Investments

A collection of 29 posts

Investments

OP-ED - Inside the 'money room': global health funders on who capital still can't see

Open-sourcing a closed-door panel I moderated at the iFHP Biennial in London. A UBS banker, an ex-CEO of Switzerland's largest health fund, a seasoned digital-health founder and the incoming president of the International Diabetes Federation, circling one question: whose interests reach the room?

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - Who gets to belong? Narrative, power, and community at Katapult Future Fest 2026

Tayo Akinyemi reports from Katapult Future Fest 2026 on narrative, belonging, and the boundaries of communities seeking to reshape how capital and technology serve people—previewing Capital for Infrastructure, her forthcoming project with Osarumen Osamuyi.

Venture Capital

OP-ED - Reading Aboyeji's big week: making sense of Africa's competing investment theories

When the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) backs two very different fund managers in the same announcement, and a new philanthropic venture-builder launches with an ambitious manifesto within a fortnight, the question isn't necessarily which intervention is right.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - When "lower value human capital" meets the AI bill that costs more than people

Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters apologised for the phrase, not the thinking behind it. Meanwhile, the numbers from Microsoft, Uber and Nvidia suggest humans may have been the bargain all along.

Venture Building

OP-ED - Are founders and funders on the same page? Notes from an unreleased PawaPay conversation.

Hindsight from someone who watched 88mph's death rate from the inside. Fundamentals focus from someone who has held PawaPay back from the fintech funding boom.

Market Intelligence

POD - Russell Southwood on monopolies, M-Pesa, and candid framings of Africa's digital economy

Analyst and author Russell Southwood reflects on a quarter-century of observing Africa's digital transformation. From yellow pages cold calls to fibre-to-the-home rollouts, Southwood makes the case for holding optimism and realism in the same hand.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - The US$140-million (R2.4-billion) reality check

PwC’s latest Africa Cloud Business Survey says 98% of African organisations plan to expand their cloud architecture and 37% are implementing agentic AI. A sit-down with the man behind the numbers unearthed qualifications more revealing than the statistics.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - What good navigation looks like: no machine sails itself

From Block's standing ovation to Monday.com's manifesto to a South African consultancy that started with the social system, Part 3 asks what good AI navigation actually looks like when you prioritise the human element and demand results over rhetoric.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - The mine, the machine, and the intern

From post-WW2 coal mines to modern codebases, history suggests AI transformation will rise or fall not on technical capability alone, but on whether organisations deliberately redesign the social systems that surround the machine.

Artificial Intelligence

OP-ED - How solo sailors sleep

Solo sailors don't forecast the ocean. They set an alarm and pay attention. In the age of AI disruption, that pragmatic sensibility turns out to be rarer and more valuable than anyone is admitting.

Market Intelligence

OP-ED - Afrexim walked away from Fitch. Cassava's creditors can't.

Western rating agencies helped blow up the global economy, paid their fines, and kept it moving. Now they're the arbiters of African creditworthiness. But dismissing their scrutiny doesn't make the numbers disappear.

Venture Capital

The Trajectory Africa Distilled #01: The Limits of Digitalisation in African Markets

In the opening instalment of her seven-part email series, Tayo Akinyemi explores why African fintech companies opt to build physical infrastructure to enable digital solutions - and identifies five opportunities emerging from this constraint.

Market Intelligence

OP-ED - What do SAG Ventures and Balloon Ventures have in common? The intermediary trap

Prince Nwadeyi's published research and Joshua Bicknell's operational experience expose the same problem: entrenched incentive structures don't serve those closest to real economic activity.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - What can standing in an iPhone 17 queue in Tokyo reveal about digital power and control? Plenty.

Scarcity and sovereignty play out differently in Tokyo and Nairobi, but the underlying lessons for Africa’s tech builders are strikingly similar.

Market Intelligence

OP-ED - Boring is beautiful, but can $50 million pyrethrum flower power fuel a natural insecticide industry revival in Kenya?

When development finance meets agricultural nostalgia, the unit economics must be interrogated.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - Lessons from 25 Years of Africa’s internet story: a preview of Russell Southwood’s reflections

Drawing from an upcoming African Tech Roundup podcast, this op-ed unpacks Russell Southwood’s reflections on lessons, blind spots and enduring questions.

Market Intelligence

OP-ED - Who controls the narrative? First-party data, truth and power in Africa’s digital economy

As powerful actors spin persuasive stories, the challenge is documenting reality with first-party evidence, resisting myths, and shaping narratives that serve more than self-interest.

Venture Capital

OP-ED - Why ‘venture capital’ in Africa is a misnomer, and what to do about it

Africa’s startup funding landscape is often mislabelled as venture capital, but the reality is starkly different. It’s time for honest, context-driven investment models that truly fit.

Infrastructure

POD - Carrier neutrality: Rob Bergman on Unicorn Factory's vision for digital infrastructure investment

Dutch investor Rob Bergman and his partners at Unicorn Factory are driving a carrier-neutral strategy to deploy capital and scale digital infrastructure across Africa.

Ecosystem

OP-ED - 'If weekend go sweet': Fatu Ogwuche's reading of African Tech's 2024 'Wednesday' signals

Through the lens of a street-smart Nigerian saying, Big Tech This Week founder Fatu Ogwuche unpacks a year of tense realities in African tech and why 2024's closing signals are fueling high hopes for 2025.

Impact Investing

POD - Impact theatre check: Balloon Ventures' contrarian sensibilities to SME financing in East Africa

Joshua Bicknell, co-founder of Balloon Ventures, discusses how the financial institution is challenging conventional investor logic by backing "boring businesses" to create sustainable employment in East Africa.

Venture Capital

OP-ED - African Tech’s next big challenge: matching venture capital to realistic outcomes

Misaligned funding models are stalling wins in African tech. Venture builder-turned-founder Sona Mahendra offers astute insights on aligning venture capital with scalable, sustainable growth.

Venture Capital

#ThrowbackPOD - Maya Horgan Famodu in 2017, before founding Ingressive Capital

Catch Maya Horgan Famodu at a pivotal moment—still running investor tours between Silicon Valley and Africa—just before launching her groundbreaking venture capital fund.

Ecosystem

OP-ED - Systematic strategies and DIY innovation: shaking up market education in Africa’s startup investment scene

A new generation of African VC professionals is reshaping ecosystem education through institutional strategy and individual innovation.

Venture Capital

POD - No seven-year wait: how Baobab Network is offering tentative investors a taste of Africa’s tech potential

Ambar van der Wath explains how Baobab Network, a tech venture accelerator, is helping investors test the waters in Africa's tech venture capital scene.