GrowthAfrica

LESS CHECKLIST, MORE ACTION! Countless promising ventures hesitate, waiting for the elusive "perfect" moment or checklist completion. Muthuri Kinyamu, Co-Founder of Accessible Travel Kenya wisely notes, entrepreneurship is rarely about having all the pieces lined up perfectly; it’s about boldly stepping forward with available resources and building iteratively from there. His words highlight a crucial truth for African entrepreneurs: investing early in strong foundations; people, processes, and a relentless customer focus is essential. Too often, start-ups overlook this early discipline, only to grapple with costly restructuring down the road. This insight strongly resonates within our community. Innovation and technology are exciting, but if they're not focused on real customer needs, even the best ideas can struggle. Muthuri's point is especially relevant now, as we navigate a landscape filled with buzz around AI, blockchain, and other transformative tools. The temptation to chase every new trend can overshadow what's truly important which is solving real customer problems. For ecosystem stakeholders, investors, and entrepreneurs alike, this reflection calls for clarity amidst the noise. Prioritise sustainable growth built on firm fundamentals rather than momentary fascination with shiny solutions. At GrowthAfrica, we champion this mindset, nurturing ventures to scale by embedding strong operational foundations and customer-centric strategies from inception. Join the conversation: How are you ensuring your business remains rooted in foundational principles amidst the allure of new technologies and trends? #GrowthAfrica #StartupInsights #Entrepreneurship #GrowthMindset #ActionOverPerfection #CustomerCentric #AfricanStartups #EcosystemBuilding #SustainableGrowth #BusinessFundamentals #InnovationLeadership #EntrepreneurialJourney

BEYOND THE JOB When people ask us what it’s like to work at GrowthAfrica, we often pause, because the answer isn’t simple. GrowthAfrica isn’t a place of work. It’s a movement. A shared belief. A journey we walk together. We are Africa’s leading entrepreneurship support organisation driven by the dedication, expertise, and impact of our people. The thinkers, the doers, the challengers, the builders. Everyone who joins us contribute to something bigger than themselves: a future where African entrepreneurs thrive, scale, and drive change in their communities. Our team collaborates, challenges and co-creates. We care deeply about our  work and even more about the people we serve.  It’s not always easy. Building the future of entrepreneurship in Africa is complex, and the stakes are high. But we believe our impact matters, and that belief attracts a certain kind of person. The kind who lights up when solving tough problems. Who thrives in dynamic environments. Who believes impact and integrity go hand in hand. To those looking for meaning, growth, and community, GrowthAfrica is the place for you. And to those who’ve been part of this journey - thank you. You are the brand. You are the story. You are GrowthAfrica. Watch out for upcoming opportunities. Let’s build Africa’s future together.  #GrowthAfrica #EmployerBranding #WorkCulture #Entrepreneurship #AfricaRising #PeopleFirst #PurposeDrivenWork Johnni Kjelsgaard, Patricia Jumi, Ian Lorenzen, Hildah Mugambi, Duncan Asila Amuko M.B.A., Obama Joseph, Maureen Wachira, Linda Mathenge, Patrick Mulumba, Meselu Worku, Mohammedamin Abdullah, Eugene ELUERKEH, Jesse Baddoo, Michael Otoo, Richard Wiafe, Trudy Natabona, Sheila Mumbi, Angel-Seraphine Oforiwah Mbroh, Connie Nekesa, Alex N., Christine Rukunga, Winnie Teresia, Nicholas Goko, Michelle Murugi N.

