Denis Opudo
Africa has been attracting the attention of investors in the tech scene for quite a while now. Investors are mostly attracted to the African technology because of the continent’s potential. Africa has offered a tech scene where investors wait to capitalize on a slight opportunity. Such moments were realized in 2017. In 2017 alone African tech startups got funding worth $650 million from investors. This was a record-breaking investment of more than 50% from 2016.
Many investors believe that the time is ripe to support Africa’s startup scene. The talk is more on support rather than the potential. The leading countries in attracting more investors are South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. But Rwanda is mounting challenge to the three countries. Despite Rwanda being one of the smallest countries in the continent, it is still attracting many investors. But the top three countries produced 76% of the continent’s tech investment for 2017. The number reduced from 81% in 2016. This means that the three leaders are getting a stiff challenge from other countries.
The only way Africa will be able to place itself on the global tech map is by producing its own goods. Africa should work on innovations that offer solutions to the real world problems. This was widely seen in January 2017 with 2KUZE as the best example. 2KUZE is an agtech app which was launched by Mastercard in 2017. The app links small-plot farmers with markets, logistics and payment services. It does that in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. BRCK which is a Kenyan communication company released SupaBRCK in March 2017. This is a Wi-Fi box that is waterproof and operates on solar power. It works as a 3G hotspot and off-grid server.
SureRemit launched by Nigeria is also placing the country in a better global map. The startup allows immigrants to send financial support to their families back at home. A partnership of scientists from Ghana and Nigeria launched the satellite into space. this was helpful with the help of NASA and SpaceX. But there were some startups that failed to keep up with the high demands of tech space. Afrostream closed because of financial and legal issues in September 2017. The startup got support from Y Combinator which is a backed French language VOD startup. Konga reduced 40% of its staff. It also closed its pay-on-delivery service to reduce expenses in November. Such moves are expected to allow the other startups to improve their service delivery. The continent has many challenges like internet blackout. This is affecting African technology scene.
However many countries are proving their worth to achieve the tech revolution. Many African countries will field a challenge to the three leading nations in the tech scene. This will make 2018 a good year for African tech innovation. WISeKey is a cybersecurity startup from Rwanda. The company is working on using blockchain technology to decentralize land registry. This will provide security to records. E-health, green energy, and agtech will have more improvement in 2018.
