GRTech
[Breaking] Credit platform Migo raises $20 Million Series B


Migo (formerly Mines.io), a startup reinventing the way people access and use credit in emerging markets, has completed a Series B equity round of $20 million led by Valor Capital Group, a Brazil-focused venture capital firm.
Existing investors, The Rise Fund (managed by TPG Growth) and Velocity Capital, also joined the funding round along with new investors, Africinvest and Cathay Innovation. This financing will support talent acquisition and Migo’s launch into the Brazilian market, as well as its continued growth in Nigeria.
Migo is a cloud-based platform that enables companies to offer credit to their customers, augmenting traditional bank and payment card infrastructure. Companies like banks, telecommunications operators and merchants integrate Migo in their apps and Migo underwrites customers to provide them with a digital account and credit line. The customers can use this credit line to make purchases from a merchant or withdraw cash without the need for point-of-sale hardware or plastic cards. Migo serves underbanked customers who are not typically covered by credit bureaus, having underwritten more than seven million of these customers to date. An estimated 90 million adults in Nigeria and 100 million adults in Brazil have no access to credit, and this is a massive area of untapped growth for emerging market banking ecosystems.
“Our mission is to drive commerce around the world by injecting liquidity into the last-mile retail sector,” explains Migo CEO, Ekechi Nwokah. “We believe the best way to achieve this goal is to build digital infrastructure to empower local enterprises that already serve millions of consumers and small businesses.”
Migo offers a simple API so its partners can offer co-branded credit services in their own apps and websites, increasing customer engagement and serving customer segments they were not previously able to serve. Migo is particularly attractive for merchants and payment gateways since it can grow merchant revenue due to increased customer purchasing power and transaction completion rate.
As part of the financing, Antoine Colaco from Valor Capital has joined the Migo Board of Directors. “Migo combines world-class technology with a deep understanding of the needs of consumers and small businesses in emerging markets. We are excited to partner with them in Brazil and beyond,” Colaco said.
Migo enables some of the largest retail enterprises in Africa—from mobile operators like 9mobile and MTN to payment companies Interswitch and Flutterwave to banks like Bank of Industry and Fidelity Bank. Migo is now expanding to Brazil and partnering with some of the largest retail enterprises in Latin America. “The typical Silicon Valley approach of move-fast-and-break-things doesn’t work well in emerging markets. To create durable solutions, it is important to combine the audacity of cutting-edge technology with humility to the nuances of local markets” says VP of Growth, Adia Sowho.
Migo started out as a research project on high-performance artificial intelligence led by Migo Chief Scientist, Kunle Olukotun, a professor of computer engineering at Stanford University. This project came to life after a chance meeting between Olukotun and Nwokah, a computer scientist working on big data projects at Amazon Web Services. Following their meeting, the pair teamed up to direct the technology toward solving credit in emerging markets. This big data approach is one of the company’s key advantages, as it aggregates massive amounts of data across all of its partners to improve population coverage and credit decisions over time.
GRTech
The Economics of Product Decisions: Applying Behavioural Economics and Game Theory in PM


