In a recent interview with How we made it in Africa, Ibrahim Sagna, executive chairman of investment firm Silverbacks Holdings, revealed the five things he looks for when investing in a company.

1. Second-time founders. The firm has had the most success with people who are not running their first company. “We haven’t been lucky ever with first-time founders,” Sagna says.

2. Growth. It looks for companies posting year-on-year growth of at least 60% for three years.

3. Customers turned investors. Silverbacks sees it as an important signal when a company’s clients take a stake in it. Moove is one example. A vehicle supply partner for Uber since its early days, it saw Uber come in as a shareholder in 2024 as part of a $100 million funding round. At OmniRetail, food giant Flour Mills of Nigeria made the same shift from customer to investor.

4. Hard currency earnings. Silverbacks is wary of taking on too much exposure to African currencies. For foreign investors, who typically measure returns in US dollars, a rapid depreciation of the kind seen in Egypt, Nigeria and Ghana can wipe out investment gains. The firm therefore looks for companies that collect at least 30% of their income in hard currency.

5. Global ambitions. Finally, it wants founders who have stated an intention to take their companies worldwide.

We highlight five entrepreneurs building businesses in West Africa across sectors ranging from retail and footwear manufacturing to fitness.

1. Ghana: From side hustle to 16 stores – a retail entrepreneur’s story

In 2012, Charles Antwi-Boahen was scraping by as a commission-only salesman at an air-conditioning company in Accra, often struggling to cover his own transport costs. Noticing that customers kept asking for split air conditioners – a product his employer didn’t sell – he cut a referral deal with local appliance distributor Electroland. That side hustle became Kab-Fam, an electronics and home appliance retailer that today operates 16 stores across Ghana. Read the full story >>

2. The story of a Made-in-Nigeria footwear company

Yinka Atunde founded Nigerian footwear manufacturer Yikodeen in 2016, after travelling to Italy and China to learn the craft of shoemaking. Yikodeen began by making fashion shoes but has since carved out a niche in industrial safety boots and footwear for the security services. Read the full story >>

3. The man behind Nigeria’s answer to the UFC – meet ‘Dana Black’

Maxwell Kalu is the founder of African Warriors Fighting Championship (AWFC), a business he pitches as “Africa’s UFC” – but rooted in something uniquely Nigerian. AWFC organises and promotes Dambe, a centuries-old boxing style from northern Nigeria. Kalu wants to turn the traditional sport into a global business. Read the full story >>

4. Exporting cashew nuts from West Africa to Europe: CEO shares her story

Salma Seetaroo is the CEO and co-founder of Cashew Coast, a cashew nut processor and exporter based in Côte d’Ivoire. She spoke to How we made it in Africa about how she built the business, along with the global trends and opportunities driving demand for the lucrative nut. Read the full story >>

5. Nigeria: Businessman seizes opportunity in fitness industry

When Foluso Ogunwale launched iFitness in Nigeria in 2015, banks and other financiers were sceptical, doubting the market was big enough to support the venture. He pushed past that scepticism and the financing challenges to build iFitness into a chain of gyms across Nigeria, filling a gap for affordable, conveniently located fitness centres. Read the full story >>

Partner Content: Africa’s Business Heroes

The Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) Prize Competition, a philanthropic initiative of Alibaba Philanthropy, has announced the 20 entrepreneurs who will advance to its 2026 Semi-Final, taking place in Nairobi, Kenya, on 21–22 August.

The Top 20 were selected from an expanded Top 100 cohort drawn from more than 24,000 applications across all 54 African countries. Candidates advanced through three-person judging-panel interviews that assessed leadership, innovation, impact, scalability and commercial strength. The process was reinforced by on-the-ground visits to every company advancing to the Semi-Final and comprehensive due diligence conducted by PlusVC, allowing ABH to test the written applications against the businesses, teams and communities behind them. The selected 20 entrepreneurs will now compete for 10 places in the ABH semi-final.

Together, the ABH 2026 Top 20 cohort represents 12 African countries and 11 sectors, with 8 women entrepreneurs accounting for 40% of the cohort. Collectively, their businesses generated approximately US$85 million in 2025 and span diverse sectors including agriculture and agritech, healthcare, manufacturing, climate technology, financial services, education, energy, and technology.

Site visits reveal the people and purpose behind the businesses

Site visits are central to ABH’s approach because they reveal what even a strong application or pitch can miss: whether a founder has earned trust, whether a team can execute under pressure, and whether demand is real. That context matters in African markets, where sophisticated businesses are often underestimated because their strengths are not always visible through conventional investment filters. By combining interviews and due diligence with on-the-ground observation, ABH does more than identify compelling storytellers; it surfaces entrepreneurs with the operational depth, community legitimacy and resilience to build lasting enterprises. The platform then helps close the gap between proven local capability and the capital, networks and visibility required to scale it.

