Socium, founded in 2021 by Samba Lo and Serigne Seye, provides payroll, recruitment and workforce management software to businesses across 21 Francophone African countries.
Sixteen months later, on a hot July day in 2026, Egypt's finance minister, Ahmed Kouchouk, returned to a company whose public frustration had once laid bare the country's industrial bureaucracy.
The new virtual asset rules demand high capital, local custody, and bank-held reserves - creating a moat that traditional lenders are perfectly positioned to fill.
For founders and investors, it is a signal that capital is moving to jurisdictions where the rules are more predictable and the political climate is more stable.
The final blow came last month, when the Central Bank of Nigeria published a list of 46 microfinance banks whose licences had been revoked with immediate effect.
“It was pretty heartbreaking to be technically competent and have a team composed of a second-time founder and still have to deal with this type of sexism.”
The capital injection aims to address persistent supply chain fragmentation and credit bottlenecks that restrict smallholder crop yields across West Africa.