Product managers often need to make a clear-cut decision: what should we build next? But the decisions which hold real importance go beyond adding features.
It’s about getting what makes people tick.
It goes way beyond what you would expect, getting into how people behave and using game theory.
These areas give insight into how users decide and how a product’s design can improve growth and keep people interested.
This is what Amarachi Nnochiri excels at. She is a senior product manager that knows how to use economics and psychology in her job.
She goes beyond simply managing product tasks; she develops whole product systems based on how users think, feel, and use a service. Her background shows how understanding human psychology and behaviour can give you a significant advantage in the competition.
One idea Amarachi uses is “loss aversion.” In this scenario, people feel worse about losing something than they feel good about gaining something of equal value.
She uses this when designing her products, mostly when it comes to pricing and getting people to try new strategies. For example, instead of giving a free trial, she might use a freemium setup where users get some stuff for free but could lose it if they don’t buy an upgrade. This pushes them to pay.
She might also use progress bars or streak counters, since losing progress gets people to keep using the product.
Amarachi also uses ideas from “game theory” to get how users act and change their behavior. She realizes that users are doing more than operating a product, but are playing a game with other users or with the product itself. She designs things that use ideas like “Nash equilibrium,” where nobody can do better by changing what they’re doing. For a social product, this could mean creating a system where doing something good for yourself (like inviting friends) also helps everyone else. This makes the whole thing stable and positive.
Her know-how in game theory also applies to making strong “network effects.” This means making stuff that gets better as more people use it.
A good example is a social network where each new user makes the product more helpful for everyone else. Amarachi endeavours to make things go viral on purpose, not just by luck.
She might use “commitment devices,” which are things that make a user stick with a behaviour by making them depend on it socially or functionally. For example, inviting team members to a tool makes the user stick with the platform and makes the product’s network stronger.
This way of thinking is better than just following the usual steps. By using these economic and psychological tricks, Amarachi develops competitive advantages which are difficult to replicate.
She knows that a company’s best thing is not just a simple interface, but a product that’s designed to sync with how people behave.
Her product choices aren’t just about the needs of users, but equally focus on motivating them to like the product, use it, and stick with it.
In her work, choosing a subscription price isn’t just a business thing; it’s about behaviour. Designing a social feed isn’t just about the content; it’s about balancing what people want and watching how they interact. Amarachi knows extensively about the economics of product decisions. This makes her products innovative and appealing to human behaviour, which leads to more use, keeps people around, and helps the product grow. She’s a leader in product management, where identifying customer desires is backed by understanding human motivation.


Technology Company, Globacom, has announced significant reductions in its International Direct Dialing (IDD) rates, making international calls more affordable for its existing and new customers across Nigeria.
Effective August 10, the new rates began applying to over 15 popular international destinations, including United States which will has moved to ₦30 per minute, down from ₦35, United Kingdom is now N350 from ₦400, while India also moved down to ₦40 from N45.
The rates for China, Saudi Arabia and Cameroon however recorded major reduction moving to N75, N300 and ₦700 respectively.
The reduction was also extended to African countries including Benin Republic which goes for ₦650 per minute, Niger Republic ₦750, Ghana ₦500, and Togo ₦650. United Arab Emirates also moved from ₦450 to ₦325, Germany to ₦550, Côte d’Ivoire ₦700, Libya ₦700, while calls to Malawi is now N1,100 from ₦1,200.
Glo aims to provide more value for its customers through these revised rates, encouraging them to make Glo their preferred network for international calls. New IDD bundles will also be introduced, offering frequent international callers even more attractive deals.
Globacom, which remained optimistic that frequent international callers will benefit immensely from the reductions in IDD bundles, enjoined customers to take advantage of the new rates to stay connected with friends and business associates across the globe.
GRTech
Oil subsidy removal freed up resources for infrastructure – Enugu Governor
By Orji Israel, South East Correspondent


The Executive Governor of Enugu State, Peter Mbah, has attributed the financing of numerous infrastructure projects embarked by the state government to the oil subsidy removal policy of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration.
He made this declaration at the Govermment House, Enugu, during a courtesy visit by a delegation of federal government led by Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, as part of activities lined up for the 2-day Citizens’ Engagement Series in the South East geo-political zone.
“For us in Enugu, we are able to accomplish all we promised our people during the campaign, thanks to the bold decision taken by President Bola Tinubu, which has freed up resources needed to execute humongous capital projects,” said Governor, while listing ongoing projects in the state, which include the construction of 7,000 classrooms, 3,300 hospital beds and 2,000-hectare of 260 farm estates across the 260 wards of the state.
Governor Mbah also pledged more support for the policies of the federal government, saying they are in the best interest of the people of the state.
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