Building global connections through Hangzhou, China

The second edition of ABH’s Hangzhou learning and market-access trip will take place in China from 14-18 September, extending the program’s support well beyond the competition stage. Approximately 40 participants from more than 10 African countries are expected to join, including primarily 2024 and 2025 Top 10 Heroes, alongside other alumni, selected entrepreneurs, judges and participants from the Alibaba Digital Lion program. The trip reflects a central part of ABH’s value: giving entrepreneurs the opportunity to step outside their immediate operating environments, learn from a leading technology and commerce ecosystem, exchange ideas with peers and return home with new inspiration, practical knowledge and a broader sense of what their businesses can become.

A return to Nairobi

The 2026 Semi-Final marks ABH’s return to Nairobi, the city that hosted the program’s very first Semi-Final. The return carries both symbolic and practical significance. Nairobi has developed into one of Africa’s most dynamic centers for technology, entrepreneurship and investment, bringing together ambitious founders, established businesses, universities, innovation hubs, development institutions and a growing community of local and international investors.

This year’s event will welcome a larger investor audience, giving participating entrepreneurs more opportunities to engage directly with funders and strategic partners from across Africa and beyond. Their presence reflects a broader ambition for the Semi-Final: to serve not only as a competition, but also as a marketplace for ideas, relationships and capital through which investable African businesses can be discovered, understood and supported.

Join Africa’s leading entrepreneurs, investors and ecosystem builders in Nairobi for two days of live pitches, insights and connection. Register to attend the 2026 ABH Semi-Final.

Experienced judges bring investor, operator and alumni perspectives

The Top 20 will present before a distinguished judging panel:

• Kome Oruade-Etim, Global Program Manager for Acumen Angels and former West Africa Lead for Acumen Academy, brings extensive experience supporting purpose-driven leaders and early-stage enterprises addressing complex social challenges.

• Wandia Gichuru, Co-founder and CEO of Vivo Fashion Group, brings the perspective of an entrepreneur who has built and scaled one of East Africa’s most recognizable fashion businesses.

• Thomas Njeru, Co-founder and CEO of Pula Advisors and a 2023 ABH Top Three finalist, returns as a judge. Having stood on the ABH stage as a finalist, he understands the entrepreneurial journey, the pressure of the competition, and the qualities required to translate a compelling vision into a scalable enterprise.

• Jason Pau, Executive Director (International) at the Jack Ma Foundation, who co-founded and has actively led the ABH program for the last 7 years.

Meet the 2026 Top 20 Heroes

1. Farah Emara – FreshSource (Egypt) – AgriTech

2. Nour El-Assal – Tagaddod (Egypt) – Renewable Energy

3. Salma Tammam – REME-D (Egypt) – Healthcare

4. Ahmed Shaaban – Simplex (Egypt) – Manufacturing

5. Affiong Williams – Reelfruit (Nigeria) – Manufacturing

6. Kelvin Umechukwu – Bumpa (Nigeria) – Enterprise / SaaS

7. Ikechukwu Anoke – Zuri Health Ltd (Kenya) – HealthTech

8. Naom Monari – Bena Care Limited (Kenya) – HealthTech

9. Joseph Mungai – AceleAfrica Limited (Kenya) – Energy

10. Louisa Gathecha – Bottle Logistics East Africa Ltd (Kenya) – Industrial (ClimateTech)

11. Meriem Benabad – Z.6 or Z.SYS INC (Morocco) – Retail (FMCG) – Marketplace

12. Nidal Tafah – MIRRIAH (Morocco) – AgriTech

13. Samson Fentaye – Thur Biotech Manufacturing Plc (Ethiopia) – AgriTech

14. Jess Roussos – BluLever Education Pty Ltd (South Africa) – EdTech

15. David Kamugundu – eFiche Ltd (Rwanda) – HealthTech

16. Joseph Paul – Dawa Mkononi (Tanzania) – HealthTech

17. Gildas Zodome – Bio Phyto (Benin) – Agritech

18. Appessika Adanin Laurent Koffi – Green Agro Valley (Côte d’Ivoire) – Agritech

19. Hagasata Rakotoson – Solidis S.A (Madagascar) – FinTech

20. Rodney Kofi Kyei – Crux Global Limited (Ghana) – Media and Entertainment

Learn how Kenyan entrepreneurs Leonard and Emily Mcharo achieved financial freedom by their forties, in our new book How we made it in Africa II. The paperback and ebook versions are available here.

