shared bottleneck.

11. Vodacom Foundation Rebuilds Classrooms in Rural Morogoro

The Vodacom Tanzania Foundation delivered two renovated classrooms, 30 desks and a set of school equipment to Ihowanja Primary School in Malinyi district, Morogoro region, on August 28.

The delivery is part of the foundation’s Classroom for Community Impact program.

The donation is small next to Vodacom Tanzania’s TZS 107 billion past fiscal year profit, but it fits a pattern telecoms and banks in Tanzania have leaned on for decades, tying brand goodwill to visible, local infrastructure work rather than national campaigns alone.

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12. Government Convenes Telecoms and Police Over Rising Mobile Fraud

Tanzania’s communications minister, Angellah Kairuki, ordered a special summit this month bringing together the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority, the Tanzania Police Force’s cybercrime unit, and the chief technology officers of Vodacom, Airtel, Yas and Halotel.

The goal is new measures against mobile money fraud.

TCRA identified 7,334 mobile lines linked to fraud between April and June, with Rukwa and Morogoro flagged as the regions needing the most attention.

Kairuki announced the summit while launching TCRA’s communications statistics report for the same quarter.

The summit puts all four major network operators in the same room as police investigators, a response to fraud that increasingly rides the same mobile money rails carrying the bulk of Tanzania’s digital payments.

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The software behind every account, loan and transaction at Tanzania’s largest bank by customer numbers has officially moved onto a new platform.

NMB bank shut down its previous system at 6pm on July 31 and brought services back in stages over the following days, with branches first, then agency banking, NMB Mkononi, and internet banking.

Some customers hit transaction issues during the cutover. NMB says those cases have gone through reconciliation, and Chief Executive Ruth Zaipuna apologized for the disruption.

The retired system had run since 2011, when NMB had 1.8 million customer accounts and about TZS 2 trillion in assets. It now serves more than 10 million accounts holding over TZS 18 trillion, and is targeting 20 million accounts by 2030.

Corporate customers can now push up to 20,000 payments in a single batch, and trade finance customers can track letters of credit digitally.

On the retail side, NMB is expanding Mshiko Fasta, its instant lending product within the Mkononi super-app, to offer individuals up to TZS 2 million and small businesses up to TZS 5 million based on account and transaction history.

Chief Technology and Digital Transformation Officer Kwame Makundi said the platform “is designed to accommodate emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, while enabling NMB to respond more effectively to changing customer expectations for faster, simpler and more personalised banking.”

NMB’s move follows a similar re-platforming at CRDB, Tanzania’s largest bank by assets, which migrated from Temenos Fusion Banking Essence to Temenos T24 over a 72-hour window in September 2025 and reported balance discrepancies during the changeover.

CRDB’s share price dipped during that disruption before recovering in the weeks after.

“When customers put their money with you, it means they trust you,” Zaipuna said. “That is why we believe trust is the biggest thing in the banking business.”

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2. A Tech Founder Joins a Small, Fast-Changing Circle of CRDB Shareholders

Godfrey Magila, founder of the Dar and Dubai-based software firm Magilatech, is one of five individuals holding a CRDB stake that is large enough to require public disclosure, and one of two who joined that circle in the past two quarters. He held 26.5 million shares, equivalent to a 1.01% stake, as of June 30.

Bank records did not name him as of March 31, when the same 1 percent disclosure threshold applied.

Deogratius Marandu, chairman of the forex house Kadoo Bureau de Change and the construction firm Emirate Builders, is the other new entrant, crossing that line by March.

Both arrived as Patrick Schegg, a former hedge fund manager that Billionaires Africa ranked the richest individual investor on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) in 2023, cut his CRDB position by 41% since December, more than half of that cut in the past three months alone.

Hans Macha moved the opposite direction, adding to his stake in all four quarters on record for a cumulative 10% gain, built alongside Caspian Limited, the mining contractor he controls.

Tanvinder Singh Virdi holds a stake close in size to Macha’s and has kept it roughly flat since December; no public business record ties his name to a company or sector.

Danida Investment Fund’s 21%, PSSSF Pension Fund’s 13.3%, and the stakes held by NSSF Uganda, NSSF, ZSSF, NHIF and Umoja Unit Trust have been identical, share for share, over the past year.

Every single big share switch at the top of CRDB’s ownership table happened just between people.

The shareholder base below the 1 percent line grew fast and thinned out at the same time.

Headcount rose from just over 35,000 in September to more than 101,000 by June, while that group’s combined stake slipped from 47.6% to 45%.

So the average small shareholder now holds roughly a third of what the average small shareholder held nine months ago.

For Magila, his stake’s market value, at CRDB’s TZS 2,540 share price in late June, was about TZS 67.3 billion, or $25.5 million, close to half of the USD 52 million Tanzanian startups raised in total over the same six months, per Africa: The Big Deal.

CRDB’s dividend has grown from TZS 22 a share for 2021 to TZS 90 for 2025, giving a real sense of why the circle Godfrey just joined has gotten more valuable to be in.

Atoms & Bits estimates the bank’s top five individual shareholders could earn a combined TZS 20 billion this year.

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3. Vodacom Tanzania Announces $20Mn Dividend

Service revenue at the DSE-listed carrier grew 21.8% from April 2025 to March 2026. This was more than double the 10.6% growth posted by its entire parent network, Vodacom Group, across Africa.

It also finished well ahead of the 14% growth seen in Vodacom’s markets outside South Africa and Egypt, which include the DRC, Mozambique, and Lesotho.

Mozambique’s total revenue fell during the same period. Tanzania was the standout.

Reported profit after tax rose 18.4% to TZS 107.1 billion. But once you strip out the one-off costs tied to a completed network modernization program, the underlying profit after tax rose 125.5%, to TZS 204.1 billion.

M-Pesa revenue rose 24.5% to TZS 734.8 billion, and the value moving through the platform rose 34.4% to TZS 174.6 trillion for the year. That is roughly three-quarters of Tanzania’s entire annual economic output (GDP) passing through a single payments platform.

The growth rate also outpaced both the 18.3% rise in transaction value across Vodacom’s mobile money business as a whole and the 13.4% M-Pesa revenue growth Safaricom reported in Kenya, which is Vodacom Group’s largest single market for digital financial services.

The board proposed a dividend of TZS 53.6 billion at TZS 23.9 per share, up 18.4% on last year’s TZS 45.3 billion payout. Shareholders as of August 19 will receive their earnings by October 15.

This will translate to roughly TZS 40 billion going to the parent, Vodacom Group, which owns 75% of Vodacom Tanzania.

The number of individual shareholders in the telco climbed from 37,377 to 46,418 over the year, even as their combined share of the company barely shifted, meaning more Tanzanians are buying in, in smaller pieces.

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4. Yas, French-Tanzanian Chamber Take Their Startup Cohort Back to the Classroom

Fifteen founders from the Yas-FTCC accelerator, launched in May by Yas CEO Pierre Canton-Bacara and chamber general manager Hannah De Somviele, gathered at Hotel Onomo on August 20 for a session with founder Fleuri Adon on entering new markets, followed by small-group coaching on marketing and financial structuring.

The program partners the cohort with Ennovate Ventures and Anza Entrepreneurs. Current beneficiary startups include Rada360, Neurotech, Lishe360, Chaja, and Mrembo Naturals.

5. Yas Fiber’s Dodoma Rollout Comes With Free Mobile Data Attached

Yas Fiber went live on August 21 in four Dodoma neighborhoods, Ilazo, Ipagala, Swaswa and Mjini Kati, with CEO Maxime Woimant framing the launch around Dodoma’s growth as a business and government hub.

Every fiber package now comes bundled with 5 to 30 gigabytes of mobile data and up to 350 voice minutes at no extra cost, and the company says more neighborhoods are next.

6. Small-Scale Miners Get the Green Light to Build Their Own Bank

The Bank of Tanzania has approved a request from the Federation of Small-Scale Miners’ Associations (FEMATA) to establish a dedicated bank for the sector, Governor Emmanuel Tutuba said at a meeting in Geita.

Miners must still meet standard capital and governance rules, and Tutuba specifically flagged information technology infrastructure to protect customer funds and control money-laundering risk as a licensing condition.

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7. Tanzania Switches On Its Largest Power Plant, Built and Run by Tanzanians

President Samia Suluhu Hassan launched the 2,115-megawatt Julius Nyerere Hydropower Plant (JNHPP) on August 22.

It’s a TZS 7.45 trillion project financed entirely from domestic funds.

The plant was already supplying half of the electricity on Tanzania’s national grid as of May, and despite running on advanced turbine technology, it is operated entirely by Tanzanians, a detail the government is treating as its own milestone.

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Reading time: 9 minutes.

Tanzania’s Information and Communication Technologies Commission (ICTC) presented the 2nd edition of its TEHAMA Awards on August 9, with Bernice Fernandes as host.

The prizes were given in 14 main categories and 47 subcategories spanning artificial intelligence, fintech, rural connectivity, cybersecurity, media and environmental technology.

Minister for Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) Angellah Kairuki was guest of honor and used her remarks to tie the awards to the country’s digital economy ambitions.

“Technological innovation is critical to improving services and building a digital economy,” Kairuki told the ceremony, congratulating the winners for their contribution to advancing technology.

With applications closing March 30, the 2026 edition drew 380 nominations from individuals, private companies and public institutions, and organizers selected 54 winners across the category list. Below we cover three of those winners.

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SPOTLIGHT: Flashnet Wins Best ISP Customer Experience

Flashnet Technologies won Best ISP Customer Experience at TEHAMA Awards 2026, a recognition the company tied to its shift from a pure connectivity provider into a full managed services shop.

Flashnet said the award reflects its work across internet connectivity, cloud solutions, cybersecurity, managed IT services, business applications and digital infrastructure, and thanked customers, partners and staff for the recognition.

Founded in 2011 and led by chief executive Vinayan Benedict, Flashnet became Tanzania’s first managed service provider to earn ISO 9001:2015 certification, a quality standard Atoms & Bits profiled in 2024 when the company pitched itself as an outsourced IT department for enterprises that would rather call a specialist than manage servers themselves. That same customer-facing pitch, expert support standing in for an in-house IT team, is what TEHAMA judges credited this year.

Flashnet is hiring across four roles in Dar: Customer Support Executive, Customer Support Manager, System Administrator and Wireless Network Engineer, with applications open through August 20 at careers@flashnet.co.tz.

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SPOTLIGHT: Mixx Sweeps Three Awards

Mixx Tanzania won first place in the Mobile Financial Services Innovation category, recognizing the platform’s use of technology to expand access to financial services beyond sending and receiving money into savings, credit and investment tools. Mixx also placed second in the Digital Business Innovation category.

Mixx Chief Executive Officer Angelica Pesha won the Female ICT Leadership Award for her contribution to leadership and innovation in Tanzania’s ICT and digital financial services sector.

“This recognition is a great honor for us and reflects our commitment to developing services that respond to the needs of our customers,” Pesha said after receiving the awards.

Pesha said Mixx would keep investing in technology that widens access to financial opportunities, whether through payments, savings, credit or investment tools.

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SPOTLIGHT: Yas Defends Its Best ISP Title, Adds a Green Award

Yas won Best National ISP for the second consecutive year, recognizing the telecom’s investment in reliable internet connectivity across Tanzania. Yas also won the ICT for Environmental Conservation award for using technology to support sustainability.

Yas Business Chief Officer Norman Kiondo said the recognition reflects continued investment in infrastructure. “Internet connectivity has become an important part of our day to day activities. People rely on it to do business, work, learn, access services and stay connected,” Kiondo said.

Kiondo made a related case in a Citizen op-ed the same week, arguing Tanzania has largely solved consumer connectivity, TCRA data for the quarter ending June 2026 put internet penetration at 89.7 percent, while enterprise connectivity lags at only 103,843 corporate fixed internet subscriptions nationwide.

Kiondo’s prescription is Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN), technology that lets businesses manage fibre, microwave, LTE and satellite links as one network rather than as separate systems, useful given Tanzania’s broadband backbone now reaches 122 of the country’s 139 districts.

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1. Bank of Tanzania’s Draft Cybersecurity Guidelines Return to the Spotlight

Bank of Tanzania’s Draft Cybersecurity Guidelines for Financial Service Providers, 2026 stayed in industry conversation last week, five months after the central bank issued them for consultation in March.

The guidelines run under Section 71 of the Banking and Financial Institutions Act and Section 56 of the National Payment Systems Act, and apply to every financial service provider operating in Tanzania.

The draft followed a Sh147.5 billion bank card fraud case that exposed gaps in payment system controls, and it puts cyber strategy squarely on the board’s desk, sets a 24 hour window to report major incidents to the central bank through the TZ-FinCERT portal, and requires ongoing threat intelligence and vendor risk programmes.

Cybersecurity director Johnson Mwamba of Silensec says the rules turn cybersecurity into a board agenda item rather than an IT one, and that banks, fintechs and payment service providers should start closing gaps before the guidelines are finalized rather than after.

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2. Zanzibar’s Digital Address System Speeds Loan Access for 489,000 Students

Zanzibar launched a digital ID address system in June under its National Address Programme, assigning a unique digital address to residents across the islands.

The Higher Education Students’ Loans Board began accepting loan applications through the system soon after launch, and has processed applications from 489,409 students since, The Citizen reported.

Former Communication and Information Minister Jerry Silaa said the system will support Tanzania’s wider digital economy beyond student loans.

Meanwhile, Construction, Communication and Transport Minister Khalid Salum Mohamed said Zanzibar is now assigning digital addresses to people and properties across the islands, with postal, emergency response and financial services next in line.

The rollout lands as informal market technologists elsewhere on the continent flag the same gap. Consultant Farayi Ziswa says that GPS-based digital addressing is becoming standard infrastructure for reaching businesses that never had a physical address, though data silos between telecoms, banks and distributors mapping the same locations independently remain a live problem.

3. Dawa Mkononi Cracks Africa’s Business Heroes Top 20

Dawa Mkononi has secured backing from Africa Health Ventures to expand its digital pharmaceutical distribution platform, without disclosing the round size.

The company connects pharmacies, clinics and other healthcare facilities to vetted medicine suppliers for digital ordering instead of fragmented informal channels.

The investment landed the same week Africa’s Business Heroes named Dawa Mkononi to its 2026 Top 20, the only Tanzanian company on a list of 20 entrepreneurs from 12 countries competing for a share of a $1.5 million prize pool.

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4. Swahilies Brings Its Fintech Pitch to Tanzania’s Next Founders

Swahilies co-founder and chief executive John Haule joined a panel at Startup School Tanzania, run by Sahara Ventures, to walk students through building the company from a room in Sinza into a central bank-licensed fintech.

Swahilies now serves more than 10,000 small and medium businesses with bookkeeping and embedded finance tools, moving what the company describes as billions of shillings in payments every month.

The company secured a Payment Service Provider (PSP) license from the Bank of Tanzania in May, allowing it to offer its own financial products instead of relying solely on partner integrations.

Sahara Ventures chief executive Jumanne Mtambalike, who organized the session, said the goal was inspiring the next generation of Tanzanian founders alongside other startup mentors who donated their time.

5. A Founder’s Firsthand Look at Boda Boda Electric Conversion

Kinetiq co-founder Arnold Mwangakala visited a Dar es Salaam workshop run by BUD EV, where technicians are converting petrol tuktuks into electric ones on the same chassis, same driver, different engine.

Mwangakala, who is building an affordable path to electric for Tanzania’s boda boda riders, wrote that upfront cost remains the biggest barrier to EV adoption despite improving financing options, and that conversion offers a way to cut that price without asking a rider to give up a vehicle they already own.

Mwangakala said the same conversion logic could extend to small pickups and cars.

6. Kenya’s Cloud9 Buys Chpter to Merge Banking and Commerce

Cloud9 acquired Chpter in an all stock deal that folds conversational commerce into Cloud9’s business banking platform.

Cloud9 is a Nairobi-based stablecoin native digital bank offering multi-currency accounts, cross-border payments and treasury tools, and it sunset Chpter as a standalone product after the deal.

Chpter let businesses sell and communicate with customers over WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, and served more than 4,500 businesses before the acquisition.

Founder Tesh Mbaabu built both companies.

7. Vodacom Group Adds Fintech Chief to Safaricom’s Board

Safaricom appointed Vodacom Group Fintech CEO Mariam Cassim as a non-executive director, effective August 13, alongside Vodacom Group Chief Human Resources Officer Matimba Mbungela.

Vodacom Group holds a majority stake in Safaricom and used the appointments to exercise governance rights gained through that stake.

Vodacom Group also owns Vodacom Tanzania, the operator behind M-Pesa, which means Cassim’s fintech background may closely impact Vodacom’s Kenyan and Tanzanian mobile money businesses.

This appointment is one that Tanzanian operators will watch as Vodacom Tanzania competes with Mixx and Airtel Money for cross-border payment volume.

8. Fintech Festival Tanzania Opens Aug. 20 With Regulators and Global Investors

Fintech Festival Tanzania opens August 20 at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre in Dar es Salaam, running two days of sessions on payments, artificial intelligence and financial inclusion, organized by Mikono Expo Group alongside the Future Banking Conference Africa, Future Blockchain Africa, Cashless and Card Expo Tanzania and Tanzania ICT Expo.

The festival’s own projections put attendance at more than 9,900 fintech professionals, a target the organizers have not backed with verified turnout data from past editions.

The Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE), the Capital Markets and Securities Authority (CMSA) and Tanzania’s Ministry of Information, Communication and Information Technology (MICIT) are listed as supporting partners.

Jumanne Mtambalike, CEO, Sahara Ventures. “We had a great day today inspiring the next generation of startup founders in Tanzania,” at Startup School Tanzania, part of Sahara Ventures’ youth strategy under DIRA 2050.

Arnold Mwangakala, Co-founder, Kinetiq. “Cost is one of the biggest barriers to EV adoption... Conversion is one way to bring that price down further, without asking anyone to give up a vehicle they already own,” on visiting BUD EV’s boda boda conversion workshop.

Joseph Paul, CEO, Dawa Mkononi. “We made it to the Top 20 of the Africa’s Business Heroes 2026. Dawa Mkononi is representing Tanzania in the continent.”

Farayi Ziswa, Author, Selling to Informal Markets. “FMCGs, banks, telecom operators, and distributors are independently mapping the same retailers, resulting in costly duplication and fragmented market visibility,” on why standardized digital addressing still has work to do.

Johnson Mwamba, Director of Sales & Operations, Silensec. “Cybersecurity is no longer just an IT Agenda in Tanzania, it is a Mandatory Board Imperative,” on Bank of Tanzania’s draft cybersecurity guidelines.

TALENT & HIRING

KCB Bank Tanzania is scaling its Digital Financial Services team, hiring for innovation specialist, product manager, agency banking specialist, card business specialist and digital sales roles as it builds out instant, automated financial infrastructure.

Bank of Africa Tanzania named Samir Yassine as chief executive officer. Yassine brings more than 26 years of international banking experience across retail and corporate banking, digital transformation, business development and risk management.

Liquid Intelligent Technologies Tanzania is hiring a National Account Manager to grow its enterprise connectivity business, continuing the enterprise-side hiring push echoed in Flashnet’s own strategy this week.

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ON THE RADAR

Aug 19-21: Data Tamasha Africa 2026, Hotel Verde, Zanzibar. Tanzania Data Lab (dLab) and the Zanzibar Ministry of Communication, Information Technology and Innovation host sessions on AI, data governance, cybersecurity and the digital economy under the theme Kujenga na Data, Building with Data.

Aug 20-21: Fintech Festival Tanzania, Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre (JNICC), Dar es Salaam. Runs alongside Future Banking Conference Africa, Future Blockchain Africa, Cashless and Card Expo Tanzania and Tanzania ICT Expo.