LEADING WITH AFRICAN WISDOM Ever considered what an ancient African proverb can teach today’s entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders? In a world racing towards innovation, it's tempting to dive headfirst into opportunities, but the Ghanaian proverb reminds us, “No one tests the depth of the river with both feet.” Strategic growth demands boldness tempered by thoughtful exploration. Entrepreneurs, piloting ideas before full launch is not hesitation, it's wise risk management. Ecosystem leaders, co-creating grounded initiatives alongside communities ensures lasting relevance and resilience. Moreover, the Tunisian wisdom, “If the full moon loves you, why worry about the stars?” speaks directly to the entrepreneurial spirit. Impact isn't measured by broad applause but by deep, meaningful value. Prioritise your core audience, invest in genuine relationships, and create transformations that matter rather than chase fleeting popularity. Investors, this perspective is crucial: sustainable returns come from ventures that quietly but consistently deliver true value. And let's not overlook the Malagasy proverb, “A canoe does not know who the leader is. When it turns over, everyone gets wet.” Effective leadership isn't top-down, it's collaborative. Entrepreneurs must build resilient, unified teams, while ecosystem stakeholders must nurture inclusive, balanced growth. The strength of our entrepreneurial ecosystem depends on harmonised collaboration and collective responsibility, particularly in turbulent times. At GrowthAfrica, we continuously witness how African wisdom aligns powerfully with entrepreneurial success. The leaders who truly thrive are those who act boldly yet thoughtfully, prioritise impactful depth over superficial breadth, and cultivate inclusive teams and communities. We invite you to reflect on these proverbs. Which resonates most with your leadership style? How can ancient wisdom inspire your entrepreneurial or investment approach today? #GrowthAfrica #AfricanProverb #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #Growth #Impact #Innovation #Startups #EcosystemBuilding #Sustainability #Resilience Ian Lorenzen

READY, SET, REFINE! What makes a business ready for scale? The BIC ETHIOPIA Catalyser Programme Workshop one ignited purpose, energy, and sharp thinking. The workshop was about setting the tone for a transformative journey one grounded in strategic clarity, real-world application, and the power of peer-driven learning. For these entrepreneurs, it was a bold first move toward building ventures that are ready to grow, compete, and lead. Great businesses are shaped through insight, tested through practice, and refined in community. That’s exactly what this workshop delivered. Here’s what they explored together: ✔️ Assessing the business: Entrepreneurs dug deep into their ventures through business assessment tools, clarity-driven value propositions, and rapid solution prototyping. They were challenged to ask “why does their business matter and for whom?” ✔️ Understanding the market: From customer analysis to market segmentation, the workshop sparked critical thinking around product-market fit. Real insights, real gaps, real opportunities uncovered through hands-on exercises and shared experiences. ✔️ Refining the business model: We pulled apart business models to identify strengths, blind spots, and leverage points. SWOT analysis, competitive mapping, and value chain breakdowns turned abstract concepts into clear strategy blueprints. Peer-to-peer sessions lit up with bold questions, honest reflections, and lightbulb moments. Entrepreneurs from diverse sectors supported, challenged, and inspired each other proof that ecosystem growth is a collaborative sport. The BIC Catalyser Programme, a collaboration between BIC ETHIOPIA and GrowthAfrica, remains dedicated to fostering an ecosystem that supports entrepreneurial talent, drives innovation, and creates lasting impact in the agricultural sector. #GrowthAfrica #BICEthiopia #StartupSupport #EntrepreneurshipInAfrica #PeerLearning #CatalyserWorkshop #InnovationEcosystem #MarketReadiness #BusinessModelDesign #AfricanFounders #InvestmentReadiness Meselu Worku Mohammedamin Abdullah