Swahili Honey is the retail brand of Central Park Bees, a Tanzanian business based in Dodoma that aggregates, processes and sells honey sourced from a network of rural smallholder beekeepers. How we made it in Africa editor-in-chief Jaco Maritz spoke to co-founder and CFO Christopher Kadendula to find out more.

Topics discussed during the interview include:

• The basics of beekeeping

• How the business was started

• Finding international clients

• Entrepreneurship lessons learnt

• Agribusiness opportunities in Tanzania and beyond

Read more

Interview with Wandia Gichuru
CO-FOUNDER & CEO, VIVO FASHION GROUP

Lives in: Nairobi

“I don’t come from a fashion background, so I tend to approach things purely from a business perspective,” says Wandia Gichuru, founder and CEO of Vivo Fashion Group, a Kenyan clothing manufacturer and retailer.

“We try to focus on what the market wants. We work backwards – starting from a price point we think will work and then calculate whether we can produce the garment within that price,” she explains.

Vivo currently operates twenty-nine stores across Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, and also owns the e-commerce marketplace ShopZetu. While the company aims to cater for women of all ages, Gichuru says the average Vivo customer is in her early forties.

She notes that over 90% of clothing available in East Africa is imported, meaning much of it is not designed with local consumers in mind. Vivo’s collections, by contrast, are created specifically for African women – in terms of size, fit and style preferences. Gichuru says this involves “understanding what women here feel good wearing – which parts of their body they’re happy to show off, which ones they are not – what colours they feel good in”.

Read more

Entrepreneur Seun Rasheed is the founder of SOUK Farms, which supplies Rwandan-grown produce – including avocados, chillies and beans – to supermarkets in Europe and the Middle East. The company sources its produce both from its own farms and from about 2,000 smallholder farmers in Rwanda.

Of Rwanda’s 10 largest agricultural exporters when SOUK Farms was founded in 2019, only four are still operating, according to Rasheed – evidence of how difficult the industry can be.

Rasheed describes the business as highly cash-intensive, both in terms of infrastructure and working capital. Customers typically pay between 30 and 90 days after receiving their orders, but most of the company’s expenses must be settled much sooner.

“You can’t tell a smallholder farmer, ‘Wait for 30 days before you get paid,’” he says. Farmers generally expect payment the day after their produce is collected. Airlines typically require payment upfront or within seven days, while packaging suppliers are paid in advance and farm workers at the end of each week.

This leaves SOUK Farms carrying most of its costs well before the corresponding revenue arrives.

The trade-off between wholesale and retail

Wholesaling has relatively low barriers to entry. “You can start exporting to the Middle East today without any major certifications, as an example,” he says.

However, exporters often have limited power in the wholesale market. A buyer may reject a shipment on quality grounds and refuse payment, while sudden price declines can force suppliers to accept less than the agreed amount.

“When wholesale prices crash, your client will come back to you and say, ‘Sorry, I can’t pay the agreed price … I can only pay this much – take it or leave it,’” Rasheed explains. “That’s why you see a huge turnover of exporters because all it takes is to lose out on one big shipment and your business is bankrupt.”

Although SOUK Farms began by selling through wholesalers, the goal was always to supply retailers abroad directly. The vast majority of its sales now go to supermarket chains in Europe and the Middle East, including Morrisons and Co-op in the UK and Edeka in Germany.

Retailers offer better margins and are more predictable counterparties. Securing them as customers, however, takes considerably longer and comes with more demanding requirements. Rasheed puts the timeframe at “about two to three years between initial contact with the retailer to actually getting your product on the shelves”.

Part of the reason is that retailers conduct more extensive compliance checks and verification than wholesalers. Suppliers must also obtain numerous certifications, which are expensive to maintain. Rasheed says SOUK Farms spends more than $50,000 a year on certifications.

Watch/read our full in-depth interview with Seun Rasheed: Nigerian creates business exporting avocados and chillies from Rwanda to European supermarkets

Richard Okello, co-founder of African investment firm Sango Capital, sees strong potential across a variety of sectors.

Okello is particularly keen on African retail. “The transformation from unorganised retail to organised retail is underway,” he notes.

One of Sango’s standout investments has been Sundry Markets, the parent company of Marketsquare, a Nigerian supermarket chain founded by entrepreneur Ebele Enunwa. (Our first book tells the in-depth story of how Enunwa built his business. It is available here).

Despite the steady rise of air-conditioned malls and modern grocery chains, roughly 90% of retail transactions in Nigeria still flow through informal channels – a vibrant ecosystem of roadside stalls, open-air markets, and hawkers weaving through gridlocked traffic.

