As it sojourns to IPO in NYSE, Jumia has picked $56 million from Mastercard Europe. It needs any boost it can get as it goes public for good. The business of ecommerce in Africa is a long-run game. All the investors must play that game.

Jumia, which will trade as “JMIA” on the NYSE, has also received a cash injection ahead of its public offering: in a private stock sale, the company has confirmed a $56 million private placement from Mastercard Europe. It means Mastercard will be buying shares at whatever price investors agree ahead of the float and gives Jumia a confidence boost ahead of an uncertain listing for a young company which positions itself both as an “emerging growth company” and a “foreign private issues” as defined under US securities regulations.

As with most companies ahead of a prospective listing, Jumia’s S1 filing covered several risk factors for investors to consider while it talked up its ambitions in Africa’s e-commerce space, including touting its four million active customers across 14 African countries. But as Quartz Africa noted, the risk factors offer just a hint of how costly it is to crack e-commerce across Africa. As of the end of last year, Jumia had accumulated losses of nearly $1 billion and had negative operating cash flows of $159.2 million, for the 12 months to Dec 31, 2018. Its annual losses have also grown annually widening to $195.2 million on revenue of just $149.6 million last year.

Yes, a game that requires looking at years and not months.

In this videocast, I discuss the future of e-commerce in Africa and why the sector is still anyone’s game to win despite the presence of key competitors. The loss-making sector demands someone with capital to boost logistics and accelerate scale to make money. Today’s leaders are not doing that yet, and can be easily disrupted and displaced. But there are challenges in competing in this sector because the environment and the fundamentals are toxic with largely no infrastructure to key in. The business competitive factor is not the internet or website but logistics. Winning this sector to become a category-king will be settled by a company that can invest, at scale, in logistics to serve more cities and countries.

I noted many months ago that winning in the automotive sector will mean focusing on the edges of the smiling curve. Yes, the companies that just focus on making cars will not be the ones creating most values in the industry. The ones making the intelligent solutions for future transportation will transform the sector. So, Intel is a better car company than Ford because Intel is investing in making better computing systems for future cars. Those devices are specialized systems, and more premium, than the boxes we know as cars, which unfortunately are increasingly commoditized.

Evidently, car companies have understood this redesign and are now investing in technology with companies known for innovations and technology-anchored transformations. Yes, BMW and Microsoft are going to work together to develop and build an Open Manufacturing Platform to seed the future of intelligent manufacturing. GE had called that industrial internet, and it is going to be the defining elements of future manufacturing where factories become intelligent as all the elements will be smartly connected.

Today, at Hannover Messe, Microsoft Corp. and the BMW Group announced a new community initiative to enable faster, more cost-effective innovation in the manufacturing sector. In manufacturing today, production and profitability can be hindered by complex, proprietary systems that create data silos and slow productivity. The Open Manufacturing Platform (OMP) is designed to break down these barriers through the creation of an open technology framework and cross-industry community. The initiative is expected to support the development of smart factory solutions that will be shared by OMP participants across the automotive and broader manufacturing sectors. The goal is to significantly accelerate future industrial IoT developments, shorten time to value and drive production efficiencies while addressing common industrial challenges.

Built on the Microsoft Azure industrial IoT cloud platform, the OMP is intended to provide community members with a reference architecture with open source components based on open industrial standards and an open data model. In addition to facilitating collaboration, this platform approach is designed to unlock and standardize data models that enable analytics and machine learning scenarios — data that has traditionally been managed in proprietary systems. Utilizing industrial use cases and sample code, community members and other partners will have the capability to develop their own services and solutions while maintaining control over their data.

This is Microsoft Azure at work just as Amazon has partnered with Volkswagen. What is happening with cloud is an industrial design where future cars will be built on Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS. Of course, Google Cloud is powering Waymo, the autonomous car company within Google’s parent holding firm (Alphabet).

https://youtu.be/YHY1o6ijJ5I

This is a very fascinating vision – a company that makes it possible for Nigerian customers to buy goods from Ugandan merchants and pay over time. The firm, Xente, explores Nigeria, out of its Ugandan root, just as Nigerian startups like to link into United States and United Kingdom.

Largely, if Nigeria gets itself ready, it can become the American to many Africa-nations entrepreneurs and startups. They see the big market and they are ready to roll in Nigeria. It is simply fascinating that someone will structure a deal to make it easier for Nigerians to buy from Ugandan businesspeople; give credits to these young entrepreneurs!

Ugandan startup Xente, which allows customers from all over the world to buy products from Ugandan merchants and pay in instalments with cards or mobile money, has expanded to Nigeria.

Mobile payments and shopping app Xente enables consumers and African businesses to transact efficiently and safely on any mobile channel without the need to use cash.

The startup has now made Nigeria its first market outside of Uganda, allowing users there to, among other things, purchase airtime from all major networks, pay for utilities such as electricity, water and pay-TV services, and pay for physical products at partner stores using their Xente wallet.

“We are proud to have a second home, nothing makes us more happy than to sit in Africa’s fastest growing economy. We are more than happy to provide every Nigerian citizen with a secure, convenient and stress-free online buying experience,” said Xente chief executive officer (CEO) Allan Rwakatungu.

Xente is Africa’s Alipay. Using Xente, customers in Uganda and, Nigeria can make payments in country and cross border for 100 + use cases using mobile money, bank cards, as well as on credit.