Aug 31 - Sep 4: Innovation Week Tanzania (IWTz) 2026, JNICC. The FUNGUO Programme under UNDP Tanzania, in collaboration with government, corporate and development partners will hold the 12th edition of IWTz to help advance the recently launched National Development Vision (DIRA) 2050.

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1. Tanzania Startup Funding Rebounds to $52 Million in H1 2026

Tanzanian startups raised $52 million in the first half of 2026, according to Africa: The Big Deal, the venture data tracker run by Max Cuvellier Giacomelli.

The total pushed Tanzania past the $25 million line that separates Africa’s mid-tier startup markets from the rest of the continent, a group that also includes Côte d’Ivoire and Morocco.

Some outlets described Tanzania as the fifth-largest funding destination in Africa this year.

That claim does not fully survive contact with the underlying numbers. Egypt ($327M), Nigeria ($254M), Kenya ($126M), and South Africa ($83M) all raised more, and so did Benin, where electric vehicle company Spiro alone closed $270 million in equity and $57 million in debt, more than Tanzania’s entire total.

Venture capital is concentrating in fewer, larger deals across the continent. TechCabal reported that disclosed funding rounds fell to 146 in the first half of 2026, down from 252 a year earlier, as investors pull back from early-stage risk. Tanzania’s rebound looks different.

Big Deal counted at least ten Tanzanian startups raising $100,000 or more in the period, a wider spread than the one or two mega-deals that used to define our ecosystem.

The total also raises a real question about what counts.

NALA, the Tanzania-founded payments company, closed a $50 million debt facility from Mars Growth Capital in May, squarely inside the same six months, yet Big Deal’s Tanzania figure does not appear to include it, a gap that can be explained by the fact that NALA set up its headquarters in Kenya in July 2022.

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2. iPF Softwares Becomes an OpenAI Select Partner

OpenAI named Dar es Salaam software company iPF a Select Partner within its Partner Network on July 25.

OpenAI launched the network this year with a $150 million investment behind it, and grades partners across three tiers, Select, Advanced and Elite, based on how much production AI work they have shipped rather than piloted.

iPF Softwares is not the only company in the region carrying that badge. Ugandan AI company Tyms holds Select Partner status too and already serves banks and telecoms in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, which makes iPF’s addition less a first and more a sign that East Africa’s regulated industries are becoming a real market for OpenAI’s enterprise strategy rather than an afterthought.

iPF said its qualifying work includes WhatsApp banking and insurance agents already running inside NMB Bank and Metro Assurance, built to answer customer questions and process requests under the compliance rules those institutions operate by.

Founder Grayson Julius said the designation validated a lesson from that work. “The hard part of enterprise AI was never the model; it was making that model behave correctly inside a system that cannot afford to be wrong,” Julius said.

iPF Softwares plans to extend the same agent work into logistics next, and to grow Notify Africa, its own enterprise messaging platform, alongside the OpenAI relationship.

For banks and insurers elsewhere in Tanzania still deciding whether to trust AI with customer-facing work, iPF’s production claims, if they hold up under scrutiny, suggest the compliance problem many assumed was unsolved locally already has at least one working answer.

3. Selcom Business Brings Digital Banking to Tanzanian SMEs and Developers

Selcom Microfinance Bank (SMFB) launched Selcom Business last week. It’s a digital banking platform built for small businesses, corporates and software developers.

The platform extends the company’s Selcom Pesa payments network into dedicated business banking tools, including account management, bulk payments and developer APIs.

The launch comes as Selcom Microfinance Bank settles in a new chief executive, Aloyse Maro, who took over in May and now leads the bank’s push into business banking beyond its roots in payment processing.

Selcom Business builds on Selcom Pesa’s existing merchant base, giving Selcom a path to sell banking services to businesses it already serves as a payments provider.

Selcom now competes for enterprise accounts against CRDB and NMB, both of which expanded SME banking products this year.

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4. NMB Foundation and Mercy Corps Sign Sh2.6 Billion E-Mobility Partnership

NMB Foundation and Mercy Corps Tanzania signed a Sh2.6 billion agreement on July 31 to finance and train entrepreneurs building Tanzania’s electric mobility sector.

The two-year partnership runs under the Evolve Project, backed by the European Union through the Belgian Development Agency, Enabel.

The first phase targets small businesses and entrepreneurs in Dar es Salaam, split between new ventures and existing e-mobility operators, and pairs financing with business advisory support.

NMB Foundation general manager Nelson Karumuna said the program will build capacity across the e-mobility value chain before expanding beyond Dar es Salaam.

Mercy Corps will identify and support entrepreneurs, and Enabel will back charging infrastructure and business model work.

Tanzania’s e-mobility sector is already drawing outside capital, including a debt facility Dutch development bank FMO extended this month to M-KOPA’s Kenya mobility unit, and NMB’s move signals Tanzanian banks want a piece of the same opportunity.

5. Stanbic and Visa Report 201% Jump in Cross-Border Card Payments

Stanbic Bank Tanzania and Visa said cross-border card transaction value rose 201% following a joint digital payments campaign targeting the bank’s personal and private banking customers.

The campaign ran as part of the government’s push for cashless payments under its 2023 to 2028 financial inclusion plan.

Card transaction volumes rose alongside the jump in value, and card activations climbed sharply as more Stanbic customers turned to Visa-enabled cards for cross-border spending.

Stanbic and Visa plan to continue the partnership to expand digital payment adoption in Tanzania.

The jump points to a wider shift in how Tanzanians pay across borders, as banks and mobile money operators compete for a growing pool of cross-border commerce that used to run through cash and informal channels.

6. BoT Closes Applications for Third Fintech Sandbox Cohort

The Bank of Tanzania closed applications for the third cohort of its Fintech Regulatory Sandbox on July 31.

Banks, mobile money operators, electronic money issuers and fintech companies applied through the central bank’s frsp.bot.go.tz portal to test new financial products under supervision.

The sandbox admits only products and services that fall outside Tanzania’s existing financial rules, giving companies room to test before regulation catches up with their technology. Two earlier cohorts have already gone through the sandbox since it began.

The timing matters for founders watching Tanzania’s funding rebound this year. A sandbox slot gives early-stage fintechs a supervised route to market that bypasses the slower path of a full banking or payments license.

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7. TCRA Opens Cybersecurity Licence Bids From Two Tanzanian Firms

The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority invited public comment on cybersecurity licence applications from SPT Tanzania Limited and Eximious Technologies Company Limited on July 31.

Both firms applied through the regulator’s converged licensing process, which covers telecom-adjacent services such as cybersecurity.

The applications mark an early test of formal cybersecurity licensing in Tanzania, as demand for digital security services grows alongside the country’s mobile money and banking sector.

TCRA will review public comments before deciding whether to grant the licences.

Licensing local cybersecurity providers gives Tanzania’s banks, telcos and fintechs a vetted pool of vendors as digital fraud risk grows with mobile money volumes. TCRA will decide on both applications once the comment period closes.

8. CRDB Bank Posts $158M Profit for First Half of 2026

CRDB Bank’s profit after tax rose to TZS 417 billion in the first six months of 2026, The Citizen reported. CRDB’s total assets crossed a new high on growth in loans and customer deposits.

CRDB’s first-quarter profit was already up sharply, and the bank has since launched a new customer service campaign aimed at cutting transaction times and expanding self-service banking.

CRDB’s performance tracks a broader rebound in Tanzania’s financial sector, alongside strong results from Vodacom Tanzania and a jump in Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange trading volumes.

9. DSE Turnover Jumps 155% in Late July

Equity turnover on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange rose 155% week on week during the week of July 27 to 31, TanzaniaInvest reported, the exchange’s strongest week since the start of the quarter. Vodacom Tanzania led trading by volume, and Tanzania Breweries led by value.

All five DSE indices closed higher for the week, with the Commercial Services index posting the largest gain. Total market capitalization also rose, extending a rally that began earlier in the year.

The rally lands in the same window where Vodacom Tanzania and CRDB Bank both reported strong earnings, giving investors fresh reasons to bid up bank and telecom counters on the exchange.

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10. Airtel Fursa Lab Passes 5,300 Graduates

Airtel Tanzania said this month that more than 5,300 young Tanzanians have graduated from Airtel Fursa Lab, its digital skills and e-waste entrepreneurship program with the Dar Teknohama Business Incubator (DTBi), run across four training centers in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar.

11. NMB Marks Eight Years Sponsoring Nanenane

NMB Bank said its cumulative sponsorship of Tanzania’s National Nanenane Agricultural Exhibition has reached Sh572 million over eight years.

Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba toured NMB’s pavilion at this year’s exhibition in Dodoma, where the bank said it has extended Sh2.3 trillion in agriculture, livestock and fisheries financing, including collateral-free digital loans of up to Sh2 million for young producers.

12. TIB Pushes SADC Lenders on Industry

Tanzania Investment Bank managing director Deogratius Kwiyukwa called on SADC development finance institutions to pool capital for industrial projects, speaking at the ninth SADC Industrialisation Week in Durban.

Tanzania ran a $2.7 billion trade surplus with SADC countries last year, mostly on gold exports, and Kwiyukwa argued the country needs more local processing capacity to keep that momentum going.

13. NMB Bank Rings the Bell in London on Tanzania’s First Shilling Bond

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) listed a TZS 262.5 billion bond on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the first Tanzanian shilling-denominated instrument ever to trade there. I

FC raised the shillings in London and will on-lend them to NMB Bank, which will extend the money as credit to small and medium enterprises across Tanzania.

Finance Minister Ambassador Khamis Mussa Omar travelled to London to ring the exchange’s closing bell and mark the listing.

Twenty percent of the facility, roughly TZS 52.5 billion, is set aside for women-owned businesses. World Bank treasurer Jorge Familiar said the financing could support between 13,000 and 20,000 jobs once NMB deploys it to borrowers.

The listing gives the bank a second offshore funding channel alongside its dollar-denominated eurobonds, and gives NMB a template it can return to if the shilling bond structure works as intended.

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Absa is close to folding its Tanzania banking business into NBC, a deal that would create the country’s third largest bank. The DSE closed its second quarter with market capitalization at $13.42 billion, and EAC governors met in Kampala to push a regional payments system forward while steering central banks toward gold reserves. Seven other headlines follow.

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1. Absa Nears $3 Billion Tanzania Bank Merger

Absa Group is close to combining its Tanzania banking assets into the National Bank of Commerce, according to a Bloomberg report published Thursday. The plan would have NBC absorb Absa Bank Tanzania and create a single lender holding $3 billion in combined assets.

Absa would end up with a bank that ranks behind only CRDB Bank and NMB Bank in size, giving it the scale it has wanted in East Africa.

Absa has held talks with the Tanzanian government for months, and people familiar with the matter say a final agreement has not been signed.

The move fits a wider pattern of consolidation among Tanzania’s mid-tier lenders, as foreign-owned banks chase the scale that NMB and CRDB already have.

A combined Absa-NBC would also hand the government a bigger stake in a systemically important bank. This is a new dynamic for Tanzania’s banking sector heading into 2027.

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) has already approved the merger, which is pending finalization.

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2. DSE Market Cap Jumps 79 Percent

The Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange closed the second quarter of 2026 with total market capitalization up 79% from a year earlier, the exchange said at a press briefing last Thursday.

Listed companies on the bourse are now worth several trillion Tanzanian shillings more than they were a year ago.

The DSE All Share Index rose alongside the market, and the exchange credited stronger corporate earnings and rising investor participation for the gain.

Trading activity has since cooled, with equity turnover falling sharply in the week that followed the results.

With over 740,000 investor accounts and three decades in operation, Tanzania’s stock market now offers high daily trading activity, meaning founders can launch an IPO knowing there is real demand.

3. EAC Governors Push Cross-Border Payments, Point Banks Toward Gold

East African Community central bank governors met in Kampala last Friday for an ordinary meeting of the EAC Monetary Affairs Committee, chaired by Bank of Uganda Governor Michael Atingi-Ego.

The govlonger-termernors said they had made progress on a regional cross-border payment system meant to cut transaction costs and speed up trade across the bloc.

Governors also agreed to diversify foreign exchange reserves through domestic gold purchases, citing volatile oil prices tied to the conflict in the Middle East. They flagged rising cybersecurity threats as a growing risk to financial stability across the region’s payment infrastructure.

The committee reaffirmed a target of 2031 for a single East African currency, tying the payments work directly to that longer term goal.

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4. Bank of Tanzania Moves Toward Crypto and Stablecoin Rules

Bank of Tanzania Governor Emmanuel Tutuba said the central bank has finished its assessment of the virtual asset sector and is now finalising the laws needed to supervise it.

dollar-pegged“We are currently finalising the preparation of laws and regulations for the supervision of digital assets, particularly virtual assets, cryptocurrencies, and stablecoins, so that we can strengthen regulation and oversight,” Tutuba said.

The new rules would cover cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and virtual assets more broadly, a sharp turn for a regulator that has spent years warning the public away from crypto trading. The bank approved a stablecoin sandbox pilot in May, letting regulated entities test dollar pegged tokens under supervision.

Tutuba gave no date for the new rules, but the shift matters for Tanzania’s payments builders. NALA, the Tanzania-born global payments company, has already leaned into stablecoin rails for cross-border transfers, and clear rules would remove a major source of regulatory uncertainty for it and any competitor building similar infrastructure.

5. Vodacom Tanzania Records TZS 47.3 Billion Profit in Q2 2026

Vodacom Tanzania’s profit after tax for the quarter ended June 30 more than tripled from the same quarter last year, the company said, with M-Pesa revenue climbing 26% as the main driver.

Businesses accepting payments through the Lipa Kwa M-PESA merchant solution grew by 25.2% to more than 650,000, while transactions grew to more than TZS 2 trillion per month.

The M-Pesa growth continued a run of mobile money gains that has outpaced Vodacom’s core telecom business over the past year.

A larger customer base is giving Vodacom more room to sell financial services on top of its network.

The results follow Vodacom’s investment earlier this year to move M-Pesa off its legacy platform, plus a new partnership with Thunes that lets customers pay merchants in Uganda and China directly from their phones. The quarter suggests that investment is starting to pay off.

6. Zanzibar Announces Tech and AI Expo to Court Global Investors

Zanzibar’s Ministry of Communications, Information Technology and Innovation announced last Friday that it will host an International Technology and Artificial Intelligence Expo in September, organized with South Africa-based Africa Business Inc.

Minister Mudrik Ramadhan Soraga said the event is meant to position Zanzibar as a destination for investment from global technology companies.

The expo, planned for late September in Unguja, is expected to draw more than 1,500 participants from across Africa, according to organizers. It follows Zanzibar’s latest budget, which lists a planned stock exchange and expanded digital financial services among its priorities.

For a jurisdiction still building its digital economy profile alongside mainland Tanzania, landing an expo of this scale is a signal it wants a seat at the table on AI and fintech investment, not only tourism and the blue economy.

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7. Bank of Tanzania Opens Third Sandbox Cohort, Deadline Friday

The Bank of Tanzania has opened applications for the third cohort of its Fintech Regulatory Sandbox, giving banks, mobile money operators, electronic money issuers, and fintech companies until July 31 to apply. The sandbox lets firms test new financial products under central bank supervision before a wider market launch.

The bank said the program only covers services that fall outside existing rules, aiming the sandbox squarely at genuinely new products rather than variations on licensed activity. Applications go through the bank’s frsp.bot.go.tz portal.

For founders building anything adjacent to payments, lending, or emerging digital assets, this is the near-term action item out of this issue. Earlier cohorts have already run through the program, and the window closes this week.

8. Tembo Adds Rwanda PSP License

Tembo, the Tanzania-registered payments infrastructure company regulated by the Bank of Tanzania, said last Friday it has been granted a payment service provider (PSP) licence in Rwanda.

The license extends Tembo’s regulated footprint to a seventh African market as it builds out banking and payment rails for cross-border trade.

The company said it has processed more than $1 billion in transaction volume across its network and works with more than 100 enterprise customers, connecting to bank and mobile money rails including Ecobank, CRDB Bank, M-Pesa and Airtel Money.

Unlike consumer apps, Tembo sells to other businesses that need to move money across African borders.

Co-founder Reuben Mwatosya called Rwanda “one of Africa’s most progressive destinations for fintech innovation,” pointing to the country’s regulatory posture as a draw for infrastructure players.

Chief executive Victor Joseph framed the licence as part of a wider bet that African businesses want a single partner to move money across borders rather than a different provider in each market.

The license adds to a run of regulatory approvals across Eastern, Southern and Central Africa as Tembo works alongside banks and mobile money operators rather than competing with them directly.

For a company built on being the infrastructure behind other people’s payment products, each new license is less a launch than a precondition for effectively doing business in a given market at all.

9. NALA’s Next Raise Could Push It Past Unicorn Status

NALA is working toward a $120 million funding round it wants to close near the end of 2026, founder and chief executive Benjamin Fernandes told Bloomberg. The Tanzania-founded payments company plans to sell another 10 to 15 percent of its equity to raise the money.

Run the math on those terms and NALA would land somewhere between $800 million and $1.2 billion in valuation, depending on where the round prices shares.

That range sits on either side of the billion-dollar mark that separates a strong African fintech from a unicorn, though nothing is signed yet and Fernandes has not put a public number on the eventual valuation. The range above is Atoms & Bits’ estimate based on the reported deal terms, not a confirmed figure.

A close near the top of that range would make NALA the first Tanzania-founded fintech to cross the unicorn line. For now it is a target Fernandes has stated publicly, not a done deal, and Atoms & Bits will treat it as unconfirmed until a round actually closes.

We’ll continue watching this story closely.

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10. NMB Commits TZS 224 Billion to Geita Gold Mine Financing

NMB Bank said last Tuesday it has committed roughly TZS 224 billion (about $100 million) to a $500 million syndicated financing facility for AngloGold Ashanti’s Geita Gold Mine (GGM), arranged by Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking.

The commitment makes NMB the largest Tanzanian bank participating in the transaction and one of its biggest single mining finance commitments to date.

GGM is Tanzania’s largest gold mine, employing about 7,000 people, with roughly 97.5 percent of the workforce Tanzanian.

Independent reporting on the mine puts its contribution to the Tanzanian treasury at more than $2.5 billion since operations began in 2000, making it one of the country’s largest taxpayers.

NMB ties this commitment to its Agenda 2030 medium-term plan, which the bank has linked to Tanzania’s own Vision 2050 push for private-sector-led industrialization.

The bank said it has financed Tanzania’s mining sector with about TZS 400 billion cumulatively.

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NMB Bank and the United Nations Capital Development Fund signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Dar es Salaam on June 26 to identify, fund and grow Tanzanian fintech startups and connect them to capital, markets and the bank’s payment and lending systems.

The agreement gives the bank a formal role in carrying the work and advances PesaTech into a new era.

The signing marks a change in who drives the programme.

For three years PesaTech ran as a donor-supported accelerator that trained founders and helped them raise money.

Under the new agreement NMB takes the lead in spotting promising startups, building their commercial side and wiring them into its systems, with UNCDF and the European Union (EU) behind the capital.

The MoU was signed by NMB Chief Technology and Digital Transformation Officer Kwame Makundi, who represented Managing Director Ruth Zaipuna, and UNCDF Executive Secretary Pradeep Kurukulasuriya, who travelled from New York.

Paola Trevisani, head of infrastructure and regional cooperation at the EU delegation to Tanzania and the East African Community, witnessed the signing. The ceremony was held at NMB’s new innovation space on the 11th floor of Morocco Square.

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The deal speaks to a gap that has held the sector back.

Tanzania’s fintech sector has grown quickly, from about 33 startups in 2021 to 79 in 2024, and the country ranked third in Africa for startup fundraising that year.

Yet most of the money went to one company, with the payments firm NALA raising $40 million of the $53 million Tanzanian startups raised over the first nine months of 2024.

