5 Tips for Investors in African Tech Markets

As I always say, people talk about investing in “Africa,” as if the continent is a single market.

In reality, Africa is 54 distinct economies, each with its own regulatory regimes, infrastructure maturity, consumer behavior, and innovation culture. Lagos doesn’t move like Nairobi, Accra doesn’t build like Cairo and Kigali doesn’t regulate like Johannesburg.

Yet within this diversity lies a powerful opportunity: the rise of locally grounded innovation designed to solve real problems. Africa’s digital evolution is not being driven by copy-paste models, it is being shaped by context creators.

For investors, this means success requires more than capital deployment. It demands contextual intelligence, the ability to understand local realities, interpret cross-market differences, and identify founders capable of designing systems that adapt and endure.

Drawing from my MVP+ (Maximum Viable Potential) framework and on-the-ground ecosystem insights, here are five critical tips for investors navigating African tech markets.

1. Invest in Context, Not Just Concept

In emerging markets, a good idea is only the starting point. What matters is whether that idea can survive infrastructure gaps, policy friction, and fragmented trust systems.

Before investing, investors must understand:

1. What exact problem is being solved

2. For whom

3. And in which specific market

A product that thrives in Kenya’s mobile-money-first ecosystem may struggle in Ghana, where card payments and bank rails dominate. Market fit in Africa is deeply contextual.

Key questions to ask:

1. Does this solution adapt to local infrastructure and user behavior?

2. Has it been tested under real conditions; bandwidth constraints, cash economies, regulatory variability?

• Can it localize effectively without breaking its ability to scale?

In Africa, innovation is about designing for reality.

2. Prioritize Founders with the IRT Factor

Ingenuity. Resilience. Tenacity.

Capital does not create staying power, founders do.

The entrepreneurs redefining African tech are those who can innovate through volatility. They build amid regulatory uncertainty, inconsistent infrastructure, currency risk, and fluctuating access to capital.

This is what I call the IRT Factor:

• Ingenuity – Engineering progress despite constraints

• Resilience – Sustaining momentum through systemic shocks

• Tenacity – Building long-term when short-term conditions are hostile

These founders don’t just build startups they build continuity. They understand local complexity while designing with a global perspective. In my previous blog post, I delved into these pillars.

3. Evaluate Infrastructure Readiness, Not Just Market Size

A large Total Addressable Market (TAM) is meaningless if users cannot reliably access the product.

In many African markets, scale is constrained less by demand and more by ecosystem readiness of mobile networks, payment rails, logistics, data infrastructure, and regulatory clarity.

Using the MVP+ lens, investors must assess the infrastructure-to-innovation ratio:

1. Is the ecosystem ready for what the product promises today?

2. If not, is the founder building adaptable systems that can evolve as infrastructure improves?

Investors who ignore this dynamic often fund vision without viability.

4. Back Ecosystem Builders, Not Just Product Owners

Africa’s most impactful startups didn’t just launch products, they built platforms.

From Flutterwave (Nigeria) to MNT-Halan (Egypt) and Chipper (Uganda), these companies created infrastructure that enabled others to grow payments, credit access, data layers, and distribution systems.

Smart investors ask:

Is this company solving a single problem, or creating a foundation others can build on?

The most transformative ventures create ecosystems.

5. Look Beyond Valuation; Measure Viability

In fragmented markets, valuation can be misleading. What matters more is Maximum Viable Potential (MVP+) a company’s ability to remain adaptable, compliant, and scalable across multiple economies.

Investors should examine:

1. Operational resilience across diverse regulatory environments

2. Local partnerships that enable trust and market entry

3. Strategies for talent retention, currency risk management, and data localization

The goal is to find the next unicorn and back an enduring system.

Final Thought

Investing in African tech markets requires optimism, discipline, humility, and deep local insight. The opportunity is undeniable but it is nuanced. What works in Nairobi may need complete reengineering in Dakar. The investors who win in Africa’s digital future are the ones who learned fastest. Because in Africa, scaling is about sustainability across borders.