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Tekedia Capital is excited to announce our investment in Scalar Field

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
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0

Tekedia Capital is excited to announce our investment in Scalar Field. The company is creating a new trading terminal (a modern Bloomberg terminal) from scratch with integrated datasets and the ability to backtest strategies, benchmark portfolios, and do event-driven trading research. With this, users can test any market hypothesis instantly and intelligently.

Remember: that whenever an analyst, trader, or quant looks at a Bloomberg terminal, they are consciously or subconsciously trying to verify a hypothesis, and that process is cumbersome, requiring users to sift through endless screens of data.

Scalar Field is reimagining the trading terminal from the ground up using intelligent agents, enabling users to directly test their hypotheses in real time, cutting through the noise and accelerating decision-making. They’re building a terminal that can run compute-heavy backtests, react to live market shifts, and trigger trades when your signals align. Agents reorganize dashboards, remember your research trail, and chain multi-hop logic, like surfacing trade ideas when ETF flows spike and earnings drop.

Driving Growth and Operational Excellence Using Lean Six Sigma –Dr. Charles Igwe

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
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0

Come with your calculator and log book because you may need them. Indeed, you will understand the “Measure of Central Tendency” and how you can use lean six sigma to drive business growth and accelerate productivity. Join Dr Charles Igwe as he teaches on the topic – “Driving Growth and Operational Excellence Using Lean Six Sigma” – at Tekedia Mini-MBA Live at 7pm WAT today. Zoom link in the class board.

This is one of the leading courses which our university partners have used extensively (we allow that provided it is for the good of the students). Dr Igwe, a zen-master, created about 160 slide-courseware to explain this zen-stuff.

We are Tekedia Institute, the winner of University of Ilorin U-Inspire Award, the winner of Velocity Mhagic Award, and the winner in the knowledge systems of thousands of young people. We have one product and that is KNOWLEDGE.

Pick your seat and let’s fulfil the cardinal mission encapsulated by University of Nigeria Nsukka: “to restore the dignity of man (and woman)”. Now, it is Lean Six Sigma time from the best school.

Tue, Nov 18| 7pm-8pm WAT | Driving Growth and Operational Excellence Using Lean Six Sigma –Dr. Charles Igwe, Algonquin College Canada | Zoom link

Global AI Funding Holds Above $45B in Q3 2025 as Africa Records the Lowest Regional Share

By
Ojukwu Emmanuel
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0

Global AI startup activity slowed in the third quarter (Q3) of 2025, with deal volume dropping to 1,295, yet, funding remained robust, surpassing $45 billion for the fourth consecutive quarter.

According to CB Insights’ “State of AI Q3’25 report, despite fewer deals, the average AI investment size continued to rise sharply, reaching $49.3 million year-to-date, an 86% increase compared to last year. Investors are placing larger and more concentrated bets as they pursue long-term AI winners amid escalating infrastructure costs and intense competition in model development.

M&A activity in the AI sector remained near record highs. Q3 2025 recorded 172 acquisition deals, just behind Q2’s all-time high of 181. Notably, three of the five largest acquisitions involved AI agent companies, highlighting the race among legacy enterprise software firms to accelerate their AI product roadmaps through strategic purchases.

The quarter also featured six rounds valued at over $1 billion. The three largest went to leading LLM developers Anthropic ($13B Series F), OpenAI ($8.3B in private equity), and Mistral AI ($1.5B in Series C), reflecting the massive capital requirements associated with developing frontier models. Although OpenAI reached $12 billion in annualized revenue as of July 2025, the company is still projected to burn approximately $8 billion in cash this year.

Other major deals included infrastructure providers such as Nscale (AI data centers, $1.1B Series B) and Groq (AI inference processors, $750M Series E). These investments mirror the growing importance of technologies enabling AI scale, with references to data centers hitting record highs on Q3 earnings calls and chip development trending toward record funding activity for both training and inference hardware.

M&A remains a major force in the AI industry. Q3 2025 was the second-highest quarter ever for AI startup acquisitions. The U.S. strengthened its dominance, accounting for 59% of all exits its highest share since Q2 2021.

AI Funding by Region

Europe is the most-preferred destination for AI funding. AI startups across the continent raised $5.4 billion across 279 deals and representing 11.3 per cent of the quarterly total. This stands as an impressive 22.7 per cent improvement from the previous quarter, when $4.4 billion was raised.

The Asian region proved to be another powerhouse and one of three regions that recorded a billion dollars or more in quarterly funding. The region recorded $2.9 billion across 297 deals, an impressive 38 per cent increase from the $2.1 billion raised across 300 deals in the last quarter.