Yet, as Okello notes, a growing number of Nigerians increasingly prefer the convenience of organised retail over haggling at informal markets. Anticipating that shift paid off: Sango partially exited its stake in Sundry Markets a few years ago, securing what Okello describes as a “very high” dollar multiple on the investment.

He additionally sees significant upside in fast food, an industry propelled by rapid urbanisation.

Private healthcare presents another promising avenue, from pharmacies to clinics dealing with conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure. “As African wealth rises, those diseases move in and you have to have service providers for them,” he explains.

Okello is also upbeat about the technology sector across both early and growth stages. He points to platforms addressing online education, digital payments, and the onboarding of unbanked small traders into the formal financial system as attractive areas.

Read/watch our full interview with Richard Okello: How to build a $1bn African investment firm

Five entrepreneurs tapping into Africa's agribusiness potential, from farming chickens in Rwanda and growing moringa in Uganda to exporting dried hibiscus flowers from Nigeria.

1. Nigerian creates business exporting avocados and chillies from Rwanda to European supermarkets

Nigerian-born Seun Rasheed was working for oil giant Shell in Qatar when a holiday to Rwanda set him on a different path. Seven years later, his company SOUK Farms supplies Rwandan-grown avocados, chillies and beans to supermarkets in Europe and the Middle East. Read more

2. Tearing up the business plan to build Rwanda’s largest chicken farm

When Shumei Lam first visited Rwanda in 2011, chicken was considered a luxury that most Rwandans could only afford on special occasions. Read more

3. Building an agribusiness venture in Africa – The tough road to success

Teddy Ruge runs a moringa-growing and processing business in Uganda – but his journey has been anything but smooth, navigating halted contracts, geopolitical fallout, and other unexpected challenges. Read more

4. Malawi: Entrepreneur unlocks agribusiness opportunities

Ziweto Enterprises started with a chain of agrovet stores – essentially pharmacies for livestock – and has since expanded into animal feed production, with plans to enter the poultry sector. Read more

5. Businessman turns Nigerian superfood into a global export business

Timi Oke is the co-founder and CEO of AgroEknor, a company exporting dried hibiscus flowers grown in Nigeria to global markets. Read more

Learn how Kenyan entrepreneurs Leonard and Emily Mcharo achieved financial freedom by their forties, in our new book How we made it in Africa II. The paperback and ebook versions are available here.

Ibrahim Sagna spent more than two decades in finance, including at the African Export-Import Bank and the Africa Finance Corporation, before co-founding Silverbacks Holdings, a firm that invests in technology, entertainment, sport and the creative industries. How we made it in Africa editor-in-chief Jaco Maritz spoke to Sagna about the firm’s origins and how it picks its investments.

Topics discussed during the interview include:

• The backstory to the founding of Silverbacks

• Why it doesn’t directly invest in early-stage companies

• What it looks for in an investment

• How it decides when to exit

• Why Sagna hosts his own podcast

• Whether ordinary people should invest in startups

Read more

For many people, Somalia is synonymous with war and political instability. However, Jon Bellish, the executive director of Shuraako Capital – a firm that finances Somali companies says the country offers several business opportunities. In a recent interview with How we made it in Africa, he identified solar energy, fishing, and the local manufacturing of imported consumer goods as three promising areas for investment.

According to Bellish, solar energy is one of the region’s biggest investment opportunities. “Somalis pay more for electricity than anybody in the world,” he says. “They pay between 70 cents and one dollar per kilowatt hour, which is like 10 times what we pay in the United States.”

He also points to fishing as a promising sector. Somalia has the longest coastline in mainland Africa, but its waters remain underfished. Bellish attributes this to insecurity and fragmented governance, which have affected fishing licensing.

“There is an opportunity for companies to come in and to process fish, particularly tuna, onshore. Or even better, to catch it, flash freeze it, kind of sashimi grade, and export to East Asia and Europe,” he says. “We need to up our game in terms of the health and safety certification. We have some companies that have the technical ability to do this, but because the certification regimes aren’t there, they’re kind of stuck selling to these Omani cartels who are … slapping a Made in Oman sticker on it and then re-exporting at 10 or sometimes even 15x what the Somali companies are selling it for. And that gap, that 10 to 15x margin, sort of illustrates the potential in the fishing sector.”

Manufacturing items locally to replace foreign imports represents another investment option. “The country imports 90-something percent [...] of the goods that are there,” Bellish notes.

One company already pursuing this is Al-Hayaat Personal Care, which Shuraako has backed. It manufactures and sells shampoos and laundry detergents in the Somaliland market, offering a lower-cost, locally manufactured alternative to imported products. Its founder launched the company after moving back from Canada.

For domestic manufacturing to really take off, Bellish says there needs to be regulatory reform in terms of industrial policy. “They have a regulatory system that is by traders and for traders,” he says. “And traders want the opposite from government that domestic manufacturers want.”