Beyond a few names, founders struggle to raise. The head of Sahara Ventures, Jumanne Mtambalike, has said there are almost no early or late-stage investors for startups in the country.

A large bank stepping in offers founders something the market has not, which is reach and a faster route past the regulator.

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PesaTech began in 2022 as a fintech accelerator run by UNCDF and funded by the European Union under its Digital for Tanzania (D4T) programme.

It has so far been delivered with local partners including Sahara Ventures, Anza Entrepreneurs and iPF Softwares. UNCDF says the programme has unlocked more than $13 million in investment and reached over 1.7 million users.

NMB joined from the second cohort, opening its sandbox and its business and legal teams to founders. The third cohort launched in February with a Sh250 million grant for ten companies.

Makundi said the bank’s job in the partnership is to clear the blockers that keep a good idea from reaching the market. Maria Mwamnyala, who manages the partnerships, named the four blockers the programme keeps running into, which are licensing gaps, thin technical capacity, limited funding and unclear paths to customers.

That guidance has produced two regulatory wins.

Amala Technologies secured a Bank of Tanzania payment system provider licence, valid to October 2030, after the NMB team cut an approval that usually takes a year or more down to months.

El-Dizer Financial Services, which runs Chuo Credit, won a Bank of Tanzania letter of no objection for digital lending within a month. The central bank opened a fintech regulatory sandbox in 2024, yet many founders still find the path to a licence slow, which is why a bank willing to vouch for them matters.

Five startups now work directly with the bank, and Mwamnyala walked through where each stands.

Amala is ready to go live inside the bank’s Mkononi app, with an integration that lets it collect payments straight through NMB’s systems.

Chuo Credit is already live on the bank’s rails, letting students repay loans through NMB, and is being added to the app.

Hashtech and EvMak’s Nuvia platform are testing on the app, and Mwamnyala said the team hopes both go live by the end of July.

Dawa Mkononi is in a technical engagement to extend credit to pharmacies and health providers.

Makundi put the bank’s reach behind the pitch. Its network of more than 250 branches, over 75,000 agents and more than 10 million customers gives a young company a market it could not build alone, he said, and a startup that has cleared regulation can connect to the bank in about a month or two.

He noted that 94 percent of the bank’s transactions are now digital and 95 percent of those happen on a phone, which is why NMB rebuilt Mkononi into a super app and launched it on June 16.

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The bank wants to bring more than 30 startups into its operations by 2030 and to reach 20 million customers over the same period. He reminded the ICT ministry’s Sh5 billion startup fund sits at NMB for future disbursement.

Makundi urged founders to build for real problems and to earn the trust of the people they serve.

“Innovation succeeds when it earns customer trust, remains secure and easy to use, and creates lasting value,” he said. He named health, agriculture, education, transport and trade as the sectors with the most room to grow.

Elibariki David Laizer, who founded Chuo Credit, gave the founder’s account.

He started the company in 2021 after watching fellow students struggle while they waited for government loans, and it now runs four financial products, lending students/graduates cash and financing phones and laptops they repay once their disbursements arrive.

Trevisani set the partnership in a wider European bet.

A bank choosing to carry forward work a development partner started is the clearest sign the work holds value in the market, she said, and she hoped the partnership would mark not an ending but a new beginning.

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Kurukulasuriya framed UNCDF’s role as putting capital where it is scarce. The fund’s place in the United Nations lets it back early companies with financial instruments and risk-absorbing capital, he said, and it is set to become the second UN body able to draw on the European Union’s guarantee and loans window, which it wants to use to help NMB extend credit lines.

He called the agreement a move away from project-by-project financing toward a lasting partnership.

“Inclusive economic development is what we all want to see,” he said, before a closing promise to the stakeholders in the room. “We will run as fast as you can run.”

The bank brings weight to the commitment.

NMB reported more than Sh1.8 trillion in revenue and Sh1.1 trillion in pre-tax profit for 2025. This is the highest in its history and the first time a Tanzanian company has crossed that level of profit.

It has set a 2030 roadmap built on expansion at home and in the region, targeting to serve 20 million customers.

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Tanzania’s SMEs and startups increasingly need cybersecurity, cloud services, data storage, APIs, office branch connectivity, and compliance tools, but most cannot afford dedicated IT teams.

Telecom operators are moving into that gap, transforming themselves from internet service providers (ISPs) into digital infrastructure partners.

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That shift is reshaping the country’s telecommunications market and was underscored on May 26, 2026, at the launch of Yas Business, a new enterprise-focused platform by Yas Tanzania aimed at repositioning the company as a full-service digital partner for businesses and government institutions.

The timing reflects a broader structural transition in Tanzania’s economy, where digitization is accelerating faster than many firms can build internal technical capacity.

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For small and medium-sized enterprises, the backbone of employment and private-sector activity, the gap between digital ambition and operational capability is widening.

“The challenge we are facing is the enterprise gap in Tanzania. Connectivity alone is no longer sufficient. We need integrated digital ecosystems,” said Yas Tanzania Chief Executive Officer Pierre Canton-Bacara.

His remarks reflect a growing consensus among telecom operators across Africa: that selling data bundles is no longer enough in markets where businesses increasingly depend on secure, scalable and integrated digital systems.

Axian Telecom, which acquired Tigo Tanzania four years ago, says it has invested about $600 million in upgrading infrastructure and expanding its enterprise capabilities.

“There is no small business. The small business of today is the large enterprise of tomorrow," Canton-Bacara said. “Our duty is to help them scale.”

The infrastructure race beneath the SME economy

Yas Tanzania inherited about 3,200 towers at the time of acquisition, with only roughly 1,000 supporting 4G services according to the company’s Chief Technical and Information Officer Emmanuel Mallya. Since then, Yas has invested more than Sh1 trillion in modernising and expanding its network.

"We have expanded to 4,800 towers across the country. Each of these sites has at least 4G capability,” Mallya said.

He added that the operator now has about 1,000 more towers than its nearest competitor, and has deployed more than 640 5G sites across key urban and regional centres.

Total towers stand at 10,084. However, smartphone penetration remains low at 42.5%, and geographic gaps in high-speed internet persist. Dar es Salaam dominates with 20.6 million lines, while many rural and regional areas lag.

For businesses, the implication is not just faster mobile internet, but broader coverage for operations increasingly spread across multiple regions and supply chains.

Yas also points to its use of the National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB), a 15,000-kilometre fibre network, to support enterprise-grade connectivity solutions, including private networks for sectors such as mining, logistics and ports.

SMEs as the new battleground

From retail chains to logistics firms and tourism operators, businesses are adopting digital payments, cloud-based operations, mobile workforce tools and real-time reporting systems.

Yet most lack internal IT departments capable of managing cybersecurity, integration or compliance requirements.

In effect, telecom operators are beginning to absorb roles traditionally performed by IT service providers.

Industry users say the demand is already evident.

A representative from Yapı Merkezi, the contractor building Tanzania’s Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), said large-scale infrastructure projects depend heavily on reliable digital connectivity across dispersed sites.

The rise of data infrastructure as economic policy

Beyond telecom networks, another layer of infrastructure is emerging as critical: data centres.

Abdul-Rahman Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer of Stellarix Tanzania, said Tanzania’s digital economy will increasingly depend on local data processing and storage capacity as businesses adopt cloud computing and artificial intelligence tools.

“Most people think data centres are just cold rooms with blinking lights. But they are the foundation of economies,” he said.

Stellarix, which operates Tanzania’s first Tier III-certified data centre, plans to expand a national network of facilities across major economic zones, including Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, Mwanza and Arusha.

The argument is increasingly technical but economically significant. Because without local data centres, latency increases, costs rise and advanced digital services such as AI applications and cloud platforms become less efficient.

“You will never realize 5G speeds if the data is not closer to the end user,” Ahmed said.

Government push for digital inclusion

Minister of State in the President’s Office (Planning and Investment), Prof Kitila Mkumbo, linked digital infrastructure directly to Tanzania’s Dira 2050 strategy, which aims to grow the economy from about $95 billion to $1 trillion by 2050.

“Digital connectivity is more than a tool. It is a life by itself,” he said.

According to TCRA data, the market remains competitive, with Yas holding a significant share (~28.5% of SIM cards as of March 2026).

The operator’s focus on QoS (quality of service), rural reach, and integrated services positions it strongly in a market where 4G population coverage stands at 94.3% but effective enterprise-grade performance varies.

Customer experiences presented during the launch highlighted how digital infrastructure is increasingly becoming mission-critical across sectors.

A representative of a tourism and conservation operator said reliable connectivity has transformed operations across lodges, ranger stations and remote conservation areas.

Another representative from the insurance industry said enterprise connectivity has become the backbone of customer service delivery across Tanzania.

Access to enterprise-grade digital infrastructure is lowering barriers to growth and allowing smaller firms to compete in increasingly digital markets. But it is also making businesses more dependent on external providers for functions that have become central to daily operations.

The telecommunications industry’s next growth opportunity, therefore, may not come from connecting more people. It may come from running the digital backbone of the businesses that drive Tanzania’s economy.

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NMB Bank Plc has secured $180 million to expand lending to small businesses, farmers, and women- and youth-led enterprises in Tanzania. The money came from three foreign development financiers and was signed at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali last week.

IFC, the International Finance Corporation, supplied $100 million on its own, signed by IFC regional vice-president for Africa, Ethiopis Tafara.

British International Investment, the UK government’s development finance arm, and Norfund, its Norwegian equivalent, jointly added $80 million, with BII contributing $50 million and Norfund $30 million.

BII’s Africa head Chris Chijiutomi and Norfund’s East Africa director William Nyaoke signed for their institutions. NMB MD and CEO Ruth Zaipuna countersigned both facilities for the bank.

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Half the $80 million from BII and Norfund will be disbursed in Tanzanian shillings rather than dollars. We see this is because the farmers and small traders the facility is meant to reach earn in shillings, and the shilling tends to lose a few percent of its value against the dollar each year.

So a dollar loan to a shilling-earning borrower quietly becomes more expensive over its life, which is why most SMEs in Tanzania have historically been priced out of foreign-currency credit even when banks had it on offer.

BII and Norfund are now absorbing that risk at their level rather than passing it down.

IFC’s $100 million, on the other hand, is a longer-term loan to NMB itself. It’s the kind of capital banks need to extend credit for five or seven years rather than the two or three years that customer deposits can safely support.

This is BII’s second direct backing of NMB, with the first instance being the Jamii Bond in 2023, which BII anchored with $15 million in shilling-denominated investment, alongside IFC as the other anchor.

The Jamii issue raised about $157 million and was East Africa’s first sustainability bond (a category of bond whose proceeds are committed to social and environmental projects).

NMB later cross-listed it on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) and the Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX), opening it to European investors.

The current $80 million extends a working relationship and, with IFC’s $100 million layered on top, opens NMB’s 2026 to 2030 strategic plan with the largest single external capital commitment the bank has ever taken so far.

NMB enters that plan from a strong first quarter.

In the three months to March 2026, the bank posted Sh193 billion ($76 million) in net profit after tax, up from Sh184 billion ($69.7 million) a year earlier.

Total assets stood at Sh17.92 trillion ($7.06 billion), customer deposits at Sh12.69 trillion ($5 billion), and loans at Sh10.75 trillion ($4.23 billion), meaning the bank has already lent out about 85 percent of its deposit base.

That ratio is high by Tanzanian standards and is one practical reason NMB needs wholesale funding from institutions like the IFC to keep growing its loan book without straining deposits.

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Non-performing loans (NPL) sat at 2.6% against a sector average of 6.5%, and every Sh100 of shareholder money in the bank produced about Sh24 of profit over the year. The bank ran 251 branches and 4,148 staff at the end of the quarter.

The wider credit gap is what the new financing aims to fix.

Only 16% of firms in Tanzania have access to a bank loan or credit line, according to the World Bank, which leaves the great majority of small businesses and farms outside the formal credit system.

But the bottleneck has rarely been the willingness of banks to lend. It has been the structure of what they have to lend with.

Deposits can be withdrawn at any time, while a farm or workshop needs a loan that runs for years, and DFI money is one of the few sources of capital that comes in long enough to match.

The $180 million extends NMB’s capacity to lend by roughly the same amount the bank made in profit last quarter.

The Africa CEO Forum is permanently co-hosted by IFC, which has been a partner since the French publisher Jeune Afrique Media Group founded the forum in 2012, which is part of why deals of this kind tend to surface on its sidelines rather than at the bank’s own headquarters.

This year’s edition drew about 2,000 executives from more than 70 countries and six heads of state to Kigali on May 14 and 15, among them Tanzania’s Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba.

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For investors on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange, the facility lands on a stock that has already had a strong year. NMB’s share price has risen about 147% over the past 52 weeks, and the stock trades at roughly 9.6 times its annual earnings.

The Tanzanian market average sits closer to 21 times, although banks generally trade below market multiples in any market, so the gap is partly normal for the sector.

The DSE itself closed the first quarter with the combined market value of all its listed companies at Sh33.44 trillion ($12.8Bn), up nearly 40% on the previous quarter, and the main share index gained 45% year-on-year.

NMB is one of the four or five names that move that index, and a long-dated, partially shilling-denominated facility of this size is the kind of capital structure change that tends to support earnings growth over several years rather than show up in a single quarter.

We’ll continue monitoring what follows.

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Over eight years, Niajiri has grown into a workforce company with more than 72,000 registered jobseekers, alongside an upskilling curriculum, assessments, a CV builder, and recruitment partnerships with companies including CRDB Bank, Coca-Cola, Yas Tanzania, Kamal Group, Coop Bank, Mwanga Hakika Bank, and TIOB.

It was named Best EdTech Startup at the Eastern Africa Startup Awards in 2023 and was first selected into the Digital for Development (D4D) Hub’s Think Like an Investor programme in 2024. In 2026, Niajiri was selected into the cohort again, this time as one of only ten African startups.

In March, the company launched Niajiri Match, a new product in its lineup designed specifically for the employer side of the market. It is priced from TZS 150,000 a month and is available as a web app. The markets the company is opening this year are Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, and South Africa.

Atoms & Bits spoke with Founder-CEO Lillian Secelela Madeje and with Philemon Sengata, who leads digital growth at the company, on April 23. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Reading time: 5 minutes.

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What is Niajiri Match, and where does it sit in the wider Niajiri ecosystem?

Madeje: When people hear applicant tracking system (ATS), they imagine something complex, expensive, and built for corporates with a full HR department. So we took our time listening to our customers, from the big corporates to the one-man-show entrepreneur, when building Niajiri Match.

It is the recruitment side of what we do, packaged so that a business can sign up, post a role, run candidate matching, and manage the talent pipeline themselves. Interested employers can learn more at match.niajiri.africa.

The jobseeker side of our original platform stays as it is, with the upskilling curriculum, the assessments, the CV builder, and the Michongo job board.

Walk us through what an employer actually gets at $58 a month.

Sengata: Ten active job posts in a month, two admin seats, team collaboration, candidate matching against the existing Niajiri database, automated screening, and reporting.

Job posts also appear on the main Niajiri Africa platform. Higher tiers add more posts and seats, bulk SMS and email, advanced analytics, and social media promotion.

Verification services run as add-ons, from national ID and academic certificate checks to international background and criminal record searches. For an employer who does not want to run candidate searches themselves, we have a managed option where Niajiri handles the process and delivers a final shortlist of three top

Most Tanzanian startups and SMEs already hire in some way, even if it is informal. What is the case for using Niajiri Match?

Madeje: If you are an employer, your hiring process probably looks something like this. You post a role on social media or a job portal. CVs arrive in your email inbox or WhatsApp.

You screenshot the promising ones, save them to a folder, maybe add names to a spreadsheet, and then chaos. Who followed up with who? Who was shortlisted? Who is still waiting to hear back? This is how the best of talent ends up at the bottom of the pile.

Globally, the average employer takes 44 days and spends roughly $4,700 to fill a role, and 69% of jobseekers say they would not accept an offer from a company that did not respond during the application process.

The argument is that an employer using a dedicated tool, at a price they can actually afford, runs a more effective process than the WhatsApp-and-spreadsheet method most still use.

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Who is the customer? You have said it is for everyone, but in practice?

Sengata: The whole range, from a company making its first hire to a corporate making its hundredth. The fastest fit is an SME with anywhere from ten to a few hundred staff, including startups, NGOs, development organisations, and franchise businesses.

We already work with larger companies such as CRDB Bank, Coca-Cola, Coop Bank, Insignia, Kamal Group, Yas Tanzania, and the Tanzania Institute of Bankers (TIOB), and they can also use Niajiri Match.

However, procurement cycles in large organisations tend to be longer. For faster, day-to-day onboarding, the SME segment typically moves much more quickly.

On the SME side, we are also serving growing businesses such as Redefine Africa, Shule Yetu, and Fraxen Consult. In Kenya, we work with a franchise business known as Ai-CHA, as well as Cedar Africa.

What problem are you actually solving for the SME owner you are aiming at?

Sengata: There are three things.

The first is too many unqualified CVs. Anyone can publish a job and anyone can apply, but the question is whether you get the right person for that specific role.

The second is long hiring cycles. SMEs and startups do not always have a proper HR function, so the founder ends up being the recruiter. A single role can take anywhere from three weeks to a month to fill. That is valuable productivity time the company is losing.

The third is that the global tools that solve these problems are expensive and not built for most African markets. They do not understand local hiring policies, work-permit rules, or how an SME here actually operates.

How is this different from posting on LinkedIn?

Sengata: As I hinted earlier, LinkedIn is more expensive and not localised for most African markets. Employers can pay anywhere from $200 to $1,000 per job slot per month, or around $10 per day, whereas Niajiri Match starts from $58 per month.

The difference is not just cost but also relevance and accessibility for local hiring needs.

The other piece is distribution.

While global tools rely mainly on algorithm-driven notifications, we go a step further by building customized recruitment campaigns for each role. These campaigns are amplified across our channels, including a WhatsApp community of more than 150,000 members and a combined audience of over 50,000 across Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and Facebook, ensuring roles reach highly relevant, active jobseekers.

Sign-up requires company tax verification. Why?

Sengata: This is part of our standard KYC process. We confirm that a company is properly registered before granting access, which helps protect jobseekers on the platform.

As we expand, we are integrating with verification systems across multiple African markets to ensure the same level of trust and compliance.

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What changes for jobseekers who have been using the platform?

Madeje: Nothing changes for jobseekers. The original platform stays. Niajiri Match runs alongside it on the employer side, and the two feed each other.

A bigger employer base means more jobs flowing through to the candidates already on the consumer platform.

The product was built in-house. What does the team look like and what is next?

Sengata: Yes, the system was built in-house by our engineering team. Our current focus is to help African businesses grow and compete for top talent.

In a world where hiring is everything, the winners will be the companies that move faster, stay organized, and reach the right candidates at exactly the right moment.

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Click here to start using Niajiri Match.

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1. UNDP, WFP, GIZ Want Founders to Apply

Tanzania’s applications window is unusually busy this week.

Four innovation funding calls are open at the same time as a stack of senior hires and an East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) internship cohort, with most deadlines clustered between April 27 and May 31.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is behind two of the calls. The Energy Efficiency Hackathon, run with the Ministry of Energy, the Tanzania Industrial Research and Development Organization (TIRDO), and the Embassy of Ireland under the Ushirikiano wa Kijani project, is taking teams across smart energy monitoring, energy-efficient buildings, and integrated water and energy management, with winners receiving up to Sh10 million and a slot at Innovation Week Tanzania (IWTz) 2026 in June.

The FUNGUO Innovation Programme, co-funded by the European Union, the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), plus Finland, and implemented by UNDP Tanzania with Anza, Westerwelle Startup Haus Arusha (WSHA), StartHub Africa, and COSTECH, opened its GreenCatalyst window on April 14 with catalytic grants of 10 to 100 million shillings for forestry-value-chain MSMEs with offices or operations in Iringa, Njombe, Ruvuma and Lindi, closing May 31.