SHE MEANS BUSINESS Data-driven growth is here and reshaping how African entrepreneurs build successful, scalable businesses. GrowthAfrica is passionate about empowering entrepreneurs, especially women-led MSMEs, to seize digital opportunities and thrive in an ever-evolving market landscape. The Impact HER Africa recent International Women's Day event, "Accelerating Action: Expanding Markets Through Digital Transformation, Artificial Intelligence, and Financial Inclusion," was a dynamic rallying point highlighting critical strategies for market growth through digital tools. GrowthAfrica was represented by Duncan Asila Amuko M.B.A., alongside other speakers; Hilda Kaburu (Deloitte), Julliet Hinga (Strathmore University), Kennedy M. (AI-powered digital marketing strategist) Key insights for entrepreneurs: ✅ Master the basics: Knowing exactly who your customers are and why they buy your products is foundational. Data, both qualitative and quantitative is essential to spot growth opportunities. ✅ AI is essential, not optional: Adopting AI-driven tools can significantly enhance efficiency by automating tasks, analysing customer data, and enabling swift content creation. ✅ Consistency builds resilience: Effective, continuous engagement on social media can be greatly simplified through AI-powered tools, allowing entrepreneurs to stay consistently connected with customers. Harnessing AI and digital transformation effectively can level the playing field, accelerate innovation, and foster robust entrepreneurial ecosystems across Africa. How are you leveraging AI and digital tools to unlock your business's growth potential? Share your insights. #GrowthAfrica #DigitalTransformation #WomenInBusiness #AI #EntrepreneurshipEcosystem #ImpactHER #Innovation Olamiposi Grace Odofin, CHINELO EKENTA, jackline Makokha

CUSTOMISE TO CAPITALISE In entrepreneurship, one size fits none. Korah Karanja, CEO of myPrimePay Tech, recognised this clearly leading him to create KouponZetu, a unique eCommerce platform that packages merchants' products and services as deals, bargains, and discounts enabling businesses to grow their brands and market share. Successful innovation is also rooted in genuinely understanding your market. Korah realised students, despite their collective influence, face individual economic constraints. Charging students and professionals equally for essentials was unfair and it was a missed opportunity. In response, KouponZetu strategically customised targeted pricing, directly connecting students with businesses offering tailored deals specifically designed for college and university communities. The lesson? Customisation is a competitive edge. Entrepreneurs who align their offerings closely with customer realities define market standards. As Korah’s journey shows, businesses that adapt, grow and businesses that customise, capitalise. How are you strategically customising your business to unlock your full market potential? #GrowthAfrica #StrategicGrowth #EcosystemBuilding #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #StartupLife #BusinessGrowth #MarketStrategy #CustomerCentric #BusinessTips

AFRICA’S NEXT BIG EXPORT: INNOVATION What if Africa’s most powerful economic engine isn’t oil, gold, or cocoa, but ideas? At the Africa Research & Innovation Commercialisation Summit (ARICS2025) in Ghana, leaders across sectors tackled a critical question: How do we move African research off the shelf and into the market, where it creates real impact? At ARICS2025, GrowthAfrica represented by Eugene ELUERKEH joined a powerful conversation on research and innovation financing alongside Amma Lartey (Impact Investing Ghana) and Isaac Newton Acquah (Netherlands Trust Fund V Project) to tackle what it truly takes to build investment-ready African startups. This reflects GrowthAfrica’s ongoing commitment to driving collaboration across sectors to unlock business growth and real-world impact for African entrepreneurs. Key takeaways from the summit: ✔️ Turning research into reality: Introducing a ground-breaking platform designed to translate research into actionable, business-ready opportunities. Entrepreneurs can now easily access and collaborate on commercially viable research, accelerating the journey from laboratory to market. ✔️ Investor readiness: Investor readiness transcends merely securing capital, it embodies continuous learning, adaptive growth, and ecosystem integration. Being selected for accelerator or incubator programmes is a vital stepping stone signalling an entrepreneur's potential and readiness for sustained investment. ✔️ Filling the policy execution void: Robust policy frameworks exist, yet ineffective execution stalls innovation commercialisation. Active, practical governmental involvement beyond initial policy creation is imperative for meaningful and sustained economic impact. ✔️ Urgent call for Pan-African innovation fund: Africa urgently needs a significant, government-supported innovation fund. Establishing such a fund would fuel ground-breaking innovations, enabling the continent to leapfrog economic barriers and thrive in global markets. By linking innovation to investment and research to results, GrowthAfrica continues to co-create Africa’s future with the entrepreneurs building it. If you are an entrepreneur, investor, or ecosystem enabler passionate about making African research matter in the real world, let’s engage in this conversation. #GrowthAfrica #Innovation #AfricaRising #Entrepreneurship #StartupFunding #ResearchCommercialisation #IndustrialTransformation #InnovationFinance #AfricanInnovation #ImpactInvestment Hon. Samuel Nartey George, John Dumelo, Hon Francis Xavier Kojo Sosu, Dr. Tonny K. Omwansa, PhD. (Kenya National Innovation Agency (KeNIA)), Seth Twum-akwaboah (AGI [Association of Ghana Industries]), Marian Dorcas Quain (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ghana), Gameli Adzaho (The RISA Fund)