Watch/read our full interview with Jon Bellish – Doing business in Somalia: unpacking the realities on the ground

Learn how Kenyan entrepreneurs Leonard and Emily Mcharo achieved financial freedom by their forties, in our new book How we made it in Africa II. The paperback and ebook versions are available here.

American-born entrepreneur Daniel Yu’s most recent venture is the Africa Jobs Fund, which seeks to invest in companies that can create jobs at scale for Africans and raise incomes. It focuses on two areas: international labour mobility and export manufacturing.

He previously founded Wasoko, a multimillion-dollar company that connects informal retailers in East Africa with suppliers of consumer goods. After raising $145 million and merging Wasoko with Egypt-based MaxAB in 2024, he stepped away from day-to-day involvement in the business last year.

Yu spoke to How we made it in Africa editor-in-chief Jaco Maritz about the business opportunities in helping Africans find work abroad and exporting African-made products. The conversation also touched on how he got Wasoko off the ground, and his advice for young people entering today’s AI-threatened jobs market.

Read more

One Saturday in 2010, Gbola Lawson was knocking on the doors of small brick-and-mortar stores in Lagos – Nigeria’s megacity of roughly seventeen million people – trying to persuade shopkeepers to place cookies on their shelves. Although he held a full-time job in banking, he was helping his girlfriend, Debby (now his wife), grow the retail footprint of her fledgling one-person cookie business, Fastizers.

Read more

Fonio – a gluten-free grain with many nutritional benefits – has been cultivated as a subsistence crop in West Africa for thousands of years. It is drought-resistant, can grow without the support of fertiliser and restores organic matter in fallow soil. Despite the crop’s long history in the region, it is not fully commercialised.

Thanks to fonio’s nutritional profile, demand has been growing in regions such as the US and Europe.

One advocate for fonio’s potential is Timi Oke, co-founder and CEO of AgroEknor, a Nigerian company exporting dried hibiscus flowers to markets in the US, Mexico, and Europe. AgroEknor turned its attention to fonio after exploring additional crops for the hibiscus farmers in its supply chain.

“You don’t need fertilisers for fonio, you can literally just throw the seeds of fonio on the ground and it will grow … It can grow on any type of soil,” Oke said in an interview with How we made it in Africa.

He mentioned an article by Bill Gates that highlights fonio’s benefits and notes that brewer Carlsberg has launched a beer made solely from fonio grains, without barley or bittering hops.

However, AgroEknor is primarily looking at fonio for the Nigerian market. “We are more interested in using fonio as a substitute for rice domestically because Nigeria imports rice and it’s just not practical.” Yet, Oke acknowledged one of the key challenges with fonio: its processing. The grain requires dehusking, which is a labour-intensive process.

Watch our full in-depth interview with Timi Oke: Entrepreneur turns Nigerian superfood into a global export business

Interview with Seun Rasheed

FOUNDER AND CEO, SOUK FARMS

Lives in: Kigali, Rwanda

Nigerian-born Seun Rasheed was working for oil giant Shell in Qatar when a holiday to Rwanda set him on a different path. During the trip, the wide gap between the local price of passion fruit and what it sold for in Europe caught his attention. He realised there was an opportunity to build an export business around that price gap.

Seven years later, SOUK Farms supplies Rwandan-grown produce – including avocados, chillies and beans – to supermarkets in Europe and the Middle East. How we made it in Africa editor-in-chief Jaco Maritz spoke to Rasheed about his entrepreneurial journey and the lessons he has learnt along the way.

Topics discussed during the interview include:

• How easy it is to start an agricultural export business in Africa

• Farming challenges: is Clarkson’s Farm accurate?

• How long SOUK Farms took to become profitable

• Why Rasheed chose Rwanda over Nigeria

• His key entrepreneurship lessons

Watch the full interview below: (only available on How we made it in Africa)

Read more

How we made it in Africa II: Real stories of entrepreneurs turning opportunity into profit, the latest book by Jaco Maritz, has been recognised at the 2026 BCA African Business Book of the Year Award, taking the second runner-up prize at a ceremony held at the Institute of Directors in London on Friday, 3 July 2026.

The book is available here

The book was praised for its accessibility, its relevance to SMEs and entrepreneurs, and its broad representation of African business success stories – many of them lesser known – that highlight the realities of building businesses on the continent.

Now in its fourth year, the BCA African Business Book of the Year celebrates the most compelling business writing that examines and shapes Africa’s economic imagination, from leadership memoirs and sectoral deep-dives to bold analyses of the continent’s future.

