Afridigest Week in Review: 2021 in review across Africa's startup ecosystem

+Essays worth re-visiting +2021 Week in Reviews +Most influential articles +The year of the unicorn +Fintech in Nigeria +2022 Predictions

Emeka Ajene

Jan 3

The Afridigest Week in Review is a must-read weekly recap for Africa-focused founders, executives, and investors, as well as interested observers.

Welcome back, friends, and welcome to 2022! Let’s get right into it. The most clicked link from last week was the HBR piece on Digital Transformation in Africa. And a special thanks to all of you who pointed out last week’s error — the correct link to the web3 article is here: Why it’s too early to get excited about Web3.

If you’re new, welcome 🙌 — you’ll receive a weekly digest like this one every Monday and generally, but not always, an original essay/article on Saturdays. For past essays and digests, visit the archive.

Week 52 2021: December 26 - January 1

Happy You Year Dancing GIF — *Credit: Tyler Elise Blinderman*

📰 Year in Review

A LOOK BACK & A LOOK AHEAD

Not much happened in the last week of 2021 as folks seemingly took some well-deserved time off after a banner year across the ecosystem 🥳 — so that leaves the opportunity to use this space to reflect on the past year and look ahead a bit.

After a hiatus near the end of 2020, I started publishing Afridigest again in the middle of 2021, and every week from Week 25 through Week 52, I’ve sent thoughtful coverage of Africa’s startup ecosystem directly to your inbox. No hiatuses are planned for 2022, so we’ll continue this consistency throughout this new year. That’s the good news. 😊

The not-so-good news: we had a somewhat spotty record for original essays/articles — the average cadence for these ended up being about one original essay every five weeks. Not terrible, but given the feedback we received from the pieces that we did publish we know these essays can be very valuable and we’ll push for more frequent pieces in 2022.

As a bit of background, I started writing Afridigest to contribute to one thing I thought was (and still is) largely missing across the ecosystem: in-depth & reliable sensemaking analysis that puts events & trends in the proper context and is actionable, not just informative, for a variety of decision-makers, from startup founders to operators/executives to investors and beyond.

Gregory Rockson @Rockson2

I hope in 2022, we write more on business models, unit economics, go to market strategies and less on fundraising. The phrase “killing it” also has to be retired and a lot more nuance added to it.

I hope that I’ve chipped away a tiny bit at that to date. (Feel free to let me know how Afridigest can improve.) And throughout 2022, I plan to raise the bar with a renewed focus on high-quality ideas, analysis, & insights, so stay tuned & expect a variety of experiments and exploratory efforts as it relates to content, community-building, monetization, & more. For now, please follow the Afridigest page on Linkedin and spread the good news about this newsletter with at least one colleague or friend. 🙏🏽

Thanks for reading & remaining an Afridigest subscriber in 2021, and thanks for your continued support in 2022. Exciting times ahead. 🙌🏽 Below you’ll find 2021 content from Afridigest & elsewhere that’s worth re-visiting as we kickoff this new year.

Top Afridigest essays

How Africa's super app landscape is evolving — An exploration of African super apps: who, what, & why; it’s the third piece in a series about super apps
How offline agent networks are driving Africa's digital development — A look at how various ‘digital’ companies across Africa are using offline agent networks as a last-mile channel for acquiring, educating, and engaging end customers
The most exciting applications of cryptocurrency & blockchain in the African context — Ten leading practitioners offer their takes on crypto on the continent
Unicorns are becoming less rare globally and in Africa too — A look at the 2021 unicorn stampede across Africa & the world, and Africa’s hidden unicorns [Published in August 2021, before Wave, Andela, and Chipper Cash joined the unicorn club]
The bridge to Japan: How AAIC went from macadamias to medicine — An interview with AAIC’s Nigeria Director Nobuhiko Ichiyama on AAIC history, investing approach, and more

Week in reviews

Week 51: Maximum mobility (Metro Africa Xpress’ Series B)
Week 50: A multitude of mega-rounds (The continent’s 11 $100M+ mega-rounds and other adjacent ones)
Week 49: A dynamite deal for digital infrastructure (MainOne’s acquisition by Equinix)
Week 48: A super week for super apps (Yassir’s Series A)
Week 47: The continent’s crypto craze continues (Busha’s seed)
Week 46: Fintech for the formally included (Ozow’s Series B)
Week 45: MENASSA is here (Helium Health’s acquisition of Meddy)
Week 44: A new addition to Africa's unicorn list (Chipper Cash’s Series C extension)
Week 43: The attractiveness of automotive tech (Autochek’s seed)
Week 42: Agent-driven acquisitions (MFS Africa’s acquisition of Baxi/Capricorn Digital)
Week 41: Open checkbooks for open banking (Mono’s Series A)
Week 40: Global capital continues to commit to the continent (Google AIF & Juven join Softbank, Tiger, and Dragoneer)
Week 39: Another unicorn from Africa (Andela’s Series E)
Week 38: Agent networks for renewable energy (Infibranches’ pre-seed)
Week 37: Hard cash for health care (54Gene’s Series B)
Week 36: Mobile money meets its match (Wave’s Series A)
Week 35: BNPL’s beachhead (Payflex’s acquisition by Zip)
Week 34: Africa mints its third privately held unicorn (OPay’s Series C)
Week 33: Dollars for data (Pngme’s Series A)
Week 32: Money in mobility, cash for cars (Moove’s Series A)
Week 31: Newcomer Nigerian neobank nabs double nickels (Kuda’s Series B)
Week 30: A dragon appears, a new unicorn is near (Yoco’s Series C)
Week 29: As Robinhood preps its IPO, the 'Robinhoods for Africa' press on (Chaka’s pre-seed)
Week 28: Silicon Valley sets its sights on the Sahara (Eventtus’ acquisition by Bevy)
Week 27: Supply chain startups are (still) sexy (MaxAB’s Series A)
Week 26: Agency banking in Africa — the opportunity is offline (TeamApt’s Series B)
Week 25: Lots of love for logistics (Trella’s Series A)

