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Wazzup.

It’s Tuesday. Africa’s startup ecosystem has apparently decided that seed funding should no longer be small. Nigerian defence-tech startup Terra Industries has closed a $52 million seed round, one of the continent’s biggest early-stage bets yet.

We talk about it in today’s dispatch. Let’s dive in.

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Terra raises Africa’s largest seed round
EBRD, IFC eye Egypt’s Banque du Caire
Egypt’s e-finance acquires 8% stake in Wilzy
Are ATMs making a comeback in Nigeria?
World Wide Web 3
Opportunities

Funding

Terra raises Africa’s largest seed round

On Monday, Terra Industries, the Nigerian defence-tech startup, announced its third raise of the year, closing what has become the largest and most covered seed round in Africa’s tech ecosystem. With $18 million raised, the two-year-old company is now the seventh most-funded startup in Africa in 2026, after closing its seed round at $52 million.

Why this matters: Raising that much this early signals real investor confidence in Africa’s biggest defence tech startup, particularly in a funding market that has seen companies like GoLemon and Gigbanc shut down. But it also sets a bar. Money raised at this scale eventually has to come back to investors through an exit.

While talks of exits are premature given that Terra just closed its seed round, it is worth talking about because with great capital come great responsibilities.

What will it use the money for? Terra says it will use the money to open a London office, and with this much capital available, the company is well placed to hire experienced people who can open doors in international markets.

This can be particularly useful for the startup that has to acquire relationships and contracts in a sector dominated by billion-dollar incumbents, where credibility and the right introductions often decide who gets a hearing.

The startup will also expand its manufacturing capacity, deploy its products across the Global South, and hire engineering, operations, and business development staff.

What does this mean? It is tempting to look for one reason Terra has raised so much this year, but several things set it apart. It builds both the hardware and the software. It already protects critical commercial and government assets across West Africa.

It allows African governments to use a system where the security data stays inside the country—an argument that won Terra its first Nigerian federal contract and edges it over international competition.

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Banking

EBRD and IFC want a slice of EgyptBanque du Caire

Egypt is preparing to sell part of Banque du Caire, one of its oldest and largest state-backed financial institutions, to public investors, and investor interest is circling.

Two international development institutions, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), want in; both investors are eyeing a combined 10% stake in the state-owned bank when it lists on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) in November 2026. The stake could be split roughly down the middle, with EBRD taking up to 5%, while IFC mops up the rest, according to local publication EnterpriseAM.

Wait, who are these guys? The EBRD is a multilateral bank that invests in emerging economies to build up their financial markets, and the IFC is the arm of the World Bank Group that bankrolls private-sector projects in developing countries.

Explain like I’m new here: This is part of Egypt’s effort to increasingly privatise its economy, bringing in more private and foreign investors as the state reduces its stakes in those institutions. For the country, the name of the game is to raise money, attract foreign currency, deepen the local stock market, and give private investors a bigger role in companies that have traditionally been controlled by the state.

The government has been doing this by selling stakes in existing companies and listing others on the Egyptian Exchange. In 2021, Egypt sold a 51% stake in Arab Investment Bank, the first time it privatised a bank in over a decade. In October 2024, it listed United Bank—which was heavily state-owned—selling a stake to public investors. More recently, in April 2026, Egypt temporarily listed six state-owned companies on its stock exchange to broaden the market and attract investor interest. The country is looking to raise between $3 billion and $4 billion from initial public offerings (IPOs) and stake sales by the end of 2026.

A long time coming: The government had been considering selling up to 49% of Banque du Caire as of April, but the latest plan puts the IPO in November. The real reason could be that the banks running the deal asked for extra time to widen the pool of investors before going back out to pitch it. The new plan is to restart the investor roadshow in September or October and complete the listing in November.

Why does this matter? For Banque du Caire, an IPO means fresh capital and a broader shareholder base. Having EBRD and IFC potentially buy in could make the offering easier to sell to other investors who may be wondering whether they want a piece of an Egyptian state-owned bank; it makes the IPO attractive to everyone else.

