Hi, welcome to Tech This Evening, an After-Work Tech Newsletter from Techparley Africa. Sure, there is a lot to unpack right now. Sit back, while I walk you through.
Top Story: Ridelink: This Ugandan Startup Is Using AI to Help Africans Trade Globally and Access Working Capital
Ridelink, a Ugandan startup now headquartered in San Francisco, is positioning itself as a one-stop platform for logistics, credit and predictive intelligence across Africa–Asia trade corridors.
The company argues that importers and exporters operating across frontier markets spend too much time juggling multiple intermediaries, negotiating inconsistent prices and plugging cash-flow gaps that traditional banks rarely bridge.
By combining freight coordination, embedded credit and an AI engine it calls Adrian, Ridelink believes it can bring order and efficiency to cross-border commerce.
“End-to-end visibility across borders remains patchy—especially once goods hit land transport in Africa. And trade finance at the scale African SMEs need is still massively undersupplied. We’re chipping away at both, but the gap is enormous,” founder Daniel Mukisa said.
Other Tech News Stories You Should Read:
The Risks and Rewards of Investing in Startups: An In-depth Guide. Read now.
How to Create a Financial Model for Your Startup. Read now.
How to Respond to Negative Press or Crises Publicly: A Step-By-Step Guide for Startups. Read now.
On Startup Spotlight:
How Alfred Ongere’s Ai Kenya is Helping SMEs and Corporates Understand and Adopt AI Across Africa
Ai Kenya, founded by Alfred Ongere, began in 2017 as a volunteer-led effort to demystify artificial intelligence for students and developers in Nairobi.
What started as casual meet-ups and weekend tutorials has since transformed into a fully fledged AI agency with corporate clients, policy contributions, and a growing footprint in East Africa. The startup is no longer a side project.
Ongere revealed he left his role at a local fintech and neobank to focus on Ai Kenya full-time, a move that signals both rising demand for AI literacy in Kenya and the agency’s ambition to occupy a strategic space in the region’s rapidly expanding AI landscape.
“Ai Kenya operates as a for-profit company,” Ongere said. “Our community program is a form of CSR that we provide to contribute towards the economic and technological development of the country.”
Quadri Adejumo brings you all the details. Read here.
Also Read:
MEST Africa Challenge 2025: Black Swan Wins $50,000, Showing a New Phase in Data-Driven Fintech Innovation. Yakub Abdulrasheed brings us the details, here.
Quote of the Day:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to magic.” – Arthur C. Clarke.
Thank you for joining me yet again this evening. Stay safe, and see you tomorrow for the next tech newsletter.
Best, Quadri
