Read page 9 of Kinnevik market report to understand the state of Konga.com

Konga, founded in 2012, is one of the largest general merchandise marketplaces in Nigeria and ranks as one of the top ten websites in the country.

KongaPay, Konga’s payment solution, introduced ”me-Commerce”, a feature providing a gateway for customers and entrepreneurs to sell products locally and internationally. It gives users a safe and seamless payment experience via mobile without the need for bank transfers

Konga’s push towards mobile continued to increase with over 80% of visitors from the app and mobile web

Effcient marketing, focused on the most attractive channels, resulted in all-time high conversion rates and acquisition of high quality customers

From the data on the investor’s report, it seems Konga is worth only $34 million.

This is indeed troubling for all the noise, Konga is just valued at $34 million only. Its major competitor, Jumia, has the parent valued close to $1 billion.

Konga has raised nearly $78 million and it has a valuation of $34 million which means that the company is seriously under-performing. E-commerce is not a great business in Africa  and will take time to be profitable. The same trajectory shown by Konga is similar to what Jumia has recorded – lots of losses.

Hope you saw that Konga has only 184,000 active customers. That is in a country of 173 million people. It does not look really good.

Facebook extended its impressive winning streak. The social media behemoth demolished quarterly revenue and profit expectations, as daily users hit 1.1 billion and its dominance of mobile advertising grew. Earnings nearly tripled, even as spending on R&D increased sharply.

Facebook now has 1.71 billion monthly users, up from 1.65 billion in the prior quarter. Analysts had estimated 1.69 billion. Daily users rose to 1.13 billion.The company now makes 84 percent of its advertising revenue from mobile. Facebook shares rose 5 percent in extended trading. The company had gained 1.8 percent to $123.34 at the close in New York, and has climbed 18 percent so far this year.

The constant stream of revenue also allows Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to ramp up his investment in more futuristic initiatives, such as virtual reality and connecting the world to the Internet — steps that are unlikely to bring in profit for many years.

Quantopian  is having a great week with Point72 Ventures.

The Boston-based firm has 85,000 “members,” who create and test algorithms on its website. Algorithm creators can earn money based on the returns their investment strategies receives. The five-year-old startup touts users that are students, finance professionals, and scientists coming from 180 countries.

Ceramic cookwares kitchen sets to buy

By 2030, Nigeria wants to send an astronaut into space. You would have thought with all the problems it has here on the ground — from a shrivelling economy to rampant Boko Haram terrorists — conquering the final frontier would be the last thing on the government’s mind. Yet in Nigeria, as in several other African countries, space technology is moving up the policy agenda.

Unfortunately, space technology cannot leapfrog earthly problems. Without functioning institutions, good primary and secondary schools and decent hospitals, development will remain a chimera. Prestige projects can certainly be a diversion or an opportunity for graft.

Nigeria should get serious and focus on this it has control over. We need to fix earthly problems before these terrestrial challenges!

Twitter disappointed investors again. The social media firm (remember when it was called a “microblogging” service?) missed quarterly revenue targets and warned of more trouble to come. Twitter shares were down 9% in after-hours trading, and if CEO Jack Dorsey can’t end this slump a sale may become inevitable.

There was at least one bright spot in today’s report: Twitter added 3 million new users, above the 2 million projected by analysts. The company ended the first half of the year with 313 million monthly active users. It’s not astounding growth, but at least it’s in the positive territory.