COMMERCE
Glovo says its Kenyan orders grew 40% last year
Glovo told its first Future of Commerce Summit in Nairobi on Thursday that orders in Kenya rose 40% last year as more people buy groceries, meals and everyday goods through apps. It now works in 12 Kenyan towns with more than 6,000 merchants and 2,200 riders active on a typical day, and says businesses on the app have sold more than KES 20 billion worth since it arrived in 2019, about 80% of it through small and medium-sized firms. It also showed an in-app shopping assistant that uses language models including ChatGPT and Claude, so customers can type what they want instead of scrolling menus, and it is pushing into non-food brands such as oraimo. The figures are Glovo's own and it gave no order numbers; it competes with Uber Eats, Bolt Food and retailers' own delivery.
TechTrends
AGRITECH
Soil test results now go straight to farmers' phones
A soil mapping programme run by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and KALRO has collected and mapped more than 3,600 soil samples across 45 counties, and sends each farmer's results to their phone, with advice on which fertiliser to use and how much. The samples feed a digital soil map that gives information for a specific farm, three KALRO laboratories have been refitted, and some farmers are being trained as "soil doctors" to advise their neighbours. Agriculture CS Mutahi Kagwe urged farmers to test their soil before deciding what to plant. The programme, paid for by the United States and Japan, has not said how many farmers it has reached.
UN News
STARTUPS
Triply wants travel agencies to run quotes, bookings and payments in one place
Nairobi's Triply, founded in 2021, sells software that lets travel agents and tour operators build itineraries, quote, book flights and hotels, collect customer payments and pay suppliers without switching between tools. It says more than 500 travel businesses in six African markets use it, and it has a payments partnership with Choice Microfinance Bank. Two customers it names report fewer lost leads and cheaper international payments through virtual cards. "Running a travel business involves much more than taking a booking," says CEO Peter Wachira. Prices and funding were not disclosed, and the results are the company's own.
Techweez
MOBILITY
Spiro takes its electric motorcycles and battery swaps to Ghana
Spiro, the electric motorcycle company with assembly plants in Kenya and six other countries, has put its first 100 bikes on the road in Ghana, together with stations where riders swap a flat battery for a charged one in about two minutes instead of waiting for it to charge. It says it now has more than 156,000 electric motorcycles on the road and over 2,500 swap stations, and is preparing to enter Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali and the DR Congo on the way to 20 markets. For boda riders, the test is still the daily cost of renting or buying the bike and swapping batteries against petrol.
Disrupt Africa
ENERGY
Own, lease or buy the power: the solar choice facing Kenyan businesses
Speakers at a Nairobi forum put grid power at about KES 18 to 28 a unit against KES 8 to 14 for solar under some arrangements, with payback in four to seven years. Buying a system outright gives the cheapest power but ties up cash; a lease spreads the cost; and under a power purchase agreement a developer owns the panels and sells you the electricity, which needs no upfront money but locks you into a long contract and depends on the developer performing. A rooftop deal only works if you are sure you will stay in the building. Two points are easy to miss: solar on its own gives no power during a blackout, and the cost ranges come from the panel, not from published tariffs, so get quotes before relying on them.
TechTrends
