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Why Africa Should be “Anything But Zero”
By Matthew Davis, CFA | Thu May 07 2026
Investors and global tech should pay attention to Africa. Here’s why.
From the ecommerce titans of Silicon Valley to the fintech hubs of Utah’s Silicon Slopes, the map of innovation has long been a closed loop. Raise capital and build at home. Scale across the country. Expand into Europe. Only then look at emerging markets as a Phase 4 opportunity.
Some are starting to see the missed opportunities in that strategy.
At Renew Capital, we have spent more than a decade investing on the ground across African markets. What we have seen is not only growth. We are seeing a shift in where real product development happens. Africa is no longer just the world’s favorite charity or a consumer frontier. It is becoming one of the most intense, accessible and high-stakes testing grounds for innovation.
If you are a global tech company or an investor with a serious innovation budget, your allocation to Africa should be “anything but zero.”
Here is why what some call the most “extreme” market on earth may be your greatest competitive advantage.
1. Africa’s Challenges Are Your Opportunity: If It Works Here, It Could Work Everywhere
The challenges facing African consumers, infrastructure gaps, fragmented payment systems and high-cost logistics are not unique. They are concentrated versions of global friction.
In developed markets, innovation often optimizes for convenience. In Africa, innovation is forced to optimize for price, fragmentation, disruptions, funding constraints… and the list goes on. The emerging environment requires companies to contend with so many factors that any startup which survives could become the strongest in the world.
The scale of those constraints is real. Power outages alone cost African economies 1% to 5% of GDP each year (World Bank). Roughly half of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa still lack formal financial accounts, even as mobile phones have become nearly ubiquitous across much of the continent (World Bank, GSMA). This is the ultimate startup testing environment.
When you build a product that works through unreliable power, low connectivity and fragmented rails, you are not just building for Africa. You are building a battle-hardened system.
By the time your product reaches developed markets, it is leaner, the UX is sharper and your system is more resilient than competitors who’ve only ever tested in soft conditions.
If it works in Africa, it could work everywhere.
2. Speed of Testing: The Zipline Model
Source: Zipline’s Wikipedia page
One of the greatest barriers to new technology in developed markets is regulations.
In the U.S. or Europe, to even begin testing could take a startup years until it has the right approvals. Africa offers something different: access.
Governments are often more approachable and more willing to partner on solutions to immediate challenges. Take the case of Zipline and their early start in Rwanda. While regulators in the U.S. were still debating drone delivery, Zipline was already operating at scale, completing tens of thousands of medical deliveries and building years of real-world flight data.
In Rwanda, they did not just test. They proved their innovation.
By the time Zipline approached more restrictive markets, they did not arrive with a pitch deck. They arrived with years of delivery data to show their business worked. Listen to the story here: LINK
Africa gave them the space to make the impossible real.
3. Underdevelopment is a Huge Advantage: Building Without the Ghost of Legacy
Our opinion is this: What many see as Africa’s weakness, underdevelopment, is its greatest advantage.
In developed markets, innovation is layered on top of decades-old infrastructure. In Africa, many systems are being built from the ground up using architectures that are mobile-first, API-driven and increasingly AI-enabled.
The clearest example is financial services. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for more than half of global mobile money accounts and more than 65% of global transaction value (GSMA). This is not a game of catch-up. An entirely different system has been built.
Source: GSMA
There are fewer incumbents to fight and fewer legacy systems to work around. That allows companies to design what the next generation of systems should look like, not just improve what already exists.
Africa is not retrofitting the past. Instead it is prototyping the future. While startups in other parts of the world are thinking about how to improve banking, innovators across Africa can invent an entirely new model of banking by leveraging modern technology.
4. Massive Scale and Impact Are the Cherries on Top
Africa is not just a testing ground. It is becoming one of the largest and most dynamic markets in the world.
By 2050, the continent will account for about one quarter of the global population, with one in three new entrants to the global workforce coming from Africa (United Nations); and the IMF projects Africa’s growth to outpace Asia’s at least through the end of the decade.
At the same time, innovation is not confined to a few major hubs like Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo and Johannesburg. It is spreading to Kinshasa, Tunis, Addis Ababa and Abidjan. The share of sub-$1M startup deals outside the continent’s Big Four markets has grown from 28% in 2019 to 43% in 2025 (Renew Capital analysis of Pitchbook data).
Source: Renew Capital’s analysis of data from PitchBook, a Morningstar company
This is what makes the opportunity unique. You are not testing in a niche market. You are testing in a fast-growing, increasingly distributed system of markets where real adoption happens.
You are building with the future, not just for it.
A More Honest View
None of this eliminates risk. Markets are fragmented. Currency volatility is real. Regulation varies widely.
But these are not edge cases. They are the conditions that increasingly define the global operating environment.
In many cases, the rest of the world is catching up to constraints Africa is already solving for. Next time the power goes out in the U.S. see how people react. Do the same in Africa.
Our Philosophy: The World Should be “Anything But Zero” with Africa
We’re not suggesting you move your headquarters to Nairobi. But in a world where AI is accelerating change, having zero exposure to one of the most dynamic testing grounds on the planet is a strategic mistake.
An allocation to Africa, whether through a pilot, a partnership or an investment, is not just a bet on a region. It is an investment in learning.
In less than a decade, a significant share of the global workforce will come from Africa. Much of the world is not yet Africa-smart. The fastest way to close that gap is to engage directly.
Bottom Line
The next 20 years will be defined by who can solve the hardest problems. Those problems are already being solved in Africa.
Do not sit on the sidelines with a zero on the board.
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