EAST AFRICA’S CAPITAL CLIMB Behind every investment number lies a story of innovation, resilience, and transformation. East Africa’s impressive funding trajectory reaching $4.2 billion from 2019 to 2024 is a narrative of strategic growth, regional potential, and the powerful ripple effects of entrepreneurial success. Kenya’s dominance, securing a remarkable $3.3 billion, underscores its position as a mature startup ecosystem. Yet the steady rise of markets like Tanzania ($286m), Uganda ($183m), Rwanda ($91m), Ethiopia ($48m), and Sudan ($18m) signals an expanding horizon of opportunity. The region’s evolving ecosystem is also catalysing economic development, employment, and innovation across diverse sectors. From GrowthAfrica’s perspective, the strength of East Africa’s entrepreneurial landscape stems from robust collaboration, targeted policy initiatives, and increasing investment readiness among startups. However, the concentrated investment focus on Kenya prompts an essential question for stakeholders: How can we drive sustainable, equitable growth that lifts all regional markets? To truly accelerate ecosystem-wide advancement, we must move beyond merely celebrating Kenya’s successes. Ecosystem leaders and investors should intentionally spotlight emerging markets creating platforms, enabling investment structures, and fostering the support systems needed to elevate less visible entrepreneurial hubs. Key ecosystem insights include: ✅ Diverse potential: Sectors such as agri-tech, fintech, and clean energy are burgeoning, creating attractive investment opportunities across East Africa. ✅ Investor education: Enhancing investor understanding of market-specific opportunities and risks can unlock significant capital flow to underfunded countries. ✅ Collaborative frameworks: Strategic partnerships across borders and sectors can amplify impact, reducing risk and ensuring sustainable growth. At GrowthAfrica, we believe it's essential to adopt a collaborative approach. By uniting investors, policymakers, ecosystem builders, and entrepreneurs around shared goals, we can create a balanced funding landscape that nurtures innovation, resilience, and inclusive growth across East Africa. We invite you to join this pivotal dialogue: How can we collectively advance funding equity and innovation across the region? What opportunities do you foresee shaping East Africa’s entrepreneurial future? Image source: Africa: The Big Deal #GrowthAfricaInsights #EastAfrica #EntrepreneurialEcosystems #StartupFunding #RegionalGrowth #CollaborativeInnovation #InvestmentReadiness Max Cuvellier Giacomelli