The Kay Whiteman Memorial Lecture, held alongside the award ceremony, was delivered by Arunma Oteh OON, Nigerian-British economist, Chair of the Royal African Society and former Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Nigeria and Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank.

Her lecture focused on the African opportunity and how Africa holds a disproportionate share of the solutions to the world. In her words: “There is no version of a sustainable future that does not run through Africa.”

This year’s award was supported by the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), Africa’s leading infrastructure solutions provider, and was judged by a panel made up of respected African business and thought leaders, alongside top media executives: Arnold Ekpe, Chairperson of BCA, and chair of the Judging Committee; Chris Ogbechie, former Dean of Lagos Business School; Terhas Berhe, Managing Director and Founder of Brand Communications; Omar Ben Yedder, Publisher of African Business and New African magazines; Moky Makura, CEO of Africa No Filter; and Anver Versi, Editor of New African and African Banker magazines.

Commenting on the significance of the awards, Arnold Ekpe said: “At a time when Africa’s role in the global economy is changing rapidly, serious and informed writing on business has never been more important. The Africa Business Book Awards exist to champion excellence in this field, to elevate African perspectives, and to ensure that the achievements, opportunities, and challenges of African enterprise receive the attention they deserve.”

Speaking at the event, Samaila Zubairu, President and CEO of AFC noted: “These awards matter because we want to celebrate authors who do more than document history. We want to celebrate authors who document what Africans have built because nothing builds conviction like evidence of execution … Books that capture those stories do more than preserve history, they build confidence.”

Interview with Charles Antwi-Boahen
FOUNDER and CEO, KAB-FAM

Lives in: Ghana

In 2012, Charles Antwi-Boahen was working as a salesman for an air-conditioning company in Ghana’s capital, Accra. It was not an easy job. The company specialised in central air-conditioning systems for large developments such as hotels, office blocks and hospitals. But these contracts were hard to secure. Antwi-Boahen did not receive a fixed salary – he relied almost entirely on commissions for his income, with only a small allowance provided. Often, he struggled to cover his own transport costs.

While in the industry, he came across many people seeking to buy split air conditioners – smaller systems with indoor and outdoor units, commonly found in homes and small businesses. However, his employer did not sell these products.

Seeing an opportunity, Antwi-Boahen began looking for local suppliers of split air conditioners. His search led him to an appliance distributor called Electroland, which dealt in brands like Samsung. He struck a deal with the company under which he would send buyers their way and receive a commission on each sale. He was not only selling air conditioners, but Electroland’s full catalogue of products, including televisions, washing machines, fridges and even mobile phones.

Read more

PARTNER CONTENT: Africa’s Business Heroes

By Dr Anino Emuwa

Over the past six years as a judge for Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH), I have witnessed first-hand one of the most important shifts taking place across the continent: the evolution of African entrepreneurship itself.

The change is not simply in the number of founders emerging across Africa, although that has grown significantly. What is striking is the shift in mindset, ambition, and execution. Today’s entrepreneurs are building differently. They are solving deeply rooted challenges with greater sophistication, thinking about scale earlier, and increasingly creating businesses with both local relevance and global potential.

Across cities such as Lagos, Nairobi, Kigali, Accra, Cairo, and Cape Town, entrepreneurs are not waiting for perfect conditions. They are building in spite of them.

Some of the strongest signals of progress are already visible. Payments and fintech stand out as one of Africa’s great success stories, expanding financial inclusion at scale, enabling digital commerce, and demonstrating that world-class infrastructure innovation can emerge from the continent. Alongside this, agritech is connecting farmers to markets and data, renewable energy solutions are improving access and affordability, and logistics and mobility startups are addressing fragmented supply chains. The creative industries are also rising fast, from film and music to fashion and hospitality, showing how African talent is increasingly shaping both local economies and global culture.

Africa’s growth outlook also remains strong, with many economies projected to continue outpacing global averages. That momentum is increasingly reflected in entrepreneurial activity across the continent. Africa’s startup ecosystems are gaining global visibility. 10 of its countries are listed in the Global Startup Ecosystems top 100 and only the larger economies such as South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Morocco, but also in emerging innovation hubs including Rwanda, Mauritius and Cape Verde.

Africa’s growth story is driven by multiple forces, including commodities, services, demographics, and public investment. But entrepreneurship is becoming an increasingly important part of that mix. It is helping diversify economies, improve productivity, and create jobs and opportunities.

This is where Africa’s Business Heroes plays a meaningful role. ABH provides funding, visibility, human capital development, and access to networks that are often out of reach.

Over the years, a few patterns have consistently stood out to me.