Africa remained the least in terms of funding as AI startups across the continent raised $14 million, representing only 0.03 per cent of the total $47.8 billion raised by AI startups globally.

Where AI Deals Are Concentrated

Across more than 1,500 technology sectors tracked by CB Insights, the markets with the highest AI deal activity in Q3 2025 included:Industrial, humanoid robotics, Coding AI agents & copilots LLM developers.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) also emerged as a fast-rising segment. GEO tools focus on improving brand visibility across AI-powered search platforms such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, an increasingly relevant area following OpenAI’s September 2025 launch of in-platform shopping features, which signals a shift toward AI-driven commerce and discovery.

AI startups with small headcounts and high potential continued attracting extraordinary valuations. Humanoid robotics company Figure led the quarter with a valuation of $104.3 million per employee, backed by a $39 billion valuation despite having no reported revenue last year (and projecting $9B annually by 2029).

Cognition followed with $98.1 million per employee on a $10.2B valuation, supported by more than $150M in ARR, equating to an exceptionally high revenue multiple of roughly 68x. Other companies at the top of the valuation-per-employee rankings spanned the model layer (Anthropic, Mistral AI, Decart, Harmonic), the infrastructure layer (Baseten), and the application layer (OpenEvidence, Sierra, Irregular).

Whether these valuations prove visionary or overinflated will depend on the companies’ ability to deliver on ambitious revenue projections in the years ahead.

For now, Q3 2025 underscores a clear trend, fewer deals, bigger bets, and an AI market rapidly consolidating as competition for technological leadership intensifies.

African Startups Face Longer Fundraising Cycles as Global Market Conditions Shift

By
Ojukwu Emmanuel
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0

A new analysis shows that start-ups across Africa are now waiting nearly twice as long to raise their next round of funding, reflecting a broader global slowdown in venture capital deployment. This comes as a shifting investor appetite prolongs fundraising for these startups.

The slowdown in funding began with the withdrawal of global venture capitalists as interest rates began rising a few years ago. Investors who have remained active in Africa have been inclined to fund startups at an early stage, where the ticket sizes are smaller.

According to data reviewed by Africa: The Big Deal, analyst Maxime examined how quickly African start-ups were raising capital during the peak funding period. The numbers from that time show a significantly accelerated pace. On average, start-ups moved from launch to pre-seed in 16 months, from Pre-Seed to Seed in just 11 months, and from Seed to Series A in around 15 months. Between Series A and Series B, the typical 18–24-month rule largely held.

This rapid cycle occurred because the market was overheated. Investors were eager and sometimes even pressured to deploy capital quickly for fear of missing out on strong opportunities. As a result, start-ups enjoyed higher valuations and greater bargaining power.

However, with the market slowdown that followed, the timelines have shifted dramatically. Since 2023, African start-ups have faced fundraising cycles that are 1.5 to 2 times longer than before. The journey from launch to Pre-Seed typically takes around two years, the same applies from pre-seed to seed. The Seed-to-Series A interval has stretched to about 2 years and 4 months, while raising a Series B now takes over three years from Series A.

Several factors contribute to this slowdown which include reduced capital availability, increased investor caution especially from those who were only casually investing in African markets, and the elevated valuations from the heatwave, which make follow-on conversations more difficult and often raise the specter of down rounds.

Partech General Partner Tidjane Deme in an interview with Semafor earlier this year, said that fewer investors are active in the current market, and the terms being offered have become far less attractive, resulting in longer negotiation periods. In his words, “There are less investors active in the market, the terms you find are much less attractive so negotiations take longer. Investors right now are trying to protect their downside, and founders are finding it difficult to take the more expensive and constraining terms.”

Crucially, this trend is not specific to Africa. Global comparisons confirm that extended fundraising timelines are a worldwide reality. A late-2024 analysis by Carta reported that the median interval between Seed and Series A had grown to 25 months—1.8 times longer than three years earlier. This aligns closely with Africa’s median of 28 months. Carta reported a 24-month gap between Series A and Series B, while Crunchbase estimates for a similar period reached 31 months, still in the same range, though slightly shorter than the 39-month interval observed in Africa.

The takeaway for founders is clear, extended fundraising cycles are now the global norm. Where “18–24 months” once guided planning, “2–3 years” has become the new reality. Understanding this shift is essential for strategic preparation, runway planning, and navigating the steadily evolving investment landscape.