The World Food Programme (WFP) launched the IGNITE Challenge Tanzania 1.0 with StartHub Africa, putting up to $40,000 in seed funding behind water solutions for school and refugee-camp gardens and nutritious complementary foods for children aged 6 to 59 months. Applications close on May 13.

GIZ Tanzania and the EAC are running the TWT SolutionLab 2026 on May 9 at the Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology (DIT), in partnership with LPdigital and the Digital Transformation Centre Tanzania. The lab is aimed at women innovators across digital safety, agritech, education, health, climate, and sexual and reproductive health rights, with cash prizes, incubation places and entry into the SheTech Incubation Programme on offer.

On the hiring side, AzamPesa is recruiting a Senior Cyber Security Specialist with a five-year experience floor and a brief built around Bank of Tanzania (BoT) regulatory alignment, by May 3.

Green Resources, the forestry group operating across Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique and Kenya, was hiring a Managing Director by April 27. Q-Sourcing Servtec, on the otehr hand, is staffing more than ten internship roles for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. Azam Marine is hiring a Logistics Manager by May 1.

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2. TTCL Swings From $7.3Mn Loss to $9Mn Profit

When Moremi Marwa took over the state-owned telecoms company TTCL in 2024, he came to it from capital markets.

He had spent the previous nine years running the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange, where he took the exchange public in 2016, after earlier roles at Tanzania Securities, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, Barclays, and Bank of Africa Tanzania.

A year and a half into his tenure, TTCL has flipped from a Sh17.9 billion loss to a Sh22.9 billion profit on its 2024/25 books.

Revenue rose 30% to Sh220 billion, and what the company owes suppliers fell from 160 billion to under 100 billion. The Citizen reported the figures on Saturday, citing the latest Controller and Auditor General (CAG) report.

Cleaning up the books was the first half of the job. Marwa is now putting capital into the network.

TTCL plans 1,400 new mobile towers in two waves of 626 and 850 over the 2025/26 and 2026/27 financial years, and is rolling its Faiba Mlangoni Kwako home fibre product out across Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Dodoma, Mwanza, Geita, Iringa and Mbeya, targeting one million connected homes by 2027.

The build-out has to happen without losing the wholesale customers that have always paid TTCL’s bills.

The other Tanzanian telcos rent space on the National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) TTCL owns, which reaches 121 of 139 mainland districts.

Marwa spent Sunday in Geita and Mwanza, inspecting NICTBB stations to “ensure the Corporation delivers high-quality and reliable communication services,” TTCL reported.

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3. SmartLab, Climate KIC Close Third ClimAccelerator Cohort with Country’s First Climate Innovation Expo

Tanzania held its first Climate Innovation Expo in Dar es Salaam on April 22. The event closed the third cohort of the Adaptation and Resilience ClimAccelerator, run by SmartLab and Climate KIC, and drew 180 attendees.

Earlier cohorts had wrapped at closed demo days.

The 26 exhibitors spanned the current cohort, alumni from earlier rounds, and Climate-KIC's wider Tanzanian portfolio. Agrimwendo, Plant Natural Feed and Ubuntu AfyaLink pitched from the stage; Wakulima Agrifood, Dream Bees, Asilia Mbolea, Shamba Direct, Twiga Architec, Miracula Plastics and Green Composting filled out the cohort floor.

Alumni included Rada 360, the AI and satellite weather service that won €10,000 at last April’s demo day; MazaoHub, the Dar agritech that closed a $2 million pre-seed in September led by Catalyst Fund; HERVEG.05, the climate-resilient vegetable venture; and Kilimo Smart.

Circular-economy and clean-energy stands ran from Nishati Eco, Kapok Collective and Cutoff Recycle to Makonda Renewable Tech, Maoric Investments, Safesip and Sea Blue Innovators.

Climate KIC’s portfolio organisations brought Climate Hub Tanzania, which turns paper waste, charcoal dust and cow dung into fuel briquettes, and ECCT, whose Eco Warriors programme turns textile waste into fashion.

EmpowerHer, New Light Children Centre Organization and Lima Africa exhibited from the youth and community-led side.

Larry Ayo, business director at SmartLab, opened the morning. “Africa does not have a shortage of climate ideas,” he told the audience. “We have a shortage of climate businesses that scale.”

Three current-cohort founders pitched.

William Mdemu built Agrimwendo around the gap between Tanzania’s one agronomist per 2,800 farmers and the World Bank's threshold of one per 500. “In Tanzania, being a farmer is like being thrown into the mouths of sharks,” he said.

Regina Mushi of Plant Natural Feed walked through her four-year path from a 2022 Sokoine Agricultural University (SUA) research partnership to her first $50,000 in revenue in 2024, on a biochar that traps 2.2 tons of carbon per ton produced.

Anody Kaihula founded Ubuntu AfyaLink after a generator ran out of fuel mid-delivery in a maternity ward.

“You can't treat what you can't see,” he told the room. Ubuntu AfyaLink now runs solar systems in thirteen rural health facilities, designed around the specific services each clinic needs to keep running.

The afternoon panel turned to climate finance. ActionAid’s Happy Itros, Tanzania’s COP30 delegate on adaptation, said the current funding system rewards compliance over substance and crowds out adaptation work because it takes time to show returns.

“If our funding system awards compliance, awards polished projects that can speak the language of investors and donors, then we are leaving behind a huge number of innovators,” she said.

CRDB’s Ramla Msuya pointed to existing capital. The bank, Tanzania’s only Green Climate Fund-accredited institution, runs a $200 million agriculture adaptation window co-financed with the GCF.

Its 2023 Kijani Bond raised Sh172 billion against a Sh55 billion target at a 10.25% coupon.

Hatch Blue’s Shamim Wasii Nyanda, whose €150 million VC backs seafood and aquaculture, said most early-stage pitches do not yet show the revenue and scalability investors look for. "Young people in the country are being over-capacitated, over-empowered, but underfunded," she said.

COSTECH’s Gerald Kafuku said the agency lends through CRDB at 11% with no collateral, up to Sh300 million per company, and the facility is underused because applicants do not have proven products.

“We have not solved one thing, and it’s rarely spoken,” he said. “People don’t talk about product design and development and mass production.” The bottleneck, he said, is tooling capacities such as welding, casting, forging, materials engineering.

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4. President Samia Names Mwasalyanda to Run TCRA

President Samia Suluhu Hassan named Engineer Peter Mwasalyanda Director General of TCRA on Friday, ending Dr. Jabiri Bakar”

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4. President Samia Names Mwasalyanda to Run TCRA

President Samia Suluhu Hassan named Engineer Peter Mwasalyanda Director General of TCRA on Friday, ending Dr. Jabiri Bakar”

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4. President Samia Names Mwasalyanda to Run TCRA

President Samia Suluhu Hassan named Engineer Peter Mwasalyanda Director General of TCRA on Friday, ending Dr. Jabiri Bakari’s term.

Mwasalyanda was running the Universal Communications Service Access Fund (UCSAF), where coverage of Tanzanians went from 45% in 2006 to 98%. Bakari moves to head the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA).

5. Dangote Pledges 650,000 Barrel Tanga Refinery With Kenya and Uganda Backing

Aliko Dangote told the Africa We Build Summit in Nairobi on Wednesday he will build a 650,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Tanga within five years, with Presidents Ruto of Kenya and Museveni of Uganda backing the plan.

Dangote also proposes a Mombasa-to-Tanga crude pipeline to feed it.

Tanga is where the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) ends, now 79% built and on track for first oil in October 2026.

6. JDE Peet’s, Tchibo and Louis Dreyfus Map Six East African Coffee Belts

JDE Peet’s, Tchibo and Louis Dreyfus launched the Coffee Canopy Partnership on April 22 to map coffee farms in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi for forest loss using Airbus satellite imagery.

The European Union (EU) Deforestation Regulation requires traders to prove no produce comes from land cleared after 31 December 2020. This is the cut-off Tanzanian arabica and robusta growers must meet to keep selling to European buyers.

7. Manufacturing Africa Graduates First Tanzania Group From Green Business Accelerator

Manufacturing Africa graduated its first all-Tanzania group from the Green Business Building accelerator last week.

Beneficiaries include Lishe360 (digital nutrition education and fortified foods), Zaidi Recyclers (app-led waste recovery), Aquacom (solar-powered aquaculture systems), Afya Lead (local medical manufacturing) and Roverlabs (3D-printed custom limbs).

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) programme has worked with 46 green manufacturers across Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda since launch on aquaculture, agroprocessing, packaging, clean energy, waste management and biochar.

8. Google Picks Tanzania’s Safiri for 10th Africa Accelerator Group

Google announced its 10th Africa accelerator group last Wednesday, picking 15 startups out of 2,600 applicants.

Safiri, a Tanzanian platform that builds digital systems for moving people and goods around Africa, is in the group. The programme runs from April 13 to June 19.

9. VC4A Holds Tanzania Pitch Competition on East African Tour

VC4A held its Tanzania pitch competition in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday, as part of the local stops on an East African tour from April 19 to 29 that also went to Nairobi, Kampala and Kigali. More than 10 startups competed for a 100,000 euro matching grant and technical help.

10. Tanzania Standard Newspapers Opens Mwanza Youth Investment Forum

State-owned TSN launched Jukwaa la Wazi Fungua Fursa in Mwanza on Friday, a youth and investment forum that brings loan applications, financial literacy classes, health insurance sign-up and farming consultations into one place.

Mwanza Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS) Elikana Balandya opened the launch.

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NMB Bank Plc has collected approximately $4 billion in public revenue for the Government of Tanzania since 2018.

Innocent Enock Yonazi. (CBCP), the bank's Director of Investor Relations, Sustainability and Corporate Communications, disclosed the figure on Tuesday in Arusha, where local government leaders had gathered for an Association of Local Authorities of Tanzania (ALAT) special meeting to elect new leadership.

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The Sh9.8 trillion he reported passed through NMB's platforms via GePG, the electronic payment gateway Parliament made mandatory through a 2017 amendment to the Public Finance Act, which now routes every tax, permit and fee paid to a public institution.

NMB was the first bank to integrate with GePG in 2018. By 2023, more than 1,100 government bodies were collecting their revenue through its platforms.

A 2021 study published in the East African Journal of Science, Technology and Innovation found GePG raised total government revenue by 44.3% and cut collection costs by 27.1% between 2015/16 and 2019/20.

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Yonazi also told delegates the bank now operates in over 3,000 villages and has added more than two million new accounts. Its asset base grew from Sh7.1 trillion in 2020 to Sh17.2 trillion in 2025, a 142 percent jump, and profit before tax crossed Sh1.1 trillion.

Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba opened the meeting with a focus on Tanzania's plan to grow into a trillion-dollar economy in 25 years (Vision 2050).

He cautioned local authorities against squeezing businesses too hard for revenue, because private enterprise is meant to drive seventy percent of that economy.

Tuesday is here. MoneyGram picked NALA as its African and Asian stablecoin partner on April 17, eight years after the company was founded in Dar es Salaam.

The Bank of Tanzania published draft cybersecurity rules after a Sh147.5 billion card-cloning fraud pushed several banks into court.

Vodacom switched on M-Pesa Fintech 2.0 at the start of April with capacity for 86 million transactions a day.

Seven more stories and two events follow.

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1. MoneyGram Names NALA as Its Stablecoin Partner for Africa and Asia

MoneyGram said on April 17 it will handle its payouts across Africa and Asia through NALA, the Tanzania-founded cross-border payments startup, using stablecoins for settlement in place of its existing network of partner banks.

The deal runs MoneyGram’s flows through Rafiki, the NALA-built platform that holds the licences to move money between digital dollars and local currencies and that plugs into banks and mobile money operators in ten countries.

NALA was founded by Benjamin Fernandes in Dar es Salaam in 2017 and went through Y Combinator in 2022.

Rafiki launched in January and pays out into M-Pesa, Airtel Money, and bank accounts in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Under the agreement, MoneyGram’s retail and business customers will settle through the same rails in near real time.

African central banks have been cautious about stablecoin settlement since the 2022 collapse of FTX erased roughly $9 billion of customer funds.

The MoneyGram-NALA agreement is among the first large commercial deployments of stablecoin settlement for African payouts.

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2. BoT Drafts Cybersecurity Rules Placing Personal Liability on Bank Directors

The Bank of Tanzania has circulated draft cybersecurity rules that require directors of banks, microfinance companies and payment firms to personally approve their institution’s cybersecurity strategy, policies, procedures, and minimum controls.

The draft follows a Sh147.5 billion card-cloning fraud that the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau has referred to court.

Licensed firms will have to run vulnerability scans every quarter and full penetration tests every year, through firms accredited by the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA).

Multi-factor authentication becomes compulsory for staff accounts, remote-access sessions, high-risk transactions, and customer-facing applications. The draft is issued under the Banking and Financial Institutions Act and the National Payment Systems (NPS) Act.

Individual directors carry personal responsibility for the adoption of the controls. The draft is open for public comment and the central bank has said it intends to publish the final rules before October.

3. Vodacom Completes 15-Month Rebuild of M-Pesa Platform

Vodacom Tanzania completed a 15-month rebuild of its M-Pesa platform in the early hours of 30 March, moving the service off its previous software, called G2, onto a new system it calls Fintech 2.0.

Vodacom said Fintech 2.0 supports live updates. On G2, the company had to take M-Pesa offline between midnight and four in the morning to push any significant update.

The $28 million rebuild sits inside a wider $100 million modernization programme Vodacom announced in September to mark 25 years of operations in Tanzania.

Tap-to-pay went live alongside the migration, which Vodacom said makes Tanzania the first country on the continent where M-Pesa supports contactless payments.

The M-Pesa product team can now release features to specific regions or customer segments without a nationwide rollout. Future products from M-Pesa Africa, the group-wide unit, can now also be built on the Tanzania platform first.

Vodacom said G2 had reached the end of its vendor support, could not be expanded to meet projected growth, and would not have handled the load implied by a Tanzanian population that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) expects to roughly double by 2050.

Fintech 2.0 can process more than 1,000 transactions a second and currently carries 30 million M-Pesa customers and around 600,000 registered merchants.

Vodacom rehearsed the cutover three times before going through with it, the last dress rehearsal on March 22. Hundreds of engineering and operations staff were on site in Dar on the night of the migration.

Vodacom Tanzania now leads the Vodacom Group on customer data protection and platform controls, Mlinga said. The company runs 10 to 15 graduate engineers through an internal training programme each year.

“We have become a hunting ground,” Mlinga said, naming Tanzanian financial institutions, other African markets, and Vodacom sister companies as the destinations for Vodacom staff and alumni of their trainee programme.

Lesotho’s M-Pesa unit went through a similar platform migration in 2025. Vodacom Mozambique is next in the group sequence.

Vodacom said the largest remaining fraud risk on M-Pesa is social engineering, in which fraudsters impersonate agents or relatives to trick customers into sending money or disclosing PINs, rather than direct platform compromise. Even Huawei engineers access the platform only on request, with each session tracked.

M-Pesa Director Epimack Mbeteni believes that while his team continues to invest heavily in consumer awareness regarding digital safety, the time it takes for these lessons to become common practice is the most gradual factor in their fight against fraud.

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4. State Accepts Handover of 1,100 Kilometres of Fibre and 758 New Telecom Towers

President Samia Suluhu Hassan on April 10 accepted the handover of more than 1,100 kilometres of national fibre and 758 new telecom towers from a consortium of telecom operators at the Jakaya Kikwete Convention Centre (JKCC) in Dodoma. The infrastructure was built under a long-standing public-private arrangement and has now been transferred to the government as part of the National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB).

TTCL director general Moremi Marwa told the President that the backbone now reaches every region of the country and 82 percent of districts. Yas Tanzania, the rebranded Tigo operator, delivered 261 of the new towers and said it has completed the upgrade of its 2G footprint to 4G.

According to data from the TCRA, 4G population coverage reached 94.21 percent at the end of December 2025, up from 50.4 percent in 2021. 5G covers 26 percent of the population and 3.6 percent of the country’s land area. Tanzania has 92.7 million mobile subscriptions.

5. Tanzania Asks Meta and UNESCO to Treat Kiswahili as a Primary Platform Language

Tanzania’s Minister of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports Paul Makonda said on April 13 that his ministry has opened formal discussions with UNESCO and Meta to secure first-class support for Kiswahili on Meta’s platforms. Makonda said the ministry would put similar requests to OpenAI, Google, and other global platforms.

Meta operates Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads, which together reach more than 3 billion monthly active users. According to the ministry, Meta currently treats Kiswahili as a secondary locale in its advertising, search, and content-moderation systems.

First-class support would affect ad targeting, content ranking, and moderation treatment for more than 200 million Kiswahili speakers across Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

UNESCO launched an online English-Kiswahili AI dictionary last year. Tanzania completed a national AI readiness assessment with UNESCO support earlier in the quarter.

6. Government Opens Dedicated Capital Line for Youth-Owned Tech Startups

President Samia on April 10 in Dodoma announced a dedicated capital line for youth-owned startups, to be administered through the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT). The fund will support founders working in telecoms, education, health, and e-commerce. The Presidency did not disclose the allocation amount.

The announcement follows a Sh200 billion cheque delivered by Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba to the Ministry of State for Youth Development in February, which operates through loan guarantees.

The new MICT-administered line differs in being targeted specifically at technology founders. However, the government has not yet published ticket sizes, eligibility criteria, or disbursement timelines.

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7. COSTECH and Sahara Ventures Launch Tanzania Ventures Lab With 1,000-Startup Target by 2029

COSTECH and Sahara Ventures have launched the Tanzania Ventures Lab, a four-year programme targeting approximately 1,000 high-growth startups between 2026 and 2029.

The programme plans to admit about 250 founders per year across energy, mining, tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, and emerging technologies including artificial intelligence.

Implementation runs through a public-private partnership (PPP). COSTECH contributes its innovation arms, the Dar Teknohama Business Incubator (DTBi) and the Buni Innovation Hub.

Meanwhile, Sahara Ventures manages the acceleration work and continues to operate its IEEP programme in partnership with AiDiA and GIZ, which sends Tanzanian founders to Hamburg for commercial engagement.

Selected startups receive technical mentorship, business-development support, and access to government-backed innovation funds.

The 1,000-startup target, if met, would roughly double the current reported base of over 1,041 Tanzanian startups on the Tanzania Startup Association’s (TSA) books. Of that current base, only about ten percent of companies have raised outside capital, according to some estimates.

8. Madica Invests $200,000 in Kilimo Fresh Alongside Kenya and Nigeria Cheques

Madica, the structured pre-seed programme backed by Flourish Ventures, disclosed on April 15 a $600,000 deployment across three African startups.

Kilimo Fresh of Tanzania, Hakimu of Kenya, and Biovana of Nigeria each received up to $200,000 in seed capital and entry into an 18-month programme of executive coaching, mentorship, and immersion visits to global technology hubs.

Kilimo Fresh operates a business-to-business (B2B) produce marketplace that sources from smallholder farmers in Tanzania and sells to business buyers. Madica said its investment thesis targets founders it considers underserved by mainstream venture capital.

Madica also published a 75-page fundraising guidebook this week for early-stage African founders preparing a first institutional raise. The guide is available to download at no cost.

9. Finance Minister Omar Pitches Tanzanian Tech to US Investors at BCIU in Washington

Minister of Finance Ambassador Khamis Mussa Omar on April 17 led a Tanzanian delegation to a Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU) investment forum in Washington, held on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) Winter Meetings.

Omar told US investors that demand for digital services in Tanzania is creating opportunities in technology, innovation, and telecommunications.

He cited foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows of $1.72 billion in 2024, up from $1.34 billion in 2023, a 28.3 percent year-on-year increase published by Planning Minister Prof. Mkumbo earlier this month.

