Africa has 6 unicorn startups today. Unicorns are private companies, mainly in the tech space, which are worth at least $1 billion. Current unicorns are Interswitch, Andela, Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, OPay, and Wave. Though it is not public yet, I expect Twiga Foods and Cellulant to be very close. Possibly, Kuda is just around the corner. The African economy transformation is a decades-long opportunity and the redesign will be massive.
My assessment is that Africa will have at least 15 unicorns by 2023. Yesterday, I put a countdown that two of our entities in Tekedia Capital will be part of this show. The numbers are great and I expect to come here and break the news that we have left the solid bounds of mere startups to touch the ecclesiastical alpha, creating the unbounded era of massive entrepreneurial capitalism, with frictions fixed for customers and moments made for the innovators.
People, this is very amazing. It is indeed as I have also ordered another bell. I am told in New York that they give you a bell. But I promise that I will go with one from Ovim, Abia State, because that bell will unlock more unicorns.
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Believe in the boundless promises of tomorrow. The world is getting better despite what the press writes. The future is full of abundance and you must have the optimistic exuberance that you can lead part of the future. The unicorns are coming and Tekedia Capital will celebrate.
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There’s certainly room for optimism. When you look at number of challenges facing this continent, and with a good chunk of them fixable with tech, it simply means that deploying tech and phasing out many mundane processes will create and capture massive value on their own.
Another good indicator would be investment capital going to startups, Africa got around $5 billion in 2021 while Latin America got around $15 billion, if we can get $10 billion in 2022, by 2023 we shall be aiming for $15 – 20 billion, and that could push number of unicorns beyond the projected 15.
Plenty things are on the way, those who cannot see may remain blind for a considerable time, before their eyes will finally open…