Hi, Quartz Africa readers!
Accelerated
The last decade of building digital startups and tech ecosystems across Africa has focused around local hubs in big cities, usually led by accelerator and incubator programs. In many cities, especially in the early days, when internet infrastructure, talent, and capital were even scarcer than they are now, aggregating demand in one location under the roof of an accelerator hub was incredibly important.
Such hubs are still very important in most markets, where startups led by young entrepreneurs with big disruptive ideas, need all types of support in mostly tough business environments. But as important as some of these programs have been for raising awareness and encouraging entrepreneurial and talent development, there have been concerns. A Lagos-based startup founder I spoke with this week felt some programs were more concerned with their own survival than enabling access to funds to help startups take the risks needed to survive.
Whether that’s a fair assessment or not, this founder is not alone in thinking that way. African startup founders at the World Bank’s XL Africa program said many see regional and corporate accelerators as just offering “superficial access to mentorship and investor networks, resulting in few startups landing investments and disenchanted investors.”
That’s a problem when you consider a survey by the Global Accelerator Learning Initiative shows the primary reason African startups look to these incubators and accelerators is for access to funding. GALI’s survey covered 2,568 early-stage ventures at 55 different programs in Sub Saharan Africa between 2013 to 2016.
It turns out most early-stage startups in Sub Saharan Africa are not that different from their global peers according to GALI, who global data included 8,666 startups. The top two startup sectors in Africa were agriculture and education, while they were reversed globally: education and agriculture.
One notable difference was while 55% of African startups already had revenue, the number was 43% globally. Also notable was that 70% of African startups had employees while globally just 59% did. And yes, more global startups had equity funding at 16% versus 11% for African startups.
The other worthy note is that Sub Saharan Africa early-stage startups have a better gender balance than their global peers, with 42% male only founders, 28% mixed; 30% women founders compared with the global average of 51% male only, 22% mixed; and 28% women founders.
— Yinka Adegoke, Quartz Africa editor
Stories from this week
How Nigeria’s census figures were weaponized for political and economic gains. Since its first census in 1962, the official count of Nigeria’s population has been hampered by controversy and disputes. As Feyi Fawehinmi writes, its manipulation has roots in politicians jostling for power by numbers, hoping to boost their regional share of oil revenues.
A short oral history of Ghana’s star-studded legendary independence concert. For Ghana’s 14th independence anniversary on Mar. 6, 1971, African American singers led by Tina Turner, Wilson Picket, and Roberta Flack, arrived in Accra for a concert. Yepoka Yeebo finds out how the all-night iconic Soul to Soul festival went down.
Crisis, not consensus, is driving the land expropriation debate in South Africa. For decades, South Africa’s elite has ensured that equality persisted with little or almost no change—unless vocal street protests broke demanding outright reforms. And in the absence of details about how the land will be distributed and if it will impact the majority white landowners, extremist views online and international right-wing media are choking out any real debate.
Black Panther inspired Afro-Brazilians to assert their own economic power. Brazil is one of the top five international markets for the Marvel superhero film, drawing all-black audiences for private viewings. But in a society where racial exclusion is rampant, Kiratiana Freelon reports from Rio de Janiero on how the movie has re-energized a conversation about self-sufficiency and the support for black business.
Namibia wants to get in on the rechargeable battery boom. After first discovering cobalt in 2012, Namibia is working on having its first mine by 2020 to tap into the growing demand from companies like Apple and Tesla for rechargeable batteries. As Lynsey Chutel explains, political stability, good infrastructure, and robust mining laws could attract investors.
Fake processed food is spreading rapidly across Africa’s urban areas. Milk powder with no animal protein, vegetable oil made of recycled oil, and incidences of plastic rice have all been reported across Africa. This rise of counterfeit food is partly enabled by the increasing complexity of food systems besides weak regulatory standards, writes Ndidi Nwuneli.
Chart of the Week
Renting out telecom towers is one of the fastest growing big businesses in Africa. Helios Towers, which builds and manages telecom infrastructure, plans to go public and raise more than $2 billion on the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges. As Joon Ian Wong explains, Helios is part of a slew of others tower companies in the region offering full tower services including buying land, leasing, and managing it.
Other Things We Liked
The colonial mindset that defied an Ethiopian emperor’s quest to develop a modern medical system. After returning from exile to the capital Addis Ababa in 1941, Emperor Haile Selassie wanted to establish a medical school that would train doctors and help overhaul the medical system. But as Julianne Weis explores in this essay for the London School of Economics’ Center for Africa, Western donors believed the country’s people were too backward to create or operate a robust health system.
Why illegal gold mining could threaten the world’s chocolate intake. For years, unregulated smallholder gold miners known as galamsey operated in Ghana, searching for gold amid the country’s vast cocoa plantations. But as Marisa Schwartz Taylor and Kevin Taylor document in National Geographic, the arrival of Chinese investors with advanced equipment could increase deforestation and dip production in one of the world’s biggest producers of cocoa beans.
Keep an eye on
US secretary of State continues his Africa visit (Mar. 11-13). After visiting Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya, US secretary of State Rex Tillerson will travel to Chad and Nigeria. US interests and relationships in Africa are under strain, including in Djibouti where China is challenging the future of the United States’ one permanent military base.
Time of the Writer festival (Mar. 12-17). Convened under the theme “Changing the Narrative,” the book festival in Durban will draw writers from across South Africa and the world including French-Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou and Nigerian writer Ayobami Adebayo.
Africa at SXSW (Mar. 13). At the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, Quartz Africa will join Andela, Facebook and TLCom to discuss investing in tech pioneers across the continent and create the next wave of unicorns. You can also sign up for the Quartz Daily SXSW Brief.
*This brief was produced while listening to All for You by E.T. Mensah & the Tempos (Ghana)
Our best wishes for a productive and thought-filled week ahead. Please send any news, comments, suggestions, Soul to Soul concert memorabilia and Namibian vibran…er, cobalt to africa@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter at @qzafrica for updates throughout the day. This newsletter was compiled by Abdi Latif Dahir and edited by Yinka Adegoke.
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