Omar also said the Tanzania Investment and Special Economic Zones Authority (TISEZA), which replaced the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) in July 2025, had registered 2,020 projects worth $23.67 billion between March 2021 and February 2025, with 523,000 jobs attached.

10. Microfinance Technology Summit Opens in Dar With Bank of Tanzania as Co-Host

The 4th Microfinance Technology Summit opened earlier this month at Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre (JNICC) in Dar es Salaam.

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) was a co-host, alongside the Association of Microfinance Institutions in Rwanda (AMIR), the Tanzania Association of Microfinance Institutions (TAMFI), and the Tanzania Microfinance Non-Deposit Taking Union.

Delegates came from more than 15 countries. Regulators attending included counterparts from Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Senegal, Nigeria, and Kenya. Fintech vendors attending include MVend, Orion Systems, Energize Global Services, WIZER, Eclectics International, Peerless, ADFinance, PCES, and Qlana.

The programme included a compliance review of Tanzanian digital lenders against the Tier 2 microfinance rules the Bank of Tanzania issued last year. A separate session covered interoperability between microfinance back-office systems and mobile money platforms.

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The Capital Markets and Securities Authority (CSMA) has opened public comment on draft private equity and venture capital regulations, and separately on draft rules for a supervised testing programme for new fintech products.

Final publication is expected within the quarter. A Fund Management Licence will be required for any fund operating as a private equity or venture capital vehicle in Tanzania.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and the National Bank of Rwanda ( signed a memorandum of understanding in March on fintech licence passporting. Under the arrangement, a fintech licensed in either country will be able to operate in the other without a new licensing process.

The memorandum sits inside the East African Community Cross-Border Payment System Masterplan approved in May 2025. Tanzania is not part of the initial phase.

NALA has a separate plan reported by PYMNTS to raise 120 million US dollars. The company is offering a 10 to 15 percent equity stake, implying a valuation between 800 million and 1.2 billion US dollars. The round has not closed.

1st Tanzania Annual Data Privacy Conference 2026

The Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC), which sits under the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT), is hosting Tanzania’s first Annual Data Privacy Conference at Mlimani City Conference Centre (MCCC) in Dar es Salaam from June 29 to July 1, 2026.

Director General Dr. Emmanuel L. Mkilia confirmed the new dates in a letter on April 15, relocating the conference from its original April 21 to 23 slot following requests from newly registered Data Protection Officers (DPOs) for additional preparation time.

The three-day programme covers compliance with the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), digital trust, responsible innovation, and data governance for Vision 2050.

The participation fee is TZS 1,000,000 per person, covering the conference only, not accommodation or meals. Registration closes on June 25, 2026 through the Government Training and Seminars Management System at tsms.gov.go.tz or through pdpc.go.tz. Information at conference@pdpc.go.tz. Sponsorship at sponsorship@pdpc.go.tz.

Tanzania Investment Summit 2026

The Tanzania Investment Growth Facility (TIGF) is running the Tanzania Investment Summit 2026 at the Gran Melia Hotel in Arusha from 3 to 5 June 2026, under the theme Unlocking Bankable Opportunities for Inclusive Growth.

The format is deal-focused, with 8 to 10 large-scale projects worth approximately $100 million in combined value on offer across tourism, transport, renewable energy, water, blue economy, and agro-processing. Registration and detail at tigf.or.tz.

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PARTNER MESSAGE

On April 18, FursaHub joins COSOTA, the Ministry of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports; NEDC; and financial institutions to co-host the National Royalty Distribution and Content Creator Loans Ceremony at JNICC.

Tanzanian artists will receive their copyright earnings, and content creators will access new loans. Guest of honor: H.E. President Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan.

Register at luma.com/8aq3f24u.

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Atoms & Bits spoke exclusively with Musa Mishamo, Founder CEO of Dar-based Rada 360, about his space tech startup’s new satellite imagery marketplace, why Africa remains underserved by global satellite operators, and where a projected Sh26 billion Tanzanian market sits today. Our conversation took place virtually on March 21.

Rada builds tools that turn satellite images into usable information for farmers, mining companies, constructors, banks, government agencies, and researchers.

The company started in precision agriculture and has since moved into mining surveys, flood monitoring, urban planning, and environmental analysis.

Last month, it launched Rada Monitor, a platform for ordering and analyzing satellite imagery that Mishamo says is the “first” of its kind operated from Africa. Both questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

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Rada Monitor just launched. What problem does it solve?

After we put our agriculture product on the market last year, we started hearing from people in completely different industries. Mining companies wanted terrain models. Surveyors needed updated imagery for land projects. Environmental groups wanted to track deforestation. And so forth.

They all had the same frustration. There was no straightforward way to buy satellite imagery in Africa. The existing marketplaces were all run from the US or Europe.

With Rada Monitor, anyone on the continent can now go to our platform, define the area they want to see, and order either the raw image or a full analysis.

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How does it actually work when someone places an order?

There are two paths. The first is what we call archive.

Satellites photograph the earth constantly and store those images. If we already have a recent image of the area you need, we pull it and deliver it.

The second path is tasking. That means no suitable image exists in storage, so we ask one of our satellite partners to redirect a satellite to pass over your location and capture a new one.

For example, a customer in Zanzibar recently needed detailed imagery of an airport site because the government was planning construction and needed to assess land compensation. We found a high-resolution image from December in our archive and that was enough. If we had not found it, we would have tasked a satellite to make a fresh pass.

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You work with more than ten satellite providers. Why so many?

Most satellite companies do not treat Africa as a commercial priority. There are fewer paying customers here than in Europe or North America, so the continent gets less attention and less frequent coverage.

If one provider cannot get us what a customer needs, we go to the next. We work with Planet Labs in the US, StarVision in China, a German firm that specializes in detecting wildfires from space, and several others. The variety keeps our options open and our pricing competitive.

A lot of people would hear this and wonder why they cannot just use Google Earth.

That’s a fair question. Google Earth uses imagery from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel satellites, which capture at ten-meter resolution. Ten meters means one pixel on your screen covers a ten-by-ten-meter square on the ground.

For basic viewing that works fine, but if you need to distinguish tobacco from maize on a farm, or assess individual buildings on a construction site, you need images where a single pixel covers one meter or less. That level of detail only comes from commercial satellites, which is what we source.

The other limitation is that Google Earth Engine requires programming skills. A surveyor or agricultural officer who has never written code cannot use it. Our platform is designed so that anyone can place an order and receive a usable result without technical training.

Can you walk us through a real example where this approach made a measurable difference?

A PhD researcher at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) needed to study tobacco farms in Tabora.

She was building a model that would allow banks to assess whether individual farmers were good candidates for loans or insurance, based on how much land they farm, where it is, and how well the crop is growing.

Without us, she would have driven from Arusha to Tabora, hired drone operators, and mapped seven villages on the ground over roughly six months. We analyzed satellite imagery of all seven villages in two days and delivered maps showing exactly where tobacco was planted and where it was not.

What about outside of research?

In mining, companies routinely need three-dimensional terrain models of their sites for survey and planning purposes.

A traditional ground survey for that kind of work runs around $8,000. We produced the same output from satellite data for $1,800. We are also running a wildfire monitoring pilot on Mount Kilimanjaro using a satellite provider that detects heat signatures from orbit.

And we have flood monitoring projects in Mwanza and Rufiji where we track water levels and affected areas after heavy rains.

You mentioned land management. What does that look like?

This is one of the areas with the most potential in Tanzania. We are in conversation with the Dar es Salaam City Council about using satellite imagery to detect unauthorized construction.

How? You compare images of the same area taken months apart and the system flags where new buildings have appeared in zones that are not approved for development.

In rural areas, there is the long-running conflict between farmers and pastoralists over land boundaries. Satellite imagery can produce clear demarcation that both sides and the authorities can refer to.

We are also looking at combining satellite data with sensors on the ground in conservation areas so that when someone or an animal crosses into a restricted zone, the relevant authorities receive an alert automatically.

Agriculture is still your main business?

Yes. Rada Agriculture is now on its third version. The first gave farmers visibility into how their crops were performing, where water stress was highest, and where soil nutrition was low.

It also generated maps that recommend exactly how much fertilizer to apply in different parts of a single farm rather than spreading the same amount everywhere.

Version two added the ability to predict yields before harvest and to distinguish between different crops planted in the same field, which matters because many Tanzanian farmers grow maize and beans together.

Version three, released this year, added flood and drought prediction. That feature came directly from banks and insurance companies who want to understand climate risk across their lending portfolios before a growing season starts.

So, who pays for it?

Farmers use it directly for planning. But the bigger commercial clients are financial institutions. Every five days, when a new satellite image arrives, they can see how a farm they have lent against or insured is actually performing.

That is near-real-time verification of an asset that used to be invisible to them between site visits.

Interesting. How big is this market?

We estimate the Tanzanian market alone at around $10 million. Large mining companies already spend on satellite data, but most surveyors, urban planners, government agencies, and agricultural businesses are not buying yet.

The main reason is that they do not know the option exists at these prices. Once you move across the border into Kenya, Zambia, and the rest of East and Southern Africa, the opportunity multiplies. We are already processing requests from Zambia and Nigeria.

What recognition has Rada received?

We won the Africa Earth Observation Challenge in Nairobi in December. We hold partnerships with both the African Space Agency and the European Space Agency, with a major joint project planned for this year.

And we have a memorandum of understanding with Tanzania’s Ministry of ICT. We are in active discussions with other government institutions as well, though I cannot go into detail on those.

What comes next?

Three priorities over the next three years.

First is Rada Space Lab, which will offer broader applications across the space industry and support our work with the ICT Ministry on awareness and training for both government and private sector.

Second is a 3D platform that uses AI and satellite data to monitor forests, aimed at conservation and regulatory compliance.

Then we’ll have Rada Climate, a dedicated platform that brings together climate analytics for decision-makers dealing with drought, flooding, and long-term environmental change.

Musa Mishamo studied agricultural engineering at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and worked at Trimble Inc. and Leica Geosystems before founding Rada 360.

He represents Eastern Africa at the International Society for Precision Agriculture and sits on the board of the African Association for Precision Agriculture. Rada also operates Kilimanjaro Planetarium, Tanzania’s first space-themed STEM education facility (which we covered in May 2023).

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We tracked the state of Tanzania’s tech ecosystem to help you uncover trends, patterns, and cross-cutting themes that can inform your career and business decisions as you enter the 12th week of the year.

Acting first on these ten headlines can be your competitive advantage.

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1. Snippe Surpasses 16,000 Transactions in 30 Days Following Launch

When Atoms & Bits first broke news of Neurotech’s second product (Ghala) in November 2024, the startup had only just recently enabled Azam Marine passengers to book tickets via WhatsApp.

The company was evolving from operating as an AI consulting firm (in 2021) to a tech start-up helping African developers build chatbots through its first platform Sarufi, which went live in August 2022.

Neurotech’s third product, Snippe, is a payment infrastructure tool that lets businesses accept mobile money, card, and QR code payments and send payouts to multiple Tanzanian bank accounts through a single API, similar in concept to how Stripe works in Western markets.

A merchant can generate a payment link i.e., snippe.me/pay/username and share it anywhere without needing a website or checkout page. Transaction fees are 2% for mobile money and QR, 3% for card, and Sh1,500 per withdrawal.

According to figures shared with Atoms & Bits, Snippe processed over 16,000 payments worth Sh50 million in its first 30 days.

Early reaction from the developer community has been enthusiastic. “Caleb is building Stripe for Tanzania and I love it,” one developer wrote on X.

Isaiah Nyalali, a wireless engineer at Huawei, flagged what he considers the real test for any payment platform: payout speed.

“If it takes more than 60 seconds to withdraw funds…. run for the hills because it will never get better,” he wrote, before noting that Snippe sends funds directly to Selcom Pesa at no charge.

According to CEO Kalebu Gwalugano, Neurotech is now cementing its status at “the intersection of artificial intelligence, commerce, and financial inclusion,” with a vision of “empowering every African business with Al-driven tools.”

Companies and freelancers looking to improve how they accept payments can sign up at snippe.sh.

Serengeti Angels and Germany’s develoPPP Ventures already joined an ongoing $200K funding round for Neurotech, which remains open to additional participants.

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2. Selcom Pesa Adds Monthly Transaction Bundles Costing Sh50,000 to Sh200,000

One of the country’s cheapest ways to move money may now be not so cheap. Operated by Selcom Microfinance Bank (SMFB), Selcom Pesa has ended its 5 Kwa Jero campaign which charged Sh500 per five transactions below Sh1 million conducted within 24 hours.

Daily bundles now start at Sh1,000 for 7 transactions below Sh1 million. Weekly and standard monthly subscription rates remain unaffected at Sh2,500 and Sh10,500 respectively.

The three new plans extend what Selcom Pesa already offers, for users whose transaction volumes or amounts have outgrown the existing bundles.

But the wider problem is that all mobile money wallets in Tanzania stop at Sh5 million per transaction and Sh10 million in the wallet, pushing anyone who regularly exceeds those amounts onto internet banking.

And that is where Bando Poa, Bando Bomba, and Bando Max come in, costing 50K, 100K, and 200K shillings respectively, each running for 30 days with no ceiling on transaction value.

A business or individual moving Sh50 million in a single transfer pays Sh4,000 on Bando Poa, Sh2,500 on Bando Bomba, and Sh1,500 on Bando Max.

Each subscription costs twice the previous one but saves you 37% less per transfer than the one before it.

To figure out which plan fits your cash flow, download your mobile money and bank statements and check how much you spend on transaction charges each month.

Bando Poa saves you money if your current fees exceed Sh100,000, Bando Bomba if they exceed Sh200,000, and Bando Max if they exceed Sh400,000.

However, for the absolute cheapest way to spend money in Tanzania at the moment, you can also consider setting up your AzamPesa account.

According to a 2021 study from Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), Tanzania has the highest mobile money fees in the world despite having more competing networks than almost any other market.

AzamPesa launched a campaign called Ziro Kote Kote last month to address that. It makes transfers to any network, bill payments, government payments, and all Azam services including TV and marine completely free.

“If you keep paying high prices, they will keep charging you,” says Firas Ahmad, Group CEO at AzamPay and Director at AzamPesa.

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3. Dar es Salaam Is Getting Its First Daladala Booking App in April

Serengeti Bytes plans to go live with Daladala Smart in the first week of April, five years after the company began building it.

The innovation is driven by the fact minibuses that carry most of Dar es Salaam residents daily have never had fixed schedules, digital payments, or any way for a passenger to know when the next one arrives.

Daladala Smart lets passengers book seats, pay via M-Pesa, Airtel Money, Mixx by Yas, or HaloPesa, and track their bus in real time through a QR code at boarding.

It launches with five routes across Dar, with fares starting at Sh1,000 for Tegeta-City Center and Sh1800 for City Center-Kigamboni trips. This move comes before the company targets other African cities.

“Dar es Salaam is where we start. But this problem exists in Nairobi, Kampala, Kigali, Accra, Lagos. We are building for that scale from day one,” says Kennedy Mmari, founder and CEO of Serengeti Bytes.

This product arrives as the transport tech sector draws wider attention. Electronic ticketing already exists for upcountry buses, where startups like Otapp and Busbora have already begun issuing e-tickets under LATRA supervision, but the regulator is only now engaging stakeholders about extending the same system to minibus share taxis (aka dala dalas).

Edwin Urasa, CEO of Creditinfo Tanzania, sees another opportunity in the data Daladala Smart will generate, saying it could eventually help bus operators who have never had a formal earnings record to access credit for the first time.

Alvin Mrema, a software engineer who reviewed the announcement, called it “a real pain” that finally has a solution. The company is open to investor conversations.

Daladala Smart is already available on Google Play and the App Store for early access.

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IN OTHER NEWS

4. Startups Set to Get Their Own Legal Category Under New Policy

The Tanzania Startup Association (TSA) has submitted recommendations to the government for Tanzania’s first National Startup Policy, following a review session last week in Dar es Salaam that brought together founders, lawyers, and investors.

Under current law, startups and ordinary SMEs are registered the same way, making it difficult for the government to design financing or procurement rules that apply specifically to fast-growing tech companies.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), which is developing the policy through a national consultation process, will create a formal definition of what qualifies as a startup and build a separate regulatory track for companies that fit it.

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5. Lemonade Payments is Hiring a Business Development Manager

The Baobab-backed Kenyan fintech that lets customers pay merchants anonymously is expanding into Tanzania and needs someone to sign up merchants, retailers, and distributors. The role reports to the CEO.

This expansion follows a similar move earlier this year when Lemonade added a Business Development Manager in Uganda as part of its broader push into East Africa. Notably, the startup’s investor, Baobab, is already active in the region, having also backed the Tanzanian fintech Swahilies.

Lemonade added a Business Development Manager in Uganda earlier this year as it pushes deeper into East Africa.

If you’re interested in the BDM role, you can apply by March 23 to people@mylemonade.io.

6. Dar to Host the 1st Tanzania Annual Data Privacy Conference

The Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) is convening policymakers, regulators, and private sector leaders at Mlimani City Conference Hall from April 21 to 23.

The conference will focus on compliance with Tanzania’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) and data governance.

Registration closes April 20. Participation costs Sh1,000,000. For inquiries, contact +255 753 459 155.

7. NileAGI Prices its Offline AI Assistant at Sh5,000 a Month for Individuals

The Dar-based startup’s product, Delta, runs AI models, processes documents, and answers questions entirely on your device without an internet connection or external servers.

It works on Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it practical for areas with unreliable connectivity. Enterprise plans covering up to 10 devices start at Sh500K a month. Download at delta.nileagi.com.

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8. TTCL Launches Home Fiber Packages with Speeds up to 250 Mbps

The Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation’s new Faiba service brings fiber internet directly to homes and offices, with packages starting at 60 Mbps.

Yas is also expanding on the ground, with Atoms & Bits observing the operator laying fiber lines this week in several Ubungo Riverside neighborhoods.

Fiber home connections account for fewer than 125,000 of Tanzania’s 58 million internet subscriptions.

9. Vodacom Backs East Africa’s Largest Fintech Forum, opening in Dar Next Week

The Tanzania Fintech Association (TAFINA) is bringing over 350 investors, fintech leaders, and policymakers to the Hyatt Regency Kilimanjaro on March 26 and 27 for the East Africa Investment Forum (EAIF).

M-Pesa is the exclusive platinum sponsor, NBC Tanzania is the official banking partner, Selcom is the payment partner, and Slice Finance is a silver sponsor. Tickets are available at tafina.or.tz/tickets.

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10. iTrust Finance Crosses Sh500 billion in Assets Under Management

The investment firm, which has operated in Tanzania since 2013, hit the milestone this month after its suite of retail investment funds attracted Sh50.3 billion at launch in late 2024 and grew nearly tenfold in 15 months.

Growth accelerated after iTrust introduced a product on January 20 that lets Tanzanians put money into top companies across East Africa (IEACLC-ETF) without having to pick individual stocks.

Anyone can invest from TZS 100,000.

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1. Yas Is Staffing Up Across Engineering, Enterprise Sales and Customer Experience

Nine job postings from Yas Tanzania this week offer a window into where Tanzania’s telecom sector is heading and what skills it now rewards.

• Solutions Architect Manager — When a large organization such as a bank or government agency needs technology services and invites companies to submit proposals, this role leads Yas's response. Requires at least five years in enterprise sales.

• Transport Network Engineer — Maintains and expands the physical infrastructure that carries data across Yas’s network. Requires experience with high-capacity fibre, transmission systems, and internet routing. Vendor certifications from Cisco, Juniper, or Huawei are an advantage.

• Customer Journey and Design Specialist — Identifies where the customer experience across Yas services breaks down and designs fixes. Requires five years in telecoms, banking, or strategy consulting.