Fintech Innovations That Are Expanding Access to Credit Across the Globe

By
TI Partners
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0

As recently as 2015, people could get a loan from a traditional bank only. Unfortunately, not everyone had the opportunity to get it because many had no credit history or a stable job.

But nowadays, the situation has changed thanks to online platforms, automated services, and mobile apps. This allows people to get a loan easily and quickly now.

Problems with Traditional Bank Lending

The lending system in traditional banks is very inconvenient for customers. Banks necessarily check your credit history, require stable employment, or collateral. Therefore, most people have a high chance of getting rejected.

About 15% of Americans are partially served by banks, and 6% have no bank account, according to the 2022 Federal Reserve data. Lending is almost unavailable to such people.

The size of the loans also matters. Often, it’s not profitable for banks to issue small loans like $100 or $300, because the verification and paperwork costs much more. So, lots of people are left without support.

Global Impact of Fintech Innovations

Fintech innovations spread far from the USA and more and more every day. It is becoming a major tool for credit access worldwide.

In 2011, only 51% of adults all over the world had access to financial services, but today it is over 76%. This growth was due to using mobile banking (fintech platforms).

Global fintech lending volume has reached $223 billion, with an additional $572 billion from tech-based companies, according to the Bank for International Settlements. This shows us the scale and global impact of financial technologies.

Forecasts suggest that by 2030, the USA lending market will exceed $700 billion. Similar trends are seen in the other regions, where digital services are becoming a tool for economic growth for small businesses and households in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

A great example of how fintech is changing practices is microloans through automated platforms. It lets people get funds quickly with clear terms and without hard checks. This is especially important for those who are often rejected by traditional banks. Fintech companies help to create a fairer financial system where everyone can rely on support.

How Fintech Companies Work

Fintech companies operate much simply than traditional banks, and it is more convenient for users. They work online without any physical offices, they do not require paper forms, and they use AI technology for quick and soft information checks.

Fintech services usually analyse the following:

  • Stable income
  • Bill payments
  • Rent payment history

One of the biggest changes that fintech has made is an opportunity for people to make a credit history from scratch. Thanks to small, regular payments for utilities, phone, or online purchases, people can prove their reliability.

Fintech has made it possible to get a loan in places where traditional banks do not even reach. Lots of services that are working through mobile apps became extremely popular because of people who use only a smartphone for all financial operations. Many entrepreneurs can’t get a loan from a traditional bank because they don’t have a stable income. So they also benefit from fintech progress.

One more interesting thing that fintech brought is that loans appear right inside the everyday services people already use. For example, in Kenya, there is a service that gives small loans for buying a smartphone. Every day or month, a person pays a small amount through mobile money, and when the company sees that the person pays regularly, it can offer another small loan.

The same thing happens in Latin America. The platform can see people’s financial activity and offer a small loan.

Benefits of fintech lending

Fintech lending services improve the credit market by enabling faster and more convenient transactions. Here are their key advanges:

Accessibility

Unlike traditional banks, fintech services can give people loans without a formal credit history.

Transparency

Customers can see all terms, interest rates, and total costs. Users of fintech services often say that they clearly understand all of the loan conditions, unlike users of traditional banks do not.

Popularity

Trust in such services is growing rapidly. Statistics show that fintech companies provide about 63% of all personal loans now.

According to the Federal Reserve, the total loan volume reached $356 billion in the USA in 2022. And about 14% of that (it is around $50 billion) was issued through fintech platforms.

Speed

In traditional banks, the approval can take about a week, but fintech services process loan applications in minutes.

The Negative Side and Possible Risks of Fintech

Despite many advantages, these innovations also have downsides and risks, such as:

High interest rates

Fintech companies often set higher rates than banks because of the risks of non-payment. Sometimes the annual rate can reach 36-100%, while the bank’s average is around 12%.

Data security

FinTech services operate fully online and process a lot of personal information from ID data to transaction history. Any data breach can have serious consequences. In 2022, Block’s Cash App reported a data leak, which affected about 8.2 million users. Then Americans lost over $10 billion.

Different financial laws in the USA

Lending regulations in the USA vary by state. For example, in California, the maximum rate for loans is 36%, while in Texas, companies can legally charge over 100%. To operate in several states, some companies partner with federally licensed banks. This helps expand credit access but also creates loopholes that dishonest lenders might use.

Risk of a high debt

Fintech made the borrowing process very easy; because of that, some people take loans too often, without enough financial knowledge. Lots of borrowers take new loans to pay off old ones.

Service depends on technologies.

A system glitch can block a client’s access to funds. Also, fintech companies heavily rely on a stable Internet and artificial intelligence.

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