African Startups and VCs Need a More Sustainable Model Amongst Themselves

In 2022, we saw the scalability of trends and attachments to the West, which had both positive and negative impacts on the ecosystem. However, I believe it is time for us to skillfully trade and stand-alone, which is nearly impossible.

Taking into example was the layoff wave, which mostly happenedd during an economic downturn.

According to layoffs.fyi, a crowdsourced database of tech layoffs, shows that 1,910 tech companies have sacked 270,920 employees since the onset of COVID-19.

Over 50,000 layoffs occurred in 2022, with at least 1,000 tech workers in Africa being laid off.

The dismissals started with Egyptian mobility startup Swvl laying off about 400 people in May. Startups such as Twiga foods, Quidax, Vendease, 54 Gene, Sendy, Mkopa, Chipper cash and many more also carried out a similar exercise, attributing it to the economic downturn.

The Difficult Part of VC Seeking/Having

It is nearly impossible to not achieve this, however, we track it to the VC Relationship, Funding comes with many ropes we don’t understand as consumers or startups.

Majorly because we need the funds, there is a reputation that scaling is good and that is the biggest misconception roaming around.

Picking Chipper cash as the recent suspect in Africa, the FTX bankruptcy played a major role in the downscaling and the valuation marking of the unicorn.

From $2 billion to $1.25 billion and 12.5% of the layoffs were not naturally induced since the layoff took down one of the most essential parts of the team.

Could the local VCs help us do it differently? Or do they fund minor seed rounds so we tend to avoid them? How well can we re-tie these strings without affecting us globally? or, it’s the pitch decks that matter in tying us down with VCs?

Picking lessons from Kune and Sky.Garden, raising the same amount of funds, talking of scalability, and becoming the greatest startup a continent has ever seen, yet it’s just their inception and they know of a problem familiar to the founder?

Cutting some slack on the Fintech Founder Narrative, so we focus on the growth of other sectors

Throw me stones if you may, but the fintech narrative is the biggest gainer in Africa topping Nigeria and Kenya, yes, they are amazing solutions but it’s the easiest means to top the charts.

Within a year ‘cross-border payments startups have been funded’ title exceeds the number of health, productivity, commerce, or any other industry, it feels like founders are afraid of daring into other industries not mentioned above.

I guess the reason for this, is the African percentage of financial inclusion is way below, so we need to meet the target!

Data is scalable, Data is priceless the more the industries the more data, the more the unionization of the tech ecosystem.

According to Techcabal “blitz scaling is bad. It is underpinned by two assumptions. The first is that only VC is keeping start-ups afloat by subsidizing users. And the second is that start-ups have prioritized growth at any costs.”

Can we look at problem-solving longevity solutions compared to spur-in-the-moment solutions?

Again, we have problems on a daily basis. Currently, in Africa, we struggle with some creators not getting paid. In Africa, we must cooperate with creators and influencers to solve these problems.

I mean some startups on entry think they sort the million-dollar question of the why? Not knowing it a problem affecting them only, with no relation to other industries, thus creating a bubble of individual islands that have no masses, hence pre-seed and death trends.

As stated earlier, data is scalable. It is important to find reasons for why it needs to be fixed and not just because it exists. Some problems need to be made complex in order to create sustainability.

I guess this is why fintech wins. It’s the mid-merger in everything because at the end of the day, people need to get paid and you can never have more than enough payment platforms.