The remaining six roles are Technical Proposal Specialist, IP and MPLS Planning and Optimization Specialist, Fixed ICT and Product Specialist, Commercial Key Account Associate, Demand Planner, and Internal Auditor.

On March 3, Mixx by Yas, Axian’s financial services business in Tanzania, closed applications for six roles including:

• Merchant GTM & Trade Marketing Coordinator — Works with merchants who accept Mixx by Yas as a payment method, handling how the product is positioned and sold to them.

• Loyalty and Retention Manager — manages how the business keeps its existing customers active.

• Legal Officer — Handles the regulatory requirements that come with running a licensed financial service.

Both hiring rounds are happening at the same time because Axian Telecom has two major organizational changes to absorb at once.

The group acquired Wananchi Cable, which owns SimbaNET and Zuku, four months ago for around $63 million.

Axian now operates more infrastructure, serves more customers, and has inherited enterprise relationships that SimbaNET built across East Africa over 27 years. That is why this week’s openings are not entry-level.

If you meet the requirements, you can browse all nine Yas roles here before March 16.

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2. teKsafari Acquires Nuru, Secures $40,000 to Teach Coding in Swahili

teKsafari, a Kilimanjaro-based education organization, has acquired Nuru, a Swahili programming language, and signed a Sh102 million contract to bring it to 5,000 learners across Swahili-speaking classrooms at roughly $7 per student.

Nuru was built from scratch, starting December 2022, by Tanzanian software engineer Fuad Habib, who has now joined the teKsafari team.

The language lets students write code entirely in Swahili. Instead of English commands, you write andika to print something and kama for if. And so on.

For students in countries like Tanzania, where English is often a third language, Nuru removes the translation step that sits between a student and the thinking required during coding.

“The programming language of the future is going to be the one you already speak,” teKsafari CEO Ignas Kamugisha wrote in announcing the deal.

Kamugisha, who also works as a hardware engineer (intern) at Microsoft, co-founded teKsafari in 2022 and has since reached over 5,000 young people across seven regions through workshops, a makerspace called thinkStudio, and partnerships with the Mastercard Foundation and Google.

Anyone curious can try writing Swahili code in their browser at nuruprogramming.org.

Developers who want to contribute to Nuru can find the full code at github.com/teKsafari/nuru.

Schools and organizations looking to deploy it can reach the team at ops@teksafari.org.

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2. Government Seeks Partners for Projects That Range from a Startup Incubator to a National Road Safety Network

The Tanzania Investment and Special Economic Zones Authority (TISEZA)’s most recent investment catalogue lists over 100 projects across 15 sectors seeking joint venture partners. We found several of them built around technology infrastructure.

TIRDO is offering 1.6 hectares of its Msasani Peninsula headquarters, valued at TZS 8 billion, to develop into a centre with exhibition facilities, SME consultancy, and an incubation program for early-stage companies.

The Ministry of Works is seeking a partner to deploy automated speed cameras across five major highway corridors at an estimated $1.5 million budget, following a pilot on the Dar es Salaam to Morogoro road that reduced accidents.

A related upgrade of the national Road Accident Information System, which covers all 28 police regions on the mainland, is estimated at $800,000 and has no financing commitment yet.

The Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC), on the other hand, is looking for partners on a Dar es Salaam commuter rail project that includes telecoms and signaling systems as core components.

Investors can reach TISEZA at info@tiseza.go.tz or +255 734 989470.

TECH BRIEFS

4. PesaTech’s Third Cohort Opens with NMB, Airtel, iPF Softwares and Three Years of Post-Program Support

UNCDF and Anza Entrepreneurs have opened applications for Tanzania’s only fintech accelerator. The previous two cohorts backed 22 fintechs and unlocked $13 million in investment.

This year, ten post-revenue fintechs will be selected for milestone-based grants, NMB’s fintech sandboxes, and help forming strategic partnerships.

Anza is holding information sessions across the country, starting with Zanzibar this week, Atoms & Bits has confirmed. Applications close March 23.

5. Kiliride Is Testing a Model Where Drivers Keep All Their Earnings

Kiliride, a ride-hailing platform currently in its pilot phase, is testing two alternatives to the standard 20 to 30 percent commission most platforms charge drivers.

One model deducts 15% per trip from a prepaid wallet. The other charges a fixed weekly or monthly subscription and lets drivers keep all their earnings.

The company has not said when it will exit the pilot or which model it will adopt upon launch in the coming months.

6. WAGA Motion Switches On a Fast Charger in Dar es Salaam

Switched on March 2, the station can charge two vehicles at once and top up a battery in under an hour, making it likely the fastest public EV charger in the country.

The company started with slower pilot chargers near Mlimani City in 2024 and appears to be moving toward a broader network.

This move comes as Tanzania runs more electric vehicles than any other country in East Africa, and the government approved a national EV policy framework in December 2024 targeting 500 charging stations by 2030. The race to build that infrastructure is just beginning.

7. Muslim Savings Groups Can Now Save Digitally

AzamPesa and NBC last week announced the country’s first sharia-compliant savings account for VICOBA groups.

Islamic law prohibits receiving interest, which made every existing digital savings product unusable for observant Muslims.

Tanzania has about 50,000 savings groups with 4.4 million members holding TZS 1.5 trillion, most still managing contributions in cash and recording loans in notebooks.

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8. ClickPesa Launches Automatic Payment Collection

The fintech startup’s new product (Direct Debit) collects recurring payments directly from customer bank accounts on a scheduled date.

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) collecting loan repayments, internet service providers (ISPs) billing subscribers, savings cooperatives (SACCOs, and insurance companies collecting premiums are among the primary targets.

Most of them currently rely on standing orders, where customers where customers instruct their bank to send a fixed amount on a set date.

Direct Debit reverses that.

The customer approves it once through mobile or internet banking. And from that point, ClickPesa initiates each collection on behalf of the business on the due date, collects whatever is available if the full amount is not there, it retries, and reports each outcome in real time.

Meanwhile, the customer cannot cancel recurring payments without the business’s involvement.

This solution is currently live with CRDB Bank accounts. To get started, you can visit merchant.clickpesa.com.

9. Fiber Home Internet in Tanzania Grew 150% in Two Years

Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) subscriptions in Tanzania rose from 49,164 in early 2024 to 123,052 by December 2025, making it the fastest-growing internet segment in the country.

The market remains small relative to Tanzania’s 58.1 million total internet subscriptions, nearly all of which are mobile. Key providers in Dar es Salaam include Zuku, now under AXIAN Telecom ownership, Savanna Fibre, TTCL, and GoFiber.

Atoms & Bits is surveying residential internet users across the city on price, reliability, and satisfaction. Some results will be published. Take the survey at https://forms.gle/EUj95A2X5Biz6gpp6.

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10. Vodacom Is Hiring a New Head of IT

The country’s largest telco is looking for a Head of IT Strategy and Software Engineering in Dar es Salaam. The role covers digital transformation, product development, customer self-service tools, and IT budgets.

Vodacom lists AI as a required skill alongside experience in mobile networks. The position sits at senior management level and requires between five and ten years in a similar role.

Putting IT strategy, software engineering, and product development under one person (who reports to the IT Director) means Vodacom wants faster decisions between its technical and commercial teams. Right now those functions likely have separate leadership.

CRDB Bank Foundation, in partnership with the Green Climate Fund, is selecting businesses working in clean energy, agriculture, recycling, and environmental solutions for funding (Sh500K-200M) and development support.

Secure this opportunity at apply.fursahub.com.

Deadline: March 11.

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Bolt is looking for a Tanzanian public affairs agency to manage its engagement with regulators and policymakers, according to a request for proposals obtained by Atoms & Bits today.

The selected firm will handle regulatory intelligence, stakeholder mapping, and structured advocacy.

Dimmy Kanyankole Senior General Manager for Bolt East Africa, described what the company needs: “We’re looking for a public policy agency or consultant. It’s an interesting role to help shape the ride-hailing industry.” Proposals are due March 13 at publicpolicyafrica@bolt.eu.

The RFP asks for an agency with established networks inside the Ministry of Transport and LATRA, a documented history of success supporting multinationals in regulated industries, and a credible six-month engagement plan with senior leadership involvement.

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Bolt has operated in Tanzania since 2017, when it launched as Taxify, and employs more than 30,000 drivers across eight cities and towns.

Rides grew 68% year-on-year in 2025. Its corporate travel division grew 213% and achieved a 56 percent rise in gross merchandise value, with banking and telecom companies leading adoption, followed by legal firms and courier services.

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The company has expanded beyond Dar es Salaam and Dodoma into Moshi, Morogoro, Kahama, Zanzibar, and Arusha, a growth trajectory that Kanyankole, who previously served as group head of retail at pan-African payments company Cellulant, has managed through a data-intensive approach.

His team tracks over 300 daily metrics covering driver supply, demand, retention, and earnings, as we reported in Atoms & Bits Magazine (May-June 2025).

In March 2022, LATRA ordered platforms to cap driver commissions at 15%, a directive that arrived without prior industry consultation and that prompted Uber, then charging 25%, to suspend operations immediately.

Bolt, at 20%, temporarily pulled its car category while negotiating revised terms. LATRA settled at 25% by December that year.

The current framework fixes per-kilometer rates between Sh800 and Sh1,000, caps booking fees at 3%, and prohibits surge pricing, parameters that apply uniformly to every platform regardless of size.

Uber returned after the 2022 settlement and left permanently in January 2026, with its local leadership citing an operating environment that could not support the business.

Analysts who covered the exit, such as The Citizen and TechCabal, noted that the company’s difficulties were partly structural and partly a failure to build the kind of local relationships that would have given it advance notice of regulatory shifts.

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Bolt, by contrast, absorbed each disruption and grew through them. The question the RFP implicitly answers is why reactive management, however successful, has limits.

Driver complaints have persisted even within the current framework. In October 2024:

• Drivers protested outside Bolt’s Dar es Salaam offices over deductions they described as too high,

• LATRA convened a stakeholders’ meeting and requested a written explanation from the company, and

• Bolt held a press briefing in February where it clarified that its charges comply with LATRA’s 25% cap and that total deductions do not reach 30%.

Some drivers dispute the math. Others say the complaints reflect how platform discount structures are explained to them rather than what is actually charged.

Riders occupy a different position in the same argument, since the 2022 fare revision that made driver economics more viable also raised what passengers pay per trip.

For Bolt, regulation is a central factor in assessing both the attractiveness of new markets and the potential for growth in existing ones, with the key question being whether the regulatory environment can support driver supply and whether the investment needed to meet compliance requirements is worth it over time.

Tanzania is the market where that calculation has been tested most visibly on the continent, and the outcome has shaped how other African regulators approach the sector.

The EU Platform Work Directive, passed in 2024, has added a parallel track to that conversation globally by establishing employment classification standards for gig platform workers (like Bolt drivers) and requiring member states to presume them as having employment status unless companies demonstrate otherwise.

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Several African regulators have cited European precedent in shaping their own frameworks, and LATRA’s approach to fare and commission regulation already draws from the same logic: that platform workers deserve the protections extended to other categories of transport labor (such as bus and truck drivers).

How Tanzania resolves the tension between those principles and a business model built on independent contractors will influence how the region regulates the sector going forward.

Its partnership with Green Wheels on electric motorcycles in Arusha and with TRÍ and Watu on electric three-wheeler taxis in Dar es Salaam both benefit from the Finance Act 2023’s elimination of excise duties on electric three-wheelers, and both depend on a stable relationship with the same regulators who set fare and commission policy.

Senior Country Manager for Bolt Business Milu Kipimo has described the company’s direction as paving the way for more efficient and environmentally sustainable transport, with corporate clients reporting transport expense reductions of nearly half since moving to the platform.

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Local platforms including Faras, Kiliride, and Paisha each operate in segments that Bolt has been slower to prioritize, and InDrive has grown a following by letting riders and drivers negotiate fares directly rather than operating inside LATRA’s fixed rate structure.

The regulatory decisions that shape what any platform can charge and how drivers are classified will determine how much space each of those alternatives has to grow, which is why the agency that wins Bolt’s brief will not only be ‘working for’ one client.

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State of the Market

Tanzania’s cybersecurity standing has improved significantly in recent years. In the 2024 Global Cybersecurity Index released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the country was ranked first in Eastern, Southern and Central Africa, achieving Tier 1 status alongside the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and South Korea.

Tanzania scored 100% across three of the five assessment pillars: legal, organizational, and cooperation measures. Only five African countries reached this tier.

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Tanzanian businesses, public institutions, and individuals spent $54 million on cybersecurity products and services in 2024. Statista projects that figure will nearly double to $94 million by 2029.

Demand is concentrated in banking and telecoms, where a cybersecurity specialist earns Sh2.5-15 million monthly depending on experience.

People with direct knowledge of procurement decisions in those sectors told Atoms & Bits that a single security software can cost anywhere from Sh600 million to as much as Sh1.8 billion annually, depending on the solution.

Yet the talent gap remains. Globally, an estimated 4.8 million cybersecurity roles are unfilled. Tanzania is not insulated from that shortage. The ICT Commission (ICTC) itself has noted that certified cybersecurity professionals in the country remain few relative to what the economy now requires.

CyberChampions is one of the mechanisms built to close that gap.

About the Competition

The TCRA CyberChampions competition is organized annually by the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority through TZ-CERT, the country’s computer emergency response team. It has run since 2020, when it was known as the CyberStars competition.

The competition targets university students aged 18 to 24 and covers domains including ethical hacking, computer forensics, malware analysis, reverse engineering, web application security, cryptography, and secure programming.

Students move through four stages:

• Registration

• Online mentorship,

• A national semi-final, and

• A national final held in person.

The semi-final is a six-hour online challenge allowing the top fifty to travel to a live final. Winners receive laptops, professional certification courses, and examination vouchers from EC-Council, a globally recognized credentialing body.

Since 2020, the competition has attracted 4,285 participants. Of those, 3,705 were male (87%) and 580 were female (14%).

This year, the seventh edition drew 1,226 participants from 29 public and private universities. The finals were held on February 10 at the Pan African Postal Union (PAPU) building in Arusha, with ICT Ministry Deputy PS Nicholas Merinyo Mkapa serving as guest of honor.

Atoms & Bits spoke exclusively with all four winners and the chairperson of the club that produced them. Here is some of what they shared.

The full 17-page interview transcripts are available on demand. Simply reply to this email. This is especially useful if you’re screening for talent or simply interested in deeply understanding how tech talents emerge in Tanzania.

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What drew you to cybersecurity?

Ibrahimu Boniface, 1st Place: “I was fascinated by the idea that one could protect information, detect threats, and respond to attacks using both technical skills and critical thinking. What drew me most to this field is the combination of problem-solving, continuous learning, and the real-world impact of keeping people and systems safe.”

Martin Goerge, 2nd Place: “I first developed an interest in cybersecurity in 2023 after joining the UDOM Cyber Club. Through discussions with senior mentors, I learned how and where to begin my journey. Guidance from the founder of the UDOM Cyber Club, who recommended the TryHackMe Junior Penetration Tester learning path, greatly motivated me to pursue cybersecurity seriously.”

Erick Sanga, 3rd Place: “One of my brothers called Jeremy, who graduated high school a year before me, contacted me right after graduating and exposed me to the cybersecurity field. He told me how technology is the future and that this program was still new by then at UDOM and I had to take a shot at it. Also what drew me more to this field is how exposed and vast it is on knowledge in general.”

Helidorice Mwalongo, 4th Place: “My interest in cybersecurity began during my academic studies when I was introduced to topics such as network security, system vulnerabilities, and ethical hacking. I was particularly drawn to the idea of defending systems against real-world threats and protecting sensitive information.”

Who was the first person you called when you found out you won, and what did they say?

Erick: My grandmother, who has always been rooting and praying for me to win in every single thing I do. She even saw me on the news and the happiness in her voice made me very happy at that moment.

Boniface: My teacher, because they had supported and encouraged me throughout my preparation. Sharing the news with them made the moment even more special.

Martin: My software developer partner, who has consistently supported, motivated, and encouraged me throughout my cybersecurity journey.

Helidorice: My close friends and fellow club members.

What was the hardest challenge you solved during the finals?

Ibrahimu Boniface: “One of the hardest challenges I solved during the finals was a mobile security challenge involving an Android application. The task was to find a hidden flag (a specific word the organizers buried inside the app’s code, which contestants have to dig out).

At first, the app looked like it would only reveal the answer if certain actions were performed on the phone. Instead of trying to bypass the app directly, I analyzed how the app worked internally. I discovered that the flag was already encrypted and stored inside the application itself.

Once I understood how the encryption worked, I was able to safely decrypt the data offline and retrieve the correct flag. The challenge was about understanding how an app protects its secrets and realizing that sometimes the key is hidden in the logic rather than the user interface.”

Martin George: “The most challenging task during the finals was a memory forensics challenge involving Windows event log analysis (examining what a computer was doing at a specific point in time).

To solve it, I installed a Windows operating system on a virtual machine (simulated computer running inside his laptop) and used standard forensic tools to analyze system logs (records of everything a computer has done) and extract the required evidence.”

Erick Sanga: “My hardest challenge was a mobile reverse engineering challenge called ‘Nope Try Again.’

I received an Android app and had to locate a hidden flag within it. Testing the app normally resulted in the app preventing me from viewing the flag (hidden message) each time it was executed. Rather than try to bypass the interface checks, I reverse engineered (rebuilt) the source code of the application.

Upon doing so, I found out that the flag had been previously encrypted within the app, along with all of the information needed to decrypt it. After extracting the encryption information from the APK (the file format Android apps are packaged in), I created a small Python script that decrypted the encrypted data outside of the application.

This taught me that security checks on an application interface do very little good if the application’s sensitive information, such as keys, are hard-coded into the application itself.”

Helidorice Mwalongo: “The hardest challenge involved reverse engineering and web security in general. I had to analyze how a web application functioned internally without clear documentation, understand how it handled inputs, identify security weaknesses, and determine how those weaknesses could be exploited. This required logical thinking, attention to detail, and applying both reverse engineering techniques and web security knowledge under time pressure.”

What did you sacrifice to prepare?

Erick Sanga: “I sacrificed sleep for like the whole week before the final competition. I made sure to sleep less so that I could get more time to get ready as I also had university tasks that required my attention from which I saw success in the end.”

Ibrahimu Boniface: “I managed all the costs of preparing for the competition entirely on my own, including data bundles, online resources, and tools. I carefully planned my budget, prioritized essential resources, and looked for free or open-source tools whenever possible.

Doing everything independently taught me financial discipline and resourcefulness, and it made the achievement even more meaningful because I know I fully invested in my own growth without relying on external support.”

What has changed since winning?

Ibrahimu Boniface: “Honestly, not much has changed in my day-to-day life since winning. What has changed is my motivation and confidence. I feel more encouraged to continue improving my skills and taking on new challenges in cybersecurity.”

Erick Charles Sanga: “I now get a chance to talk to other students from all levels about cybersecurity and they are actually excited as they saw that it’s all possible. That feeling of changing someone’s way of thinking and setting them up for success makes me feel a bit fulfilled.”

Helidorice Mwalongo: “Since winning, I have gained increased confidence, recognition among peers, and motivation to pursue cybersecurity professionally. I have also become a source of inspiration for other students, particularly women.”

Martin George: “While no major changes have occurred yet, I have experienced increased professional engagement. Many individuals have reached out through LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Instagram, and phone calls to offer congratulations and seek guidance.”

What has your experience been as a woman in cybersecurity? (Helidorice Mwalongo)

“Being a woman in a male-dominated field has presented challenges such as stereotypes and self-doubt. However, these experiences strengthened my resilience. Being the only female winner demonstrates that women belong in cybersecurity and can excel equally.

