Investment
Kenya Hasn’t Figured Out How to Put its Local Founders First By YINKA ADEGOKE
Startups that raised more than $1 million in Africa's largest tech ecosystems (2019) Only one Kenyan founder raised more than $1 million in 2019
Country Local founders Foreign founders Nigeria 12 5 Kenya 1 11 South Africa 14 4
Mixed 2 4 7
Corporate venture 3 1 0
Table: Yinka Adegoke / Rest of World Source: Maxime Bayen, Africa Startups $1M+ Deals Database -2019 Get the data
RECENTLY, a furor broke out on Kenyan social media when a French startup founder, who had only spent a few months in the East African country, seemingly had no trouble raising $1 million in pre-seed funding for his new food delivery app. Meanwhile, local and regional founders say they still have difficulty pulling together capital after years of attempts. While talking to a Kenyan tech founder about this, I was reminded of a line from Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s memoir, Dreams in a Time of War: “Belief in yourself is more important than endless worries of what others think of you.” Ngũgĩ was recalling a moment of realization from his childhood in colonial-era Kenya, but the quote feels apt today. In the early 2010s, Kenya’s fledgling tech ecosystem was used as a shorthand for a wider “Africa Rising” narrative. It was promptly dubbed “Silicon Savannah” as startups sprouted and tech talent flocked to Nairobi. But by 2016, there were mutterings in local circles about how the funding seemed to be disproportionately favoring North American and European founders who were launching companies in the country. Things came to a 74
September-October 2021
head in 2017, when a Village Capital report titled “Breaking the Pattern” appeared to confirm what many local founders and journalists had been saying: In East Africa, 90% of disclosed startup investments in 2015 and 2016 went to companies with one or more European or North American founders. It’s an issue that hasn’t gone away in the last five years, Adedana Ashebir, regional director for Africa and the Middle East for Village Capital, told me. Analysis of 2019 data showed that only one of the Kenyan startups that raised more than $1 million that year had a local founder. Four startups had a mix of foreign and local founders, while 11 had expat founders. It’s worth noting that this trend doesn’t apply elsewhere on the continent: In Lagos’ booming tech hub, 55% (12) of the founders identified in the same analysis were Nigerian, while in South Africa, 56% (14) of the founders were locals. This comparison with other African markets only serves to deepen the frustration of many of Kenya’s long-term tech watchers. So last month when Robin Reecht, a young French founder on a visitor visa, raised $1 million in pre-seed funding for a Kenyan food delivery app called Kune, a collective DAWN
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