Divorces, DNA & Discounts
Ex parte injunction meets takeover rumor
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Sometimes endings are messy
Startups begin with missionary zeal. Sometimes, all that energy ends in a tangle.
With Okra, we saw a company surrender the narrative to the public. And last week, 54gene, once a moonshot for African genomics, returned to the spotlight after a Federal High Court in Lagos granted an injunction blocking the sale of its assets, including its biobank. The petition, filed by founder Dr. Abasi Ene-Obong, accuses major investors of orchestrating the collapse; investors dispute that framing.
An investor involved tells me the order was granted ex parte (without hearing from the defendants) and that a return date has been fixed for the matter.
On the return date, the court will decide whether to discharge, continue, or narrow the injunction. Expect strict preservation directives for documents, datasets, and biological samples (breaches can trigger contempt.) From there, the fight will turn to two questions: what the biobank is worth, and what can legally be transferred—IP, participant consents, and data-governance obligations are not footnotes; they’re the center of gravity.
Some context. In September 2023, I reported that 54gene would wind down in the aftermath of Ene-Obong’s exit. It wasn’t a secret so much as a puzzle: whispers in WhatsApp groups, subliminal posts...Verification stitched it together, and the mood around the table felt like an acrimonious divorce. Meanwhile, in the U.S., interim CEO Teresia Bost sued directors and 54gene, Inc. in New Jersey, alleging discrimination and a hostile work environment, a parallel thread pulling the company’s private disputes into public view.
Back to the present moment: What happens next? The injunction pauses any asset sale and forces a hearing on the merits. For investors tied to the case, the biobank may be the last asset with potential recovery. But valuation won’t be decided by sentiment; it will ride on compliance, chain-of-custody, and whether third-party buyers accept the consent regime that governed 54gene’s collection in the first place. That legal plumbing can add or subtract zeros from its valuation.
The broader question won’t go away: with roughly $45 million raised and meaningful COVID-era revenues, what did 54gene build in science, infrastructure, and public trust that endures? This case might finally force both sides to answer, on the record, what went wrong, what remains, and if anything can be salvaged without compromising the ethics that made the project matter.
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Jumia Week: Eyes on Wednesday, August 7, 2025
It’s Jumia week. That’s my dramatic way of saying that on Wednesday, August 7, Jumia will report Q2 2025. It’s been an eventful quarter for Jumia: it set a hard profitability deadline (2027), continued relentless cost-cutting, and in July, a Bloomberg splash that Axian, a Mauritius-based African telco, raised $600m to refinance debt and potentially fund a Jumia takeover. No decisions made; it could come to nothing. But headlines like that usually mean someone is speaking a wish into the void.
The rumor did what rumors do: nudged the stock up; JMIA has been trading in the mid-$4s and recently flirted with $4.90 (~$0.5–0.6bn market cap).
Coincidentally, its share price also spiked 2024’s Q2 report, trading at around the $10 mark, only to tumble after the earnings call.
Q2 2024 numbers:
Revenue $36.5m (-17% YoY; +15% in constant currency),
GMV +35% in constant currency to $241.8m,
Operating loss $20.2m (from $22.1m YoY),
Adj. EBITDA loss $16.3m (from $18.2m).
We can safely assume another loss this quarter; that’s not the story. Investors will be looking for revenue acceleration without re-inflating cost (orders/GMV growth). It’ll be interesting to see if newer levers like “Jumia Deliveries” and the decision to move its advertising business to Mirakl ads contribute meaningfully to revenue growth.
One macro subplot: Nigeria’s policymakers are selling FX stability in 2025; the question is whether steadier FX is finally visible in Jumia’s reported revenue (vs. constant-currency threads) and cash costs. We’ll see on Wednesday. Results before U.S. market open, call at 8:30am ET.
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