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AFRICA’S RICHEST PEOPLE 2023

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Part 2: Ventures And Valuations: Africa’s Billion-Dollar Startups￼

<h2 class="has-text-align-center wp-block-heading" id="h-wemimo-abbey-co-founder-esusu">Wemimo Abbey Co-Founder, Esusu</h2>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“We like to call ourselves [social] justice capitalists.”</blockquote>



Wemimo Abbey, co-founder of Esusu, a company which reports rent payments to major credit bureaus helping renters establish their credit scores and owners maximize returns, says the company was born out of personal struggles.



Abbey grew up in the slums of Lagos, Nigeria, and was raised by his mother, along with two sisters, after his father passed away when he was just two years old. Despite having less than a secondary school education, his mother ensured he went to one of the best high schools they could find. This took the family from the lush tropical climate of Lagos to the freezing climes of Minnesota in the US.



“During that transition, something important happened. We didn&#8217;t have a credit score. We walked into one of the largest financial institutions to borrow money [and] were turned away. We had to go borrow money from a predatory lender at over 400% interest rate.”



His mother pawned his father’s ring and borrowed money from church members to make payments. This led Abbey and his co-founder, Samir Goel, to start a company premised on the idea that no matter where you come from or the color of your skin, your financial identity shouldn’t ring fence your path in life.



Aside from establishing credit scores, Esusu gives zero-interest rent relief paid directly to landlords when people cannot pay, so people are not evicted.



Abbey says they’re not solving homelessness backwards, adding that they operate on the social aspect of ESG – to give data-driven improved credit scores.



After university, both Abbey and Goel quit their corporate jobs, combining savings and $100,000 in credit card debt to fund the startup. After being rejected by almost 326 potential investors at the time, Abbey says it’s a scrappy story of realizing potential. Today, Esusu covers three million rental units in 50 US states, across real estate asset classes including affordable public housing, luxury student housing, military, and everything in between. They’ve grown from a staff of 20 to 200 in under two years. Not to mention, they’re making an impact despite their youth; Goel is 28, Abbey is 30.



“At Esusu we like to call ourselves [social] justice capitalists. Doing good and doing well isn&#8217;t mutually exclusive,” Goel says. He argues they are in the best position to create solutions for the demographic that not only looks like them but also are going through similar challenges.



They started with a savings model, digitizing age-old collective community savings techniques. However, they soon learned people already knew how to save, so they pivoted their model after realizing most consumers didn’t have access to affordable financing in an emergency.



“It&#8217;s quite obvious that we don&#8217;t look like everyone else in Silicon Valley. But I think beyond that, one of the things we realized is a lot of the people we were talking to lacked proximity to the issues that we were trying to solve,” says Goel. He says that, from their perspective, they’re serving the majority, as there are more people who are credit invisible like immigrants, minorities, and low-income households. Within these brackets, there are more people living paycheck-to-paycheck than those who are not.



Abbey reflects that a mobile phone is a powerful tool for digitizing African economies and unlocking opportunities. “We&#8217;re very excited that on the African continent with the emergence of new technologies, borrowing money doesn&#8217;t have to be a derivative of your father&#8217;s last name anymore.” He adds that it has become more about credit risk and financial profiles. These innovations, he notes, means the world is seeing Africans create solutions for Africans.



“So this is the movement of the African continent from this aid-based, poverty-ridden continent to a new era of innovation, technology, championed by its youth population. We think the movement is just getting started. So, it&#8217;s common business sense [for] the folks in Silicon Valley making these investments on the continent. My opinion – the best is still yet to come.”



Goel says Esusu does not look like other unicorns in the US, as their capitalization table is 75% black and brown women, the management team is 93% people of color, first- or second-generation immigrants and women. The company as a whole is composed of people of color.



Abbey says when they were declared a unicorn, they were immensely grateful. The company tells the story that it’s possible to invest in a minority-owned business and outperform other companies. Overall, Esusu tells a story of the impact and effect capital can have in the lives of many.



Abbey observes that a lot of African countries are young with the oldest around 60 years old, unlike the US which is over 300 years old. “If you look at the rate of growth, it&#8217;s actually accelerating compared to where places like the United States were when they were at this age,” he says.



It’s a renaissance that technology is going to revolutionize the way the continent thinks, and the way other places think about Africa. The narrative is changing from tourism and wildlife to which high-growth startups to invest in.



“We need to do more of the showing and stop telling people. Let the record speak for itself! Relegate the rhetoric, consider there’s something genius and there&#8217;s something special about the folks that come from the continent. And we&#8217;re just getting started. Because we&#8217;re young, we&#8217;re vibrant, we have ideas that can really change the world,” Abbey concludes.

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UNICORNS-Esusu: Digitizing African Economies In A New Era

<h3 class="has-text-align-center wp-block-heading" id="h-melvyn-lubega-co-founder-head-of-strategic-partnerships-and-director-go1">Melvyn Lubega Co-founder, Head of Strategic Partnerships and Director, Go1</h3>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"> &#8220;I&#8217;m an African passionate about solving significant problems with technology.”</blockquote>



In 2021, just six years after its founding, eLearning platform Go1 became South Africa&#8217;s first tech scale-up to be valued at more than $1 billion. This was thanks to the tenacity of its co-founders South African, Melvyn Lubega, and Australian, Andrew Barnes.



The last time FORBES AFRICA sat down with Lubega was when he made the 2018 FORBES AFRICA 30 Under 30 list, and sitting down with him now he notes that the biggest change since then, rather than the unicorn milestone, was Go1’s exponential growth.



“In 2018, I think we had just over 100 people in the business, whereas today, we have over 700,” Lubega says. “But it&#8217;s not only about hiring more bodies, but more so the depth at which [we are] able to understand the problem we are solving.”