First, the strongest founders are deeply rooted in the problems they are solving. They understand their markets from the inside out, including informal systems, competitive realities, infrastructure gaps, regulatory complexity, and fragmented demand. This often creates solutions that are not only locally relevant, but highly resilient.

Second, execution has become just as important as vision. The founders who stand out can clearly explain how their business works in practice: how they acquire customers, generate revenue, and create a path toward growth. It is no longer enough to have a compelling idea. The route to execution must be credible and well understood.

Third, technology, particularly AI, is increasingly being used as an enabler rather than simply a trend. The most effective founders apply it where it removes bottlenecks, expands access, or drives efficiency in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, logistics, and financial services.

Perhaps most importantly, clarity has become a defining characteristic of strong founders. The best pitches are not simply the most polished; they are often the clearest. Founders who truly understand their businesses can explain them simply, without relying on complexity or buzzwords. That clarity builds trust.

One lesson has become increasingly clear over time: many early-stage ventures do not struggle because the idea is weak. They struggle because the path from idea to execution is not sufficiently clear, particularly around distribution, unit economics, and scaling beyond initial traction.

That is why ABH is much more than a competition. It is an ecosystem platform that surfaces entrepreneurs who might otherwise remain invisible, connects founders across fragmented markets, and gives them exposure to a broader community of investors, operators, and peers.

This year, we have received 24,000 applications from all 54 African countries, and I am also delighted to note that female participation is at its highest at 45%. Notably, four of the Grand Prize winners to date have been women. This is an encouraging signal, not only of progress in representation, but also of the growing strength and competitiveness of female entrepreneurs across the continent.

After six years, I remain genuinely optimistic. The challenges are real, but so is the quality of entrepreneurial talent, and it continues to strengthen every year.

What is emerging across Africa is not simply a startup ecosystem. It is a generation of builders turning constraints into creativity and ideas into scalable businesses that contribute to the continent’s social and economic development.

And that shift is only just beginning.

This year’s ABH Top 100 have now been announced – a new generation of founders building bold, practical, and scalable solutions across the continent.

Learn more about the 2026 ABH Top 100 here.

Dr Anino Emuwa is a strategic advisor to boards and CEOs on navigating complex change, with a focus on AI governance, geoeconomics, and future-proofing leadership teams. She is the Managing Director of Avandis Consulting, and Founder of Africa Women CEOs Network. Dr Emuwa has served as an ABH Judge since 2020.

Alexis Caude is the managing partner of Africa-focused investment firm Adenia Partners. In a recent interview with How we made it in Africa, he revealed how he invests his personal money.

Caude takes a somewhat conservative approach to his personal investments. He invests in the hospitality sector in Europe and the US, an industry he knows well.

He also holds gold and US equities, leaning toward value stocks rather than the technology-driven momentum category. When it comes to equities, he buys both index funds and individual stocks.

Referencing Warren Buffett, Caude explains that if one doesn’t have the time to study individual stocks, it is better to buy an index. However, he does buy individual stocks himself. “I also buy stocks directly when I think that I have an edge or when I think that I know the industry well,” he says. “Then I try to apply the same method that we do in private equity: analyse the return on invested capital, analyse the competitive positioning of the company, understanding the price [and] the future growth.”

Because he is also an investor in Adenia’s funds, he needs to keep liquid assets on hand to contribute capital every time the firm makes a new investment. For this reason, he holds Swiss francs, a currency he favours for its ability to retain its value.

His investments also include an art collection, which connects directly to his personal passion for painting.

Read our full interview with Alexis Caude: How this French serial entrepreneur started investing in Africa

PARTNER CONTENT

From July 6 to 11, Stellenbosch University, near Cape Town, will host the African Continental Stage of the FIDE ISCF World Schools Team Championship (WSTC), bringing together school teams from across the continent. Jointly organised by FIDE and ISCF, with Freedom Holding Corp. serving as the general partner, the tournament will determine which African team advances to the global WSTC final scheduled for December.

How the Championship Will Unfold

Twenty national school teams have registered for the African stage, representing South Africa, Nigeria, Namibia, Malawi, Kenya, Mozambique, Lesotho, Botswana, Morocco, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, Tanzania, Madagascar, São Tomé and Príncipe, Zambia, Uganda, and Burundi. The participants, aged between eight and fourteen, will compete in a team format. Alongside the tournament, organisers have prepared an educational program that includes lectures, masterclasses, and workshops designed for young players, coaches, and teachers.

The event forms part of a broader international championship that has expanded significantly since its launch. The World Schools Team Chess Championship was first held in Aktau, Kazakhstan, in 2023. Initially conceived as an international competition for school teams, the tournament has since developed into a global championship consisting of continental qualifying events followed by a world final. This year’s competition began in April with the Asian stage in Kazakhstan, where Uzbekistan’s Wisdom School secured qualification for the final. Following the African tournament in Cape Town, additional continental stages will be held in Europe as well as Americas before the winning teams meet in December to compete for the world title.