Influential Africa-focused articles from around the web

Tech in Africa — by a consortium of authors assembled by The Generalist’s Mario Gabriele
The B-Side of African Tech — by DFS Lab’s Stephen Deng
Don't Listen to Your Customer: Behavior Change in the Informal African Retail Sector — by AzamPay’s Firas Ahmad
First We Must Build Infrastructure — by Frontier Fintech’s Samora Kariuki
‘Back in the U.S.S.D.’: Most Smartphone Owners—Especially Women—Don’t Use Apps for Financial Services — by Caribou’s Bryan Pon
Wave: Building a Cashless Africa — by Founders Fund’s Everett Randle

Other non-Afridigest articles contributed to by your humble author

It’s time to leapfrog a growth markets trope — Financial Times ($)
A short letter to the editor on killing the overused term ‘leapfrogging’
Frontier giants: companies to watch in emerging markets — The Generalist
A look at some of the companies worth watching in growth markets outside of the West; I highlighted Nigeria’s TeamApt as one to watch

🦄 2021 Themes

2021: THE YEAR OF THE …

In the Indian startup ecosystem, 2021 was undoubtedly the year of the unicorn with 39 Indian startups achieving a billion-dollar-plus valuation for the first time during the year.

Across Africa, 2021 was arguably the year of the African unicorn as well. For the first time, more than one African unicorn was minted in a single year and the continent saw five startups join the unicorn club — more than in all of 2016-2020 combined.

Roughly six months ago, Afridigest published ‘5 key themes that emerged from Africa's startup ecosystem in H1 2021’ (it’s a good read!):

The African startup ecosystem taking center stage in global media
(Shoutouts to Tage and now Annie at Techcrunch, Abubakar at Rest of World, Alex at Quartz, and others)
The rise of mega-rounds & African unicorns
Egypt’s ascent
The rise of Francophone Africa
The increased impact of ‘community capital’

With the complete year in view, we’d generally emphasize the same five points above—particularly the first three—and we’d also add the following to the list of themes emerging from 2021 across the continent’s ecosystem:

A pan-African (& global) race to digitize informal retail
Increased attention on women-led startups
The rise of bolt-on, strategic acquisitions
International investors’ increased appetite for Africa
The rise of local capital for local startups

🔮 2022 Predictions, Forecasts, & Expectations

THE BEST WAY TO PREDICT THE FUTURE IS TO STUDY THE PAST

Trends to watch across Africa’s startup ecosystem in 2022:

Increased “MENASSA” and out-of-Africa expansion
- Startups who call sub-Saharan Africa home could expand in earnest to the MENA region, and Egyptian/MENA startups could look south
- Similarly, 2022 could see an acceleration of startups expanding out of the continent, from Africa to the world
Diversification/verticalization of fintech
- Across Africa’s fintech landscape, outsized investor and innovator attention has arguably been paid to various generalist infrastructure layers
- 2022 could see the rise of vertical fintech specialists — For example: Creator Economy specialists (eg., Honeycoin, Bettr.app); Kid & Teen specialists (e.g., Little, Sproutly, ZeddPay, Fingo); SACCO specialists (e.g., Kwara); Gig worker specialists (e.g., ImaliPay); and others
The rise of other sectors
- In addition to fintech diversification, 2022 could see significant developments in non-fintech sectors like healthtech and edtech
The rise of local investors
- Be on the lookout for new fund closes by established and emerging local fund managers
The rise of web3 projects
- 2022 could see a significant amount of new crypto/blockchain/web3 projects deployed across the continent
Bonus: A continuation of 2021 — More mega-rounds, more international interest, and the continued rise of other geographies outside of Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, and Ghana

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📚 Quick Hits

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE: 2021 GLOBAL RECAPS

2021 closing thoughts — Canaan Partners’ Nandu Anilal recaps four interesting ideas from 2021

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE: 2022 GLOBAL FORECASTS & PREDICTIONS

10 forecasts for the near future of tech — Behance Founder Scott Belsky predicts how work and life will materially change in 2022 and over the next ~5 years
Five predictions for 2022 — Redpoint VC’s Tomasz Tunguz scores his 2021 predictions and makes predictions for 2022

🙈 Visual of the week

FINTECH IN NIGERIA

Nigeria alone accounted for over a third of the estimated $4-$5 billion raised by Africa-focused startups across the continent in 2021. And the primary sector attracting investor and entrepreneur interest in the country remained fintech. Here’s an interesting Nigeria fintech sector map featuring 170 companies and 13 sub-sectors:

Source: Segun Adeyemi

🕵️‍♀️ In case you missed it

PREDICTIONS

Tech trends that will affect African businesses in 2022 (Ventures Africa)
10 Predictions for digital payments in 2022 (Deji Olowe)
Eight tech leaders look into Nigerian ecosystem in 2022 (Business Day)
Prediction of what is going to happen on Africa Tech Ecosystem in 2022 (Medium blog)

LA FIN

Feedback, questions, notes for the community corner? Or just want to say hi? Message me on Whatsapp or Twitter (@eajene) or email me.

Thanks for reading 🙌 And thanks in advance for sharing this Week in Review across your social networks.