Safaricom’s Nairobi primarily based Alpha innovation incubator could have an unsure future, in line with sources.
With two high-level departures, and the passing of Safaricom’s CEO Bob Collymore, there are questions on how or if Alpha will proceed to function.
The area was established in 2017 to spur new product growth for Safaricom, which is Kenya’s largest cellular operator and the supplier of M-Pesa — East Africa’s most used mobile-money product.
As TechCrunch reported, one of many first targets of Alpha was to construct upon the success of M-Pesa.
As a telco, Safaricom has 69 % of the Kenya’s cellular subscribers and generates round a fourth ($531 million) of its ≈ $2.2 billion annual revenues (2018) from M-Pesa. The fintech product has 20.5 million prospects throughout a community of 176,000 brokers.
While these stats have put Safaricom in a coveted place, the corporate’s former CEO Bob Collymore expressed issues over the danger of too many eggs in a single basket. For years, Collymore pressed his firm to diversify product and income streams.
Through in-house growth and partnerships, Safaricom added client and small business-based merchandise, comparable to ride-hail app Little and web site companies, to its cellular and fintech community.
In 2017, Safaricom’s Chief Innovation Officer and first head of Alpha, Kamal Bhattacharya echoed Collymore’s mission to diversify the corporate’s choices.
“We’d truly like to maneuver past M-Pesa by leveraging its energy as a social community to attach individuals to different product options,” he instructed TechCrunch.
Bhattacharya — who’d come to Safaricom after senior positions at IBM Research Africa and a stint restructuring Kenyan innovation heart iHub — recruited a group for Alpha, led by founder and laptop scientist Shikoh Gitau.
From a market perspective, Alpha was one thing to look at since company incubators in Africa have been (and proceed to be) a comparatively new part throughout the continent’s tech ecosystem.
Alpha workers in 2018
In an area purposely arrange away from Safaricom’s HQ, Alpha’s group of innovators set to shaping new digital choices.
In 2018, the incubator rolled out its first product, a social networking platform referred to as Bonga, to reinforce M-Pesa.
Since M-Pesa was already established as a business community, the concept was to amplify that by creating extra social media sort transactions round it — channeling Facebook, YouTube, iTunes, PayPal, and eBay in a single platform.
With Bonga, Alpha appeared to have some momentum into 2018, earlier than the innovation incubator misplaced two of its greatest backers.
First, Kamal Bhattacharya, exited Safaricom and his place of lead of Alpha in October 2018. The cause given by the corporate was a little bit of company say-nothing-speak: “leaving to pursue other interests.”
The actual causes for Bhattacharya’s sudden exit have been unclear. There was, nevertheless, loads of scuttlebutt about powers inside Safaricom — immune to the model of forms rattling change Alpha might carry — conspiring to push him out.
After dropping its head, Alpha misplaced one other key ally in Bob Collymore when he handed away in July of this 12 months after a struggle with most cancers.
Alpha mentioned farewell to a different senior determine in August when Huston Malande left. It additionally rebranded Bonga to Zwuup this 12 months — although Safaricom’s final two annual studies don’t point out how the product has fared below both title, with no point out of Bonga, Zwuup, or Alpha.
What’s subsequent for Alpha?
Several sources near Safaricom (talking on background) expressed doubt that it might have the help inside the firm to proceed with Collymore’s passing.
One supply recommended Alpha would extra possible be morphed into the bigger Safaricom forms reasonably than shut down fully, to keep away from detrimental information that an abrupt closure would carry.
TechCrunch requested Safaricom instantly on the way forward for Alpha, and particularly if it might verify or deny studies the innovation…