The championship is organised under the auspices of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) in partnership with the International School Chess Federation (ISCF), which focuses specifically on developing chess in schools and integrating the game into educational systems. In September 2024, the FIDE General Assembly supported granting affiliated-organisation status to ISCF. Today, the federation coordinates international school chess initiatives, supports continental competitions, and works with national chess organizations and education systems to expand access to chess for young students.

Beyond organising competitions, the partnership between FIDE and the ISCF places considerable emphasis on education. The continental championships are designed not only to identify the strongest school teams but also to create opportunities for students and teachers to exchange experiences, participate in workshops, and engage with leading figures from the international chess community. This educational component accompanies each continental stage.

Why Timur Turlov Supports Chess Around the World

Freedom Holding Corp., a leading fintech company operating in 22 countries, has supported the championship since its inception and serves as one of its principal partners. The company’s founder and Chief Executive Officer, Timur Turlov, is also President of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation and President of the International School Chess Federation (ISCF). Mr. Turlov is an avid chess enthusiast himself and has spent more than three years promoting and developing the game both in Kazakhstan, where Freedom is headquartered, and internationally. In his view, chess plays an important role in developing cognitive abilities and can make a significant positive contribution to the intellectual growth of children and young people.

“Chess is a unique game. It shapes the way we think, teaches discipline and decision-making, and helps us understand the consequences of our actions. I say this not only as President of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation and the International School Chess Federation, but also as a father whose children play chess. Game after game, they learn patience, they learn how to win, and, just as importantly, how to lose with dignity,” said Timur Turlov.

Turlov is also one of the wealthiest people in Kazakhstan, with an estimated net worth of around $5.5 billion. Freedom Holding Corp., a fintech business operating in 22 countries, has been listed on NASDAQ under the ticker FRHC since 2019. As of today, the holding company’s market capitalisation is around $7.5 billion. Turlov’s business operates across several sectors, ranging from banking, investment and telecommunications services to lifestyle and media. Together, these businesses form Freedom’s digital ecosystem, which Turlov is developing in the United States, Europe and Central Asia.

In 2025, Freedom Holding Corp. partnered with FIDE and the ISCF to organise the World Schools Team Chess Championship in the United States. The event brought together more than fifty school teams from different countries and introduced the Smart Moves Summit, an educational forum held alongside the competition. The summit gathered representatives of FIDE, national chess federations, educators, researchers, and ed-tech entrepreneurs to discuss the role of chess in education, cognitive development, and classroom learning.

Freedom Holding Corp. has also expanded its involvement in the chess ecosystem through technology. In April 2026, the company acquired ChessBase, one of the world’s oldest and most widely used providers of chess software, databases, and analytical tools. Freedom announced plans to invest €5 million in the platform while providing access to its digital ecosystem, which serves more than 14 million users.

Turlov has played a prominent role in the development of chess in Kazakhstan. Since becoming President of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation in 2023, he has overseen a period during which Kazakhstani players have won 448 medals at official international competitions. During the same period, the federation has expanded programs aimed at increasing youth participation and strengthening the country’s competitive chess system.

One of the federation’s priorities has been the introduction of chess into the education system. Supported by the Kazakhstan Chess Federation, the program has expanded steadily, and today more than 1,500 schools across Kazakhstan include chess as part of their educational curriculum. The initiative seeks to make chess more accessible to children at an early age while integrating it into broader educational programs.

According to Freedom Holding, the company allocates more than $15 million annually to the development of chess through tournaments, educational initiatives, youth programs, infrastructure, and international projects. These efforts combine support for elite competition with initiatives aimed at expanding participation in school chess both in Kazakhstan and internationally.

Interview with Jon Bellish
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SHURAAKO CAPITAL

For many people, Somalia is synonymous with war, insecurity and political instability, rather than a destination for business. Yet despite challenges in parts of the region, local commercial activity continues across a variety of sectors, ranging from renewable energy and water bottling to apartment construction and poultry production.

Jon Bellish is the executive director of Shuraako Capital, a firm that provides financing to Somali companies. How we made it in Africa editor-in-chief Jaco Maritz spoke to Bellish about the operating environment and some of the region’s untapped business opportunities.

Topics discussed during the interview include:

• Can I safely travel to Mogadishu?

• Business opportunities in Somalia

• Why two site visits a day is an achievement in Mogadishu

• Companies funded by Shuraako Capital

• How Bellish began investing in Somali businesses

Watch the full interview below: (only available on How we made it in Africa)

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