I encourage students to start early, practice consistently, and view competitions as learning opportunities. Female students should remain confident, persistent, and fearless in pursuing cybersecurity careers.”

On the UDOM Cybersecurity Club (Samoh Mohammed Said, Chairperson)

On how the club prepares members: “We usually meet twice per week for physical sessions and occasionally have online sessions for already advanced members. We discuss and do hands-on practice on various security scenarios such as forensics, network analysis, web penetration testing, and solving machine labs from Hack The Box, TryHackMe, or custom-made by our own club mentors. That prepares us to tackle challenges on CTF competitions like TCRA Championships, Sanifu CTF, URCHINSEC CTF, and even our own internal CTFs like Christmas CTF.”

On what made the difference this year: “The club’s success is attributed to its obsession with practical teaching and a culture that transforms beginners into confident mentors. The supportive environment enhances technical skills and builds the resilience needed for high-pressure finals.”

On being based outside Dar es Salaam: “We at UDOM believe we are the center of the technology. With that belief, we face any difficulty that may arrive with our university support when necessary.”

On what other universities should know: “For those looking to start similar clubs, the focus should be on fostering curiosity and consistency. Creating a community where students can ask questions and share strategies is more important than having perfect resources from day one.”

On where former members are now: “Former club members are now currently working in different cybersecurity roles in companies like Vodacom Tanzania, CRDB Bank, NMB Bank, eGA and other private companies and government sectors.”

Advice to students

Ibrahimu Boniface: “Stay curious, practice consistently, and never be afraid to make mistakes. Cybersecurity is a field that requires both technical skills and problem-solving, so start with the basics and gradually take on more challenging tasks. Be patient and persistent. Success doesn’t come overnight, but dedication and continuous learning will pay off.”

Erick Sanga: “Start early and stay consistent. You don’t need to know everything to begin. Curiosity and persistence matter more than perfection.”

Helidorice Mwalongo: “Remain confident, persistent, and fearless in pursuing cybersecurity careers.”

Martin George: “Consistency and commitment. Everyone begins at a different level, but with dedication, continuous practice, and patience, success in cybersecurity is achievable.”

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Emmanuel Challe and Zadok Prescott had six days between Jumia Food shutting down and launching Piki on Christmas Eve 2019. Five years later, his company processes an average of 1,300 orders daily across five Tanzanian cities while operating profitably.

Most of the 15+ competitors who tried to build similar businesses have closed. But Challe (COO) and his cofounder Zadok (CEO) built theirs on $600,000 to $800,000 in invested and reinvested capital, never raising external funding.

Based on financial data obtained during research for this story, Atoms & Bits estimates the company’s value at $8-12 million.

We hosted this exclusive interview on January 28 at Lock & Barrel, one of Emmanuel’s regular meeting spots and a Piki partner restaurant in Dar es Salaam.

Both the questions and answers below have been edited for clarity and brevity. Reading time: 12 minutes.

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Jumia gave you 30 days’ notice before closing. How did you launch so quickly?

I had wanted to start an e-commerce company since 2014. I actually ran a startup called Coshara for five years before that.

When Jumia launched in Tanzania, I thought there was no way to compete because they had funding and seemed to know what they were doing, so I joined them as Head of Operations instead.

After two years in my first role, I was promoted to Country Lead for Jumia Food and later became COO for Jumia Mall.

When they announced closure, I was actually on leave and wasn’t among the first to hear the news. Zadok reached out to inform me and suggested we build a platform to fill the gap.

Because we’d worked closely together at Jumia, we both recognized we shared the same passion for e-commerce and technology. What followed was truly collaborative. We aligned on the vision, evaluated the opportunity together, and decided to launch what became Piki.

The timing was brutal though. We had 30 days, which meant we needed to move incredibly fast. We worked on a solution that let us launch quickly.

After Jumia shut down their servers around mid-December, we spent six days testing everything before going live on Christmas Eve with a mobile website, which let us skip the App Store approval delays that would have messed up our timeline.

Why did Jumia close in Tanzania?

Jumia went public on the New York Stock Exchange, and when you’re a public company, you’re required to publish everything happening within the business, including problems.

There was an investigative report about some issues in other countries, which affected the stock price significantly. The board then re-examined operations across different countries and decided to close the ones that weren’t performing well financially, even if some individual services within those countries were doing okay.

It wasn’t just Tanzania. They closed multiple countries simultaneously, including Rwanda and Cameroon.

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What was Jumia Food doing in terms of volume when they closed?

Between 300 and 600 orders per day, with weekends being higher.

That was actually good for Tanzania at the time. For comparison, Kenya was doing around 6,000 daily orders and Morocco, which was Jumia’s best market, was doing 12,000 on average.

The market here has always been smaller, which is why the transaction volume needed to justify operations is so critical.

Where is Piki now in terms of scale?

We average 1,300 orders daily across Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Mwanza, Dodoma, and Zanzibar. We work with over 700 vendors, though about 70 percent are consistently active at any given time. The others might be seasonal or testing the platform without fully committing to it yet.

We have 43 employees in the office across all our regions, plus over 150 full-time drivers. Some of those office employees actually started as drivers, which creates a natural progression path within the company.

You mentioned over 15 food delivery companies have failed in Tanzania. What killed them?

They couldn’t reach the transaction volume needed to cover basic operations before running out of money.

You need considerable daily orders just to pay your team, and when you’re simultaneously searching for funding while trying to hit those numbers, the pressure becomes impossible to sustain.

The margins are very tight.

If you’re getting a 10% commission on a 5,000 shilling order, that’s only 500 shillings per transaction. You need serious volume to make that work, which is why most companies fail before they reach that scale.

We took a different approach by never raising external funding, which means we’ve been profitable for 3.5 years. That gives us patience to build properly instead of chasing investor growth targets that might not match market reality.

How do you stay profitable when others are burning cash?

Capital efficiency.

When you have funding, every problem starts to look like it needs money thrown at it. I’ve watched several African startups raise funding and immediately spend millions on billboards and traditional advertising without tight control over whether that spending actually justifies the growth they’re seeing.

Some bought cars for deliveries, then faced maintenance costs, drivers stealing tires, and all kinds of operational problems that money alone doesn’t solve.

Our biggest growth driver isn’t advertising at all. It’s whether the service is good enough that people recommend it to their friends. If I tell someone to use this app, they believe me because of the relationship we have, which makes word-of-mouth far more effective than any marketing spend.

That’s how Uber and Bolt actually grew here. They didn't become popular because of advertisements. People tried the service, it worked well, and they told others.

We do have a referral program and point system we’re working on to formalize that, but the core principle is making the service good enough that recommendations happen naturally.

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You employ significant staff for a bootstrapped operation. How does that work financially?

Some office employees started as drivers. We often hire students as riders who later move into call center or vendor recruitment roles when positions open up.

Drivers earn 80% of the delivery fee plus bonuses, and we’ve provided loans to some and financed delivery bikes for others through separate agreements. The goal is making sure they’re earning real money from this work, not just surviving on minimal payments.

We also (plan to) work with corporate clients and big offices that have annual budgets for employee food. Some companies are spending up to Sh60 million per year on office meals, and if we can capture that through contracts, it provides steady volume that helps to further stabilize our operations.

How do you handle cash reconciliation? That seems risky.

It was very risky at first and we lost money until we built systems to limit the exposure.

Each driver has a wallet with a limit of around Sh200,000 ($78), which means once they hit that amount from cash deliveries, they can’t receive new orders until they deposit. This forces regular reconciliation instead of letting cash accumulate.

We partnered with Mwanga Hakika Bank (MHB), which has been far more tech-forward than other banks we approached. They give each driver a unique ID instead of an account number, so drivers can deposit cash at any bank branch or mobile money agent and our API receives automatic notification instantly. No manual checking needed.

We also take security deposits from drivers when they join, which means if someone disappears with 200,000 shillings in cash, we’re covered by the deposit they put down initially. That rarely happens, but having that protection in place was essential to making the cash payments model work sustainably.

What made Mwanga Hakika different from other banks you talked to?

We talked to [bank name redacted] for months and everyone was always busy. When we finally got meetings, they wanted us to pay for our deposits, which made no sense for our business model.

With MHB, we explained our needs and they said give us two weeks. They actually delivered, and the speed and willingness to customize their system for what we needed was completely different from what we’d experienced elsewhere.

What’s the biggest operational challenge that people outside your business don’t see?

Vendors.

Your app can be perfect technically, but if restaurants aren’t prioritizing your orders or are slow with preparation, the whole customer experience breaks down completely.

We work with over 700 businesses and each has different management styles and priorities. Some will serve walk-in customers who arrived later before finishing orders that came through Piki, which destroys our delivery time metrics.

Different restaurants also have different preparation times. Some items take 15 minutes, others take an hour. The key isn’t necessarily speed, it’s managing customer expectations.

If we tell someone their order will take one hour and it arrives in one hour, they’re satisfied. If we say 15 minutes but it takes 30, they’re frustrated even though 30 minutes is still fast.

So we spend a lot of time working with vendors on accurate time estimates.

We visit vendors regularly to provide performance feedback and adjust how prominently we feature them in the app based on their service quality.

We also offer them featured placement as a paid service, ranging from Sh50,000-200,000 per week depending on whether they want just a banner or the full package with top positioning.

Poor performers get less organic visibility to users, which usually motivates improvement since they want more business from our platform.

When you pitch new vendors, what’s the conversion rate?

If we visit 10 vendors, we can usually get six or seven to sign up. The main objection is commission, which we negotiate depending on the business and what additional services they want from us.

In Dar es Salaam, it’s easier now because vendors see Piki drivers coming and going from neighboring restaurants, so there’s social proof. In newer regions like Mwanza or Zanzibar, it’s harder initially because the service isn’t yet normalized there.

Who is your actual competition in this market?

Not other apps, since most have closed. The real competition is the mama who prepares food and sells to offices within a 100-meter radius. She has faster delivery, lower prices, no delivery fee, and existing relationships with her customers. That’s hard to compete with on a transaction-by-transaction basis.

Our advantage is variety. Maybe she’s selling pilau today but the customer wants chips mayai, so we offer options across the entire city.

But we have to be realistic about the structural challenges. In Tanzania, shops are everywhere because there’s no strict zoning enforcement. If you walk 10 steps, there’s a duka where you can buy water (or virtually anything) immediately.

That convenience fundamentally undermines the value proposition of delivery for many everyday purchases.

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So what’s the actual ceiling for e-commerce orders in Tanzania?

Much higher than our current 1,300 daily orders.

Even 100,000 daily orders isn’t unrealistic when you consider the sheer volume of physical transactions happening offline every single day. People calling someone to pick things up, households buying groceries multiple times per week, someone needing something from across town. The vast majority of those transactions could technically happen through an app.

The barriers aren’t economic or about vendor proximity. I have friends who can easily afford to order but don’t. Some think it might be a scam because they’re not familiar with the model. Others don’t fully understand what to expect in terms of timing or quality. Many simply haven’t ordered three times, which is the threshold where the habit really kicks in and it becomes part of their routine.

There’s also a behavior issue specific to Dar es Salaam and Tanzania in general. Even people who understand the concept and have money still don’t order as much as you’d expect.

The barrier there isn’t economic or educational, it’s purely behavioral and cultural. It’s the ease of getting nearby products or services without using any app.

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You operate in five cities now. Which one surprised you most?

Arusha has been our strongest performer outside Dar. We’ve been there for three years and it is progressing faster than other regions, partly because of the demographic mix.

There are many tourists and people who are already familiar with on-demand services from other countries, so less customer education is needed. They understand the model immediately and start using it.

Dar es Salaam actually requires more customer education work even though people here have money and exposure. Some of my own friends understand what Piki does but still don’t order regularly, which tells me the barrier isn’t about awareness or affordability. It’s something deeper about habits and how people think about food and errands.

Beyond food delivery, what categories are you expanding into?

We already have groceries, electronics, and services like massage and salon bookings where you can either book a slot at their location or request someone to come to your home.

We also launched Piki Party, which focuses specifically on drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, for people ordering for events or home delivery.

But we want to enhance each category with features designed specifically for that use case rather than forcing everything through a generic flow that was originally built for restaurant orders.

Right now a massage booking and a food order go through essentially the same interface, which doesn’t always make sense for the user experience.

We’re also pushing into broader e-commerce beyond just food-related products. The software side is straightforward since we already have the technical infrastructure.

Operations is much harder because fulfillment for physical goods has different requirements than prepared food.

You mentioned you built an offline system. What was that for?

We built a system that can operate without internet connectivity, so we can continue taking and fulfilling orders even during network outages.

That’s proven useful several times when other services had to pause operations.

Do you plan to raise external funding now?

We’ve never needed to because we have been profitable, which gives us options other companies don’t have.

If the right strategic partner came along who brought more than just capital, we’d consider it. But we’re not chasing funding for its own sake or because it’s what tech companies are supposed to do.

I’ve seen too many startups raise money and then feel immediate pressure to spend it on things that don’t actually move the business forward. Big offices in expensive locations, billboards that are hard to measure, hiring ahead of actual need, the list continues.

We’ve been extremely disciplined about capital efficiency and I don’t want to lose that discipline just because we have access to outside money.

What’s your target for the next 12 months?

At least 2,000 orders per day across all our regions.

That’s achievable with our current infrastructure, but it requires solving the behavioral and trust barriers rather than technology problems. We need to prove to more Tanzanians that our service works reliably every single time they use it, which is fundamentally about execution consistency rather than adding new features.

The companies that ultimately win in this market won’t be the ones with the most funding or the fanciest app features. They’ll be the ones that work most closely with vendors and drivers to deliver consistent quality day after day.

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Watch out for who’s next in Checkout 2026.

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First, Some Context

When Tanzania’s innovation ecosystem faced a funding gap in 2021, the Funguo Innovation Programme stepped in with a different model. Instead of choosing between grants and loans, the programme offers “catalytic funding”, aka risk-free capital designed specifically to make startups and SMEs investor-ready.

Three years later, FUNGUO has deployed TZS 6.5 billion to 74 ventures and unlocked four times that amount in follow-on funding.

Joseph Evarist Manirakiza manages the programme, which is backed by the European Union, UK’s FCDO, and Finland’s government, with UNDP Tanzania as implementing partner. The ecosystem knows him as “JOE.”

Here is our 15-minute interview originally published in Atoms & Bits Magazine (Special Edition October 2025).

Reading time: 10 minutes.

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AnB: What is FUNGUO?

JOE: FUNGUO means “keys” in Swahili. The name reflects our purpose of unlocking potential for Tanzanian startups.

The programme came from a real need. When the UKaid-funded Human Development Innovation Programme ended, the ecosystem recognized we couldn’t afford to lose that momentum. Broader consultations led to this multi-partner initiative. We’re co-funded by the European Union through the Business Environment, Growth and Innovation Programme, the UK’s FCDO through African Technology & Innovation Partnerships, and Finland’s government. UNDP Tanzania implements.

This structure brings different perspectives and expertise. It’s not just about pooling money.

Where does FUNGUO fit in the startup ecosystem?

We work in what people call the “missing middle” - the space between early-stage incubation and larger-scale investment where promising ventures tend to stall.

Our role is catalytic. We bridge critical funding gaps for scalable, impact-driven startups that struggle to access suitable capital. We focus on building a strong pipeline of investment-ready ventures that can attract follow-on financing from larger investors and development partners.

Beyond financing, FUNGUO works with innovation hubs, government agencies, financial institutions, and academia to strengthen the overall support system and advocate for better policy. This integrated approach allows us to deploy funding and nurture a more resilient innovation ecosystem.

The word “catalytic” is intentional. We provide risk-free capital specifically designed to make startups investor-ready. A startup might use our funding to hire experienced staff, improve its business model, enhance its financial systems to meet investors’ standards. Always with the goal of preparing them for private capital, never replacing it.

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You operate under three pillars. How does that work?

Innovation support often focuses narrowly on funding. We recognized early that sustainable impact requires a systems approach.

Our first pillar is Innovation Financing - catalytic investments complemented with targeted technical assistance to de-risk ventures and help them attract follow-on funding.

The second pillar is Innovation Service Delivery. We collaborate with innovation hubs, incubators, accelerators, and business development service providers to produce more investor-ready startups. These Enterprise Support Organizations are the backbone of the ecosystem. We call them “catalysts for growth” in the ESO Scoping study report we co-authored with Deloitte.

The third pillar is Enabling Environment. We work with policymakers to promote innovation-friendly policies and regulations through strategic platforms and initiatives aimed at improving the business environment for innovators and startups.

Since 2021, you’ve received over 2,700 applications. What have you achieved?

The numbers: we’ve reached over 2,700 startups and MSMEs across four calls for applications. We committed funding to 74 competitively selected ventures. Close to 60% of funded startups fall under “green” or “climate-smart” businesses. Around 40% are in agribusiness and close to 70% are either tech or tech-enabled businesses.

45% of funded startups have grown their revenue by over 50%. The remaining 55% have grown between 10 and 50%. 73% reported expanding to new local markets, including 26% who have gone international. FUNGUO investees have sustained or created over 10,000 jobs for Tanzanian youth.

For unlocking capital, over 65% of startups in the first three cohorts have raised additional funding since FUNGUO support. The unlocked funding exceeds four times the catalytic funding we provided. 67% of funded startups raised additional grants and 32% raised equity. Of total additional capital unlocked, equity takes 75%, followed by grants at 19% and debt at 6%.

These numbers tell us that catalytic funding works.

But achievements go beyond individual companies and financial metrics. We supported the Capital Markets and Securities Authority in drafting and launching Tanzania’s first Crowdfunding Guidelines. We have the first crowdfunding platform licensed under the guidelines as one investee from the fourth cohort: CashMe Tanzania. We contributed to the National Innovation Framework through COSTECH and championed the establishment of the Tanzania Hubs Network, which strengthens coordination and peer learning among enterprise support organizations.

We work with COSTECH and VODACOM Tanzania to sustain and scale Innovation Week Tanzania, the largest Tanzanian innovation ecosystem platform. The 11th edition was in May this year.

What other initiatives is FUNGUO championing?

For pipeline development, we established the #YouthIgnite Student Founders Fellowship to support university students who have already started businesses. The goal: enable them to graduate with their own jobs and employ their peers, rather than joining the long job-hunting queues.

In the first pilot we worked with 10 universities, supported their innovation hubs and hub managers to better support student founders. 1,300 student entrepreneurs responded to the first call, 300 were selected for ideathons, 30 progressed to bootcamp, and 20 startups emerged as winners of seed cash and technical support. 18 of these businesses are still running and generating revenues. The model works. The plan is to refine this initiative and scale it to all universities in Tanzania.

FUNGUO is seen as mostly focusing on urban centres, especially Dar es Salaam, not rural areas. The Finland-funded #GreenCatalyst Initiative is about to change that. It catalyzes innovation and entrepreneurship in the forestry value chain by identifying and supporting promising startups and MSMEs in Iringa, Njombe, Ruvuma and Lindi, complementing another Finland-supported larger initiative, the Forestry, Land Use, and Value Chains Development in Tanzania project.

Give us an overview of FUNGUO’s sectoral distribution, geographic reach, and gender focus.

FUNGUO is sector-agnostic by design because we wanted to support promising innovative impact-driven startups across the board. However, we’re seeing a gradual slight dominance of startups in agribusiness, with close to 40% of the portfolio in this category. This includes sustainable farming and agritech, supply chain optimization. The other emerging sector is Climate & Environment, with close to 35% of the portfolio representing waste management and circular economy, renewable energy. Financial inclusion is also upcoming, dominated by financial technology digital payments and alternative lending. We’re also seeing startups within Digital Marketplaces and Shared Economy, Education & Skills Development, Health & Healthcare categories.