CULTIVATING TALENT FOR TOMORROW What if universities weren’t just academic institutions but active catalysts of entrepreneurial ecosystems? That was the core question explored at the Fostering Sustainable Entrepreneurial Universities for Future Talent Development workshop hosted by Strathmore Business School (SBS) and Swansea University. As GrowthAfrica, we were proud to contribute to a conversation that sits at the heart of Africa’s economic transformation: the role of higher education in preparing innovation-ready, enterprise-driven graduates. For too long, entrepreneurial development has been treated as an extracurricular activity rather than a core strategic priority within academic institutions. But as our ecosystem continues to evolve, we must reframe universities not just as centres of learning, but as launchpads for scalable, sustainable enterprises. One powerful takeaway came from Dr. Tonny K. Omwansa, PhD, CEO, Kenya National Innovation Agency (KeNIA), who aptly reminded us that “the type of sustainable entrepreneurship we need may require more input from industry-based entrepreneurs than classroom lecturers.” This underscores a challenge we see across Africa’s innovative landscape;  well-meaning curricula that often lack real-world grounding and market linkage. Key insights we are carrying forward: ✅ Design thinking as early-stage intervention: Entrepreneurial mindset development must begin long before graduation, embedded across disciplines. ✅ University-industry convergence: We need more strategic partnerships that blend theory and practice - innovation and execution. ✅ Ecosystem orchestration: Institutions must be embedded in wider networks of capital, mentorship, and markets to create self-sustaining entrepreneurial ecosystems. ✅ Cultural transformation: Entrepreneurship must shift from a side initiative to a core institutional mission - with strategic investment to match. At GrowthAfrica, we see this as a collaborative opportunity to co-create future-facing solutions with academic institutions, policy actors, and industry leaders. The future of work, enterprise, and innovation demands nothing less than an integrated, inclusive and sustainable response. Let’s continue building bridges between classrooms and communities, ideas and impact. Photo courtesy of Strathmore Business School (SBS) #GrowthAfrica #StrathmoreUniversity #EntrepreneurialUniversities #FutureTalent #InnovationEcosystem #UniversityIndustryLinkages #EntrepreneurshipDevelopment #AfricaEcosystem #StartupEducation #HigherEducationReform Michelle Murugi N.

FOUNDERS, FUNDS & FORWARD THINKING What does it truly take to build a company and a community? That question echoed powerfully at Founders Connect Live in Nairobi, where startup leaders, investors, ecosystem builders and innovation enablers came together to shape the future of African entrepreneurship. For us at GrowthAfrica, this was a reminder of the critical role collaboration plays in shaping investment-ready entrepreneurs and resilient ecosystems. As we continue our work in supporting founders and Entrepreneur Support Organisations (ESOs) across the continent, gatherings like this reveal both the inspiration and the imperatives of our shared mission. A few things stood out: ✔️ People-first scaling is not optional, it’s essential. From Watu Credit’s journey from Mombasa to Mexico, we saw how placing people at the heart of business strategy fuels real growth and sustainability. Founders must build cultures before they build scale. ✔️ Community is the true growth capital. Caleb Maru’s take on a startup’s “Hierarchy of Needs” reframed our thinking—startups don’t just need traction, they need trust. Moving from followers to a loyal community unlocks funding, partnerships and market access. ✔️ Funding is out there, but clarity wins it. Investors repeatedly stressed the importance of understanding your financials, structuring your pitch around investor expectations, and being investment-ready long before the pitch deck is shown. ✔️ Execution over ideas. Otto.Rentals walked away with USD 12,500 from the Startup Innovation Challenge - not because of a flashy concept, but because of sharp, grounded execution. That’s what investors are backing. Africa’s startup scene is maturing, but ecosystem scaffolding must keep pace. The event underscored a growing demand for deeper, better-aligned support structures - from accelerators to capital networks - that can truly fuel scale. At GrowthAfrica, we believe in more than just business support. We believe in ecosystem orchestration. Events like this remind us that the next generation of African startups doesn’t just need funding, it needs a fertile ecosystem where connections, capacity and capital flow together. What’s one shift you believe Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem needs right now to thrive? Photo courtesy of Founders Connect #GrowthAfrica #StartupEcosystem #InvestmentReadiness #EntrepreneurSupport #FoundersConnect #AfricanInnovation #ScalingStartups #BeyondCapital #CommunityDrivenGrowth African Impact Initiative, Bamboo, ALX Ventures, The Kenyan Wall Street, Nikhil N. Patel, Peace Itimi, E. Michelle Nyambura (StartUp Soko), Jimmy Sayi, Tam Sul (The Disruptors Den), Melody Mukhwana, Tech Safari, Felix Sifuna, Gideon Ruhara, Judith Bogonko, Karen Wanyama (Sanasana Sustainability), Obama Joseph