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Fintech

Publicly listed e-finance acquires 8% stake in Wilzy, an Egyptian retail investment company

Days after it acquired Egyptian micro-lender Tamweely, e-finance, the Egyptian-listed fintech company with a market cap of EGP 86.5 billion ($1.7 billion), has bought an 8% stake in Wilzy, a digital wealth management platform.

What happened? Ibrahim Sarhan, chairman of e-finance, confirmed the EGP 100 million ($2 million) investment in Wilzy, which rebranded from Act Holding in 2025 to target retail investors. The move follows e-finance’s full acquisition of Tamweely for up to EGP 4.8 billion ($95 million) on August 13, a deal that is expected to close by the end of the year pending regulatory sign-off.

What does this mean? By owning a piece of Wilzy, e-finance is moving beyond payment infrastructure and microlending to target retail investment. Egypt’s wealth management sector is seeing increased interest as digital adoption grows, and e-finance wants to own a piece of the backend providing retail investing access.

The maths of the move: The EGP 100 million ($2 million) for an 8% stake implies that Wilzy was valued at about EGP 1.25 billion ($25 million). For e-finance—which is 25.7% owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund—the $2 million investment is a low-cost entry into a high-growth market, following its much larger capital deployment into the micro-lending space.

Zoom out: e-finance is building a closed-loop financial ecosystem. It already powers the pipes for government payments; now it owns the lender that funds small businesses (Tamweely) and a platform where those business owners can invest their profits (Wilzy). Until the Egyptian market is fully digitised, the “super-infrastructure” giants will continue to gobble up the best-performing pieces of the fintech puzzle.

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Banking

Nigerians are going back to their first love: ATMs

The greatest story of Nigeria’s point-of-sale (PoS) economy was the 2023 cash crunch, when millions of Nigerians rediscovered mobile money. That economy has been central to how people access cash since then. However, even the highest highs have their dips, and momentum slows.

In Q1 2026, PoS transaction volume fell by 19.9% to 2.92 billion compared to the previous year, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Value also declined by 16.4% to ₦59.3 trillion ($43.7 billion). But guess what platform is making a comeback? Yes, automated teller machines (ATMs).

After years of losing ground to small, shiny blue, red, green, and black handheld devices, ATMs recorded 438.6 million transactions, amounting to ₦26.3 trillion ($19.4 billion) during the same period. That value was over 60% year-on-year. While overall, it was a smaller number compared to what PoS devices processed, it still marked strong ATM adoption among Nigerians in Q1.

Explain like I’m new here: For years, unreliable ATMs and empty cash trays forced Nigerians to rely on PoS agents that charge fees for every withdrawal. But new CBN rules are turning the tide.

The regulator has mandated banks to deploy at least one ATM for every 7,500 cards issued and introduced stricter caps on PoS agents, including a ₦1.2 million ($885) daily transaction limit. It now appears banks are being forced to rebuild the pipes they let rot, while agents are seeing their flexibility curtailed.

Between the lines: The scale of the shift is massive. Nigerians processed roughly $215 million every single day through ATMs in Q1 2026. While there are still only 13 ATMs per 100,000 adults compared to one PoS terminal for every 28 people, the value per transaction at ATMs is rising as banks become more reliable places to get cash.

Zoom out: While PoS agents still have a presence in corner streets, giving them a strong distribution and easy access moat, ATMs, if the resurgence continues, could be making a comeback; this could rebalance the scales in the near future. As the CBN pushes for a more regulated and bank-led infrastructure, the cost of accessing cash is becoming a battleground between fintech agility (mobile money) and traditional banking scale, with banks competing in the space too.

If ATMs continue to see stronger adoption than rival PoS transactions, could banks start giving those machines more priority again?

CRYPTO TRACKER

The World Wide Web3

Source:

Coin Name	Current Value	Day	Month
Bitcoin	$64,148	+ 1.13%	– 0.78%
Ether	$1,893	– 0.29%	+ 1.42%
Asentum	$0.001736	– 3.80%	– 7.81%
Solana	$75.78	+ 0.41%	– 0.32%

* Data as of 06.35 AM WAT, August 18, 2026.

Opportunities

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Written by: Muktar Oladunmade, Yemi Kareem, and Zia Yusuf

Edited by: Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade

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