Geographically, FUNGUO investees are spread across 13 regions in Tanzania, including Zanzibar. Dar es Salaam leads with 54% of the portfolio, followed by Mwanza at 14% and Morogoro at 12%. More work needs to be done to grow the startup ecosystem beyond Dar es Salaam. The #GreenCatalyst initiative is focused on the Southern Highlands Zone.

Gender-wise, we need to do a much better job. The target was to have at least 40% of the portfolio made of women-founded or women-led startups, but we haven’t got there yet. We’re still slightly below 30%. Setting quotas alone doesn’t solve the problem. Despite targeted outreach and enhanced spotlight of women-led investees, the challenge persists.

Last year we had an initiative focused on spotlighting the challenges and opportunities of women leading startups, with FUNGUO investees as case studies. This culminated in a mini documentary “Beyond the Hurdles” which showcased great achievements of women entrepreneurs in our portfolio despite all of them facing systemic barriers. We’re still exploring other avenues to increase the number of women-led businesses in our portfolio, potentially including targeted funding windows.

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You coordinate initiatives like Innovation Week Tanzania (IWTz) and the Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Partnership (RIEP). Why invest in these platforms?

Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. Entrepreneurs need to connect with investors, learn from each other, access mentorship, understand policy developments. Platforms like IWTz, which features the “Future Ready Summit” (FRS) in partnership with Vodacom, the Tanzania Annual ICT Conference by the ICT Commission, Sahara Sparks by Sahara Ventures, the Science, Technology and Innovation Conference & Exhibition by COSTECH, and more recently the Tanzania Startup Week by the Tanzania Startup Association, create those crucial connections.

The Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Partnership is particularly exciting. It’s a UK-India-East Africa initiative promoting cross-border collaboration among academic institutions, incubators, and startups. Tanzania has much to learn from and contribute to the global innovation conversation.

Last year, with support from FCDO’s East Africa Research and Innovation Hub, we ran a student hackathon dubbed “Reimagining Innovation for Sustainable Ecosystems Through Industry 4.0” which involved students and faculty from Kenya, Tanzania and India. The shortlisted teams pitched at Kenya National Innovation Week in Nairobi, and winning teams were sponsored to spend two weeks at Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai, India, engaging in various activities and witnessing how startups are supported from an academic environment.

We also convened in Dar es Salaam, in partnership with COSTECH and UDSM, a Faculty Exchange Programme under the theme “Bridging Borders for Innovation: Unlocking Research Impact through Technology Transfer and Commercialization”. This brought together 25 universities from Kenya, Tanzania, UK and India (virtually), Kenya National Innovation Agency and the South African Technology Innovation Agency to facilitate cross-border knowledge exchange and learn from each other on both successes and challenges in the innovation-to-commercialization journey.

These platforms also open up the Tanzanian Innovation Ecosystem to the world. Two key highlights from this year’s IWTz2025 included hosting the President of Finland, H.E. Alexander Stubb, who officially launched FUNGUO’s #GreenCatalyst initiative, and having former Chief Business Officer of Google X, Mo Gawdat, give a keynote titled “Rewriting Tomorrow: AI for Good, Growth, & Global Change”.

Looking at the broader picture, what would you change about Tanzania’s innovation support ecosystem?

Four priorities stand out.

First, improve business education at secondary and tertiary levels, and support entrepreneurship initiatives. Too many entrepreneurs lack basic knowledge about financial management and customer development. Our #YouthIgnite initiative in universities is a start, but we need systemic change. Gone are the days where graduates would leave school and transition straight into jobs. There are not enough jobs for every young person. Enabling them to create their own jobs through business looks like a viable path.

Second, strengthen intellectual property protection and infrastructure. Innovators need confidence their ideas have legal protection. There’s a lot of research at our universities that could translate into products and services if there was proper IP infrastructure, adequate IP policies and financing.

Third, a legal framework that recognizes the uniqueness of startups and incentivizes investment in them. The progress on Tanzania Startup Policy is a great step in the right direction.

Fourth, increase efforts in startup pipeline development and venture building, including more structured ideation, incubation and acceleration programs, blended catalytic funding and more diverse financial instruments that bridge our offerings and commercial investment. The gap between catalytic funding and Series A is still too wide.

Better coordination among ecosystem support organizations would help enormously. That’s why initiatives like the Tanzania Hubs Network matter - reducing duplication and strengthening collective impact, while facilitating peer learning.

FUNGUO works with multiple partners. How do you manage these relationships?

By design FUNGUO is a multi-partner initiative, supported by multiple funders. Each funder brings unique priorities and expertise but collectively we’re driven by the common goal of supporting the growth of Tanzania’s innovation ecosystem.

But we don’t only work with funders. We work closely with government ministries - Education, Science and Technology through COSTECH, President’s Office (Planning & Investment), and ICT - ensuring our work aligns with national priorities. We coordinate with leading ESOs who know the ground reality, some working with us in implementation of key programme activities. We work closely with private sector players including banks and telcos and engage with private investors who can provide follow-on funding.

The innovation ecosystem cannot be built by one entity or one programme. It’s a collective responsibility. The key is to ensure complementarity and enhance synergies.

What advice do you give startup founders about FUNGUO funding or navigating the funding landscape?

Build investable businesses. Don’t be grant-dependent. That mindset shift is crucial.

Implement solid control systems from day one. Conduct rigorous market validation before seeking funding - talk to real customers, test your assumptions, understand your competition. Build complementary management teams rather than trying to handle everything yourself.

Most importantly, understand that catalytic funding is a stepping stone, not a destination. Use our support to develop the strengths and financial performance that private investors require. Your goal should be to outgrow us.

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What’s next for FUNGUO?

We’re continuously evolving. We’re deepening sector-specific work like the #GreenCatalyst Initiative and exploring new partnerships that can bring additional resources and expertise.

Ultimately, our goal is to make ourselves obsolete - to build an ecosystem where Tanzanian startups can access appropriate capital at every stage without needing programs like ours. We’re not there yet, but every cohort of successful companies, every policy improvement, every strengthened ESO brings us closer. Then we transition into a sustainable facility providing other types of financial instruments required by a mature startup ecosystem.

Tanzania’s innovation potential is immense. With the right support, the next generation of African innovation leaders will emerge from places like Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Arusha, and Zanzibar. FUNGUO is proud to play a catalytic role in making that vision reality.

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The First Wave (2014-2019)

“Based on our review of the path to success, we have made a difficult decision to cease our operations in Tanzania,” African e-commerce pioneer Jumia announced on November 27, 2019.

“While Tanzania has strong potential and we’re proud of the growth we’ve collectively seen stemming from Jumia’s adoption, we have to focus our resources on our other markets.”

This exit came as part of a wider retreat from smaller markets (including Rwanda and Cameroon) where Jumia struggled to make unit economics work. According to a 2019 analysis by Olumide Olusanya, the company’s total cost to attract and serve a user (Sh141,000) was five times higher than the actual money that a user brought back to the business.

Olusanya (who then operated Nigeria’s biggest online supermarket) also observed that Jumia had “absolutely NO MARKET POWER” over the people selling on its platform. While third-party merchants moved billions of shillings (aka gross merchandise value—GMV) through the site, Jumia was only catching 2% of the money. These commissions were often not enough to pay for the retailer’s massive logistics and office costs.

So leaving Tanzania was part of “optimization efforts” that aimed to create a sustainable, profitable, and scalable business model across the continent.

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Jumia cited the need to focus resources on larger markets. But what the company didn’t say publicly was that Tanzania presented nearly every challenge that made online delivery a tough industry.

In 2017, 99% of all payments were conducted in cash, and there were very few restaurants that had digitized their menus or vendors listed on services like Google Maps. On top of that, startups faced high customer acquisition costs (CAC). You had to spend handsomely on marketing to win trust and cause behavioral change in a cash-driven ‘let me see it first’ society.

But thanks to mobile money wars and the nation’s first wave of fintech founders, we made some progress four years after Jumia’s exit.

By 2023, approximately 13% of Tanzanian adults (approx. 4.4 million people) could be termed as monthly active users of digital merchant payment solutions, which e-commerce platforms in their truest definition rely on.

That 4.4 Mn population, in our opinion, gives insight into the maximum number of Tanzanians who can buy or sell anything online. In hindsight, it also implies that in the five years Jumia operated in Tanzania (2014-2019), order frequency was just too low to justify logistics infrastructure costs.

Six years post-Jumia, local operators are trying again with different assumptions about what might work.

JumlaJumla

We visited David Mallya (CEO) and Alex Makule (CTO) at their SkyCity Mall office in Dar es Salaam to talk about MsosiApp, their food and grocery delivery app that launched in March 2025.

Both questions and answers, from our January 16 exclusive interview, have been edited for clarity and brevity.

For investment or partnership inquiries contact David at +255 766 139 709.

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What’s MsosiApp and how does it relate to JumlaJumla?

David: JumlaJumla is the company name and the bigger vision, which is to build an end-to-end trading platform for East Africa. But we realized we were trying to build too much at once.

We had code for groceries, electronics, clothing, everything. The scope kept growing and we couldn’t ship anything. So we took the code we’d already written for food and grocery delivery and launched that as MsosiApp. It’s our first product in the market.

The idea is that MsosiApp proves we can acquire customers and move things reliably. Once that’s working, we expand to the other parts of the JumlaJumla vision like fulfillment centers, credit products, and B2B trading. But right now, ten months after launch, we’re completely focused on making the delivery business work.

How’s it going so far?

David: We have onboarded hundreds of vendors over time, with around 200 currently active.

We have a fleet of 100 electric bikes with about 50 active riders serving several thousand registered users across Dar.

We’re processing between 1,500 and 2,000 orders per month right now.

Wait, per month? Not per day?

David: Per month. That’s about 50 to 65 orders per day currently.

Our near-term target is to consistently reach 500 to 1,000 orders per day as we expand our fleet, vendor base, and customer retention. That gap between where we are and where we need to be is significant, and it’s been harder to close than we projected.

Why is it harder than you expected?

David: Because the math you do in business plans is completely different from reality. You model consistent order volume and it looks achievable.

Then you’re in the market and you realize getting people to actually order regularly is incredibly difficult.

Most people here don’t have the habit of using delivery apps. They walk to the restaurant or call a vendor directly. We have to prove our way is genuinely better through repeated reliable service, and building that trust takes time.

What’s the actual addressable market here?

Alex: As you mentioned earlier, by 2023, about 4.4 million Tanzanian adults were using digital merchant payments regularly. That’s the real number for e-commerce. You can’t just look at smartphone penetration and assume those are customers.

People have phones but that doesn’t mean they can afford to order in-app three times a week. Purchasing power is the true constraint.

David: And adoption is concentrated. The pandemic helped create some behavior change. Before COVID almost nobody was ordering delivery regularly in Tanzania. Now there’s adoption but it’s mostly in specific neighborhoods with higher incomes. We’re not trying to serve everyone. We’re trying to serve the people who have both purchasing power and digital payment habits.

You mentioned electric bikes. How does that work?

David: We’re one of the early companies in Tanzania moving fully toward EV-powered last-mile delivery.

We have 100 electric bikes right now. Some we own outright, some are partner-financed. About 50 riders are active at any given time.

Why go fully electric?

David: Operating costs.

Fuel prices keep going up. But electric bikes are cheaper to run once you have the charging infrastructure in place. We’re also looking to install battery swapping stations, which will let us scale the fleet to 200-plus bikes without riders sitting around waiting to charge.

Walk us through what actually happens when someone places an order.

David: Customer opens the app, browses restaurants or shops, places an order. Then someone from our team calls the vendor to verify.

We literally call every single vendor and say, “Hello, you have an order. Can you prepare this?” It’s completely manual. At least, for now.

Why are you calling vendors manually? That can’t possibly scale.

David: Because vendors don’t reliably check their apps. They’re busy running their businesses. Or they’re out of stock and haven’t updated their menu. If we don’t call to verify, the order sits there and the customer gets angry and blames us. So we solve it with a phone call.

You’re right that it doesn’t scale, but right now we care more about getting the experience right than about scaling. If we grow and the experience breaks, customers never come back.

What happens when a vendor tells you they’re out of something?

Alex: Our system already knows what that customer usually orders based on their purchase history, so it automatically recommends alternatives at the same price point. But we still have to call the customer and ask if they want the substitute. It’s not fully automated yet.

David: This is the reality of operating here. Most vendors don’t have the systems or habits to operate digitally. A restaurant owner has their menu but they don’t know how to structure it for an online platform. They don’t take good product photos. They don’t write descriptions that work online. So we do all of that for them.

Our team goes to every restaurant, photographs everything, records prices, and builds the complete menu. We’ve done this for over hundreds of vendors now.

That’s incredibly labor intensive. Why not just let vendors upload their own stuff?

David: Because they can’t or won’t. It’s a skill and infrastructure gap. If you look at Alibaba, they have 8.5 million annual active sellers but those vendors already know how to operate online. They have e-commerce experience. In Tanzania, that capability doesn’t exist yet. So we’re building it from scratch, one vendor at a time.

Show us how you’re tracking all of this.

[Alex opens his laptop. A map of Dar es Salaam appears covered in colored dots of different sizes.]

Alex: This is what we call god mode. Every dot represents a customer. Gold dots are high spenders who don’t care about price. Green dots are regular users who are more price sensitive. The size of each dot shows their total spending.

[He zooms into Masaki where gold dots cluster thick across the screen.]

See Masaki here? Some of these customers order late at night and pay premium for convenience. They’re high lifetime value customers.

[Then to Kinondoni with fewer, mostly green dots.]

Kinondoni is different, and more price sensitive. They compare options carefully before ordering. We track all of this because every transaction teaches us something about customer behavior and preferences.

What are you actually doing with all this data beyond pretty maps?

Alex: We are building a data-driven intelligence layer that learns from delivery patterns, vendor performance, and customer behavior to improve decisions over time. Most delivery apps use basic recommendation algorithms.

There are four layers to our cognition system.

First is memory architecture. We have short-term memory handling real-time transactions, long-term memory storing every pattern we’ve observed, and what we call scar memory that tracks failures. When a vendor is consistently late or a delivery route always has problems, the system remembers that and adjusts future decisions.

Second is learning from consequences. When we recommend a substitute product and the customer accepts it, that decision gets weighted higher in future scenarios. When they reject it, the system learns from that. It’s reinforcement learning where every transaction improves the model.

Third is self-regulation. The system knows when not to act. We have three states: frozen, degraded, and active. When there’s data starvation or unsafe conditions, the system won’t make automated decisions. It requires human intervention.

Fourth is self-awareness. The system maintains confidence scores for every decision and explicitly refuses actions when it’s uncertain. It can explain its reasoning. We’re building systems that reason, remember, and regulate themselves, not just black box automation.

That’s a lot of sophisticated infrastructure for 50 to 65 orders per day. Why build all of this now instead of using simpler off-the-shelf solutions?

Alex: Because you can’t retrofit intelligence later. We’re building the foundation now so that when we scale to thousands of orders per day across multiple regions. The AI is already trained on millions of transactions and the architecture can handle it. Meanwhile, the marginal cost of processing more transactions on infrastructure built for scale is minimal.

David: And honestly, the technology isn’t our biggest challenge. The challenge is changing behavior and building trust in a market where most people have never used delivery apps regularly. The infrastructure will pay off when we scale, but getting to scale requires solving human problems, not technical problems.

What does this infrastructure cost to run?

Alex: About 600,000 shillings per month. That can handle about 80,000 people using the app at the exact same time.

The biggest cost, though, would be API calls if we hadn’t pivoted to open source options like OpenStreetMap. Previously, every time we calculated a delivery route through Google Maps, we would pay in dollars for the to-and-fro ride. Even a few dozen orders per day routing through mapping services adds up quickly. That’s why server configuration and optimization matters so much.

Walk me through your business model. How do you actually make money?

David: We take 10 to 12 percent of each order, which includes commission and delivery fees.

Average order value is about 25,000 shillings, so we make roughly 2,500 to 3,000 shillings per transaction. At our target of 500 orders per day, that’s around 270 to 320 million shillings in annual revenue. But we’re not at 500 orders per day yet. We’re working toward 100+.

That’s a big gap to close

David: It is. We’re in that zone where we've invested heavily in the fleet, the technology, the team, but we’re not at sustainable unit economics yet. Getting from 65 orders per day to 500 requires growing our active vendor base, improving retention, expanding the rider fleet, and building consistent customer habits. Each of those takes time and capital.

Alex: This is why we are currently fundraising to meet sustain our growth.

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What would it take to hit 500 orders per day?

David: Continued growth in customer retention. Right now we’re targeting above 55 percent retention rate.

If we can keep customers ordering week after week, the order volume follows naturally. The signal we care about most is repeat behavior. Someone orders once, comes back the next day, comes back again. That tells us we’re delivering value.

You don’t accept cash at all. Doesn’t that limit your market even more in a country where cash is still dominant?

Alex: It does limit us, but cash created too many operational problems. Wrong change at delivery, security issues with riders carrying money, or reconciliation nightmares at the end of every day. We went mobile money and card-only and it simplified the entire operation.

The customers who can use mobile money are also the customers who order regularly anyway. We’re optimizing for quality customers, not maximum reach.

Your three-year target is 30 billion shillings in GMV. Walk me through how you get there from where you are now.

David: Multi-city expansion and growing our vendor base significantly. As I said earlier, right now we have 200 active vendors.

We’re targeting 5,000 vendors within two years. That requires systematic vendor acquisition and digitization across multiple cities. We need to launch Arusha, probably in the next six months, then Mwanza and one other city after that.

The math only works with hundreds of orders per day in multiple locations. Dar alone can’t get us to 30 billion.

What needs to be true to make Arusha successful?

David: We’d start with 30 to 40 riders and scale based on actual demand. The mistake would be launching too big and burning cash on infrastructure that isn’t being utilized.

We need to digitize vendors there, build relationships, prove the service works, then expand the fleet as orders grow. It’s the same strategy as Dar but we have to execute it carefully and not assume what worked here automatically works there.

Looking at your LinkedIn profiles, you list all these other products. JumlaJumla Delivery, Credit, Fulfillment centers, Collection Points. How much of that is real versus aspirational?

David: MsosiApp is real and in market. The others are part of the larger JumlaJumla vision but they’re not built yet. The idea is that food delivery is the wedge that acquires customers and proves we can move things reliably. Once that’s working sustainably, we expand to fulfillment centers for storage and processing, credit products so vendors get quick settlements and customers can buy now pay later, collection points so you don’t have to be home for delivery.

Alex: From a technical standpoint, the infrastructure we’re building works for any commerce problem, not just food delivery. We’re building the data and logistics layer that can support all of those products eventually.

That sounds ambitious for a company that isn’t consistently hitting 400 orders per day yet.

David: [laughs] It is ambitious. Look, we might be wrong about all of this. Other companies have tried and failed in this market.

We have a different approach and we think we understand the constraints better, but there’s no guarantee. We just have to execute one step at a time and find out. Right now that means making MsosiApp work sustainably before we think about anything else.

If you were starting over today, what would you do differently?

David: Start much smaller. We tried to cover all of Dar from day one.

I would launch with maybe ten restaurants in one specific neighborhood, prove the unit economics there with actual customers making purchasing decisions, then expand methodically to adjacent neighborhoods.

The gap between what looks achievable in business plan projections and what actually happens in the market is enormous. You learn that through execution, not planning.

What keeps you up at night right now?

David: Making sure we don’t grow faster than we can handle. If we acquire customers but the experience breaks, they never come back. In this market you get one chance, maybe two if you’re lucky.

So we’re obsessed with retention rate over growth rate. Sustainable growth where customers keep ordering week after week is what actually builds a business. Everything else is vanity metrics.

Alex: For me it’s making sure the technology scales smoothly as we grow. Right now everything works well at our current volume. But when we hit 500 orders per day across multiple cities, will the architecture still perform? Have we built the right systems? That’s what I think about constantly.

Coming up next: Piki.

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