Boost for African Venture Capital, Trouble Down South and Mental Models

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“A society is as advanced as its treatment of its weak, its handicapped and incapacitated.”

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Beating the competition is relatively easy. But beating yourself is a never ending commitment.”

— Phil Knight, Shoe Dog

Reverberations from the recent ban on okadas and kekes (tuk-tuks) in Lagos, Nigeria'a economic capital are still being felt.

The ban was put in place after the Lagos state government had previously encouraged investors both domestic and international to fund the newly developing ride-hailing/mobility tech space in the city.

There are reports that bike hailing company, Gokada, has laid off about 80% of its staff in what can only be the first of a wave of more job losses expected to come in the aftermath of this recent ill thought-out move by the government.

Riders of the major bike hailing companies have been protested the ruling but the government remains unmoved. According to others however, the recent ban is only a cover for layoffs that have been ongoing since the company took a short break in August 2019 to reboot.

Malawi’s Constitutional Court overturned last year’s presidential vote with a 500-page ruling that said Peter Mutharika’s re-election was rigged so blatantly it included the use of correction fluid.

A South African court ordered the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma after he failed to show up for a corruption trial. His lawyers have until May 6 to prove that the deposed ex-leader is too ill to attend. The rescheduled hearing will examine 16 charges, including corruption and racketeering dating back to the 1990s.

Venture capital firm TLCom has raised $71m for its TIDE Africa fund, comfortably beating the $50m it raised in 2019.

Over the next eighteen months, the firm aims to invest in 12 startups in the continent’s major markets with an eye on infrastructure-focused startups. Africa’s infrastructure needs are between $130 and $170 billion per year according to the African Development Bank’s estimates. However, the current deficit in financing is between $68 billion and $108 billion per year.

The TIDE fund is TLCom’s initiative for the African technology environment.

Security forces in Ivory Coast have confiscated $40 million of cocaine in the country’s coastlines. This seizure, which occurred on Tuesday, 4th of February 2020, is the biggest the country has ever recorded.

Wheww.

Below is the first in a twitter thread providing a list of 40 mental models. Mental models are tools which we address life and various situations with. They help us create awareness of biases we might have and techniques we can use for accurate problem solving. I highly recommend checking it out!