Go1 was founded in 2015 by Lubega along with Barnes, who he met at Oxford and capitalized on a gap in the enterprise training market. The global workplace training platform has now aggregated over 100,000 courses into one subscription, and offers it to private organizations as well as governments around the world.



“I think it&#8217;s realizing the global opportunity in what we&#8217;re building, even though we had our local roots, [has] been the big difference in terms of the size of the prize and of the opportunities,” Lubega says.



Just six years after its founding, Go1 is expected to surpass the value of a billion dollars thanks to its most recent capital raise that is near closing with a formal announcement expected soon.



Lubega was born and raised in South Africa. However, his parents were born in Uganda. His grandfather, having fathered 30 children, had always been passionate about education and was a medical doctor himself. This, for Lubega, is where he drew inspiration around wanting to solve the vocational education conundrum on the continent.



&#8220;I&#8217;m an African passionate about solving significant problems with technology,” he explains. “Education has had such an impact in my life, and something which has been ingrained in me since I was young&#8230;The role of education and excellence have [allowed] me incredible opportunities.



“So we just want to see the transformative effect. Something that has been very humbling in the business and we&#8217;re very fortunate about is that we have been able to upskill over five million people.”



Furthermore, technology has been the catalyst of this change and has also been the pioneer of taking this edtech to new heights, which includes the unicorn status. The fact that most of the unicorns are in the tech space, in Lubega’s opinion, has a lot to do with what problems are being solved at the moment.



“I think entrepreneurs are often solving smaller problems. And I think in sectors where the biggest problems exist is where the most value can be created and hopefully captured.”



However, Lubega is very cautious about Go1’s unicorn title. “It is humbling but it certainly wasn&#8217;t a target for us, if I&#8217;m being honest,” Lubega says. “Because for us, we were still working and building our business. Yes, we&#8217;re growing… [But] the reality is that we were still just building our business and trying to have an impact, because even before we raised the unicorn round, we [are] still targeting to get to a billion learners.”

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UNICORNS- Go1: How Education Can Move The World

<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mitchell-elegbe-co-founder-and-ceo-interswitch">Mitchell Elegbe Co-founder and CEO, Interswitch</h4>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“If you know you only have one opportunity, the way you use it is quite different but if you felt you could squander this one and get another opportunity, then your approach will be different.”</blockquote>



For Mitchell Elegbe, the journey to building one of Nigeria’s most respected businesses, Interswitch, was driven by the passion to solve a social problem. He encountered the problem years ago in his youth when he tried to withdraw money from an ATM while abroad when his card was seized and he was left stranded.



“I made up my mind that one day I would conquer this problem,” recalls Elegbe.



When he returned to Nigeria, he noticed how the issue of getting money out from banks was creating a social menace. At the time, there weren’t many bank branches available and the only way one could withdraw funds was to physically go into a bank and wait to be served. This could often take up to three to four hours. The tedious wait times invariably led to clients taking out much more than they needed to avoid a repeat journey.



“This was usually on weekends, typically on Friday, when people wanted to have enough money to spend, and if you [knew] Nigeria at the time, spraying cash was the norm. What this did was create a lucrative business for robbers. So, it was normal for people to attack you on Fridays because they [knew] there was a lot of money at home,” says Elegbe.



This was Elegbe’s mountain. The next question he needed to figure out was how lucrative the solution was and at what price point people were willing to pay to have it. As a result, he developed an approach which he terms as “the Tropical Savannah method” and one that forms the bedrock of Interswitch’s success.



“You have the Silicon Valley method and then the Tropical Savannah method and there is a key difference. What you find is that people get money and they buy market shares and they don’t tell you if that market they are buying will end up paying for the services. In Africa, where you have the Tropical Savannah, you don’t give free things and take it back.



“If all I need is a sachet of water, don&#8217;t give me a bottle of coke for free. Let me pay for my sachet of water. The day you start giving coke for free then get ready to sustain it. If you tell me you can’t give me coke anymore and I need to start paying for it, people will stop because the best I can pay for is the water because that is what I can afford,” says Elegbe.



In other words, you need to design your services to meet people at their point of need in the Tropical Savannah. Otherwise, at that point where you are now ready to monetize from your customers, you will not be able to.



“This is why a lot of fintechs are suffering and that is what is happening globally and why the valuations are crashing. In the Tropical Savannah, prove your model and show that there is somebody to pay for it at a price point that will make it profitable and then you can begin to scale.”



That method allowed Interswitch to raise only $500,000 against an initial $1 million target and still turn a profit in the first year of business.



“Sometimes in life you get just one opportunity and you need to grab that one. If you know you only have one opportunity, the way you use it is quite different but if you felt you could squander this one and get another opportunity, then your approach will be different. With Interswitch, I knew there was no way we could go back to people to ask for more money. Because if they could give us $1 million, they would have. So we had to make the money; we had to work.”



And with that, Interswitch was able to disrupt the traditional cash-based payments system at a time when Nigeria’s banks were still struggling to open enough branches to meet customer demand.



“I did not think we were creating anything fantastic because the process of making cash available via ATM was already well-established in other parts of the world. The challenge we had in Nigeria was that the infrastructure was not there. Power was a big problem, telecoms was not where it should be, and when we started in 2002, the GSM license was not where it should also be,” says Elegbe.



What that meant was Elegbe had to take a bet on the future.



“So, we basically made a bet that we were going to build an online real time payment infrastructure and we were going to make a bet that we can manage and design out the challenges of power and that telecoms will improve because if people were spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get a GSM license, it only makes sense that I could do a good job with those licenses. So, the bet was to attempt to create an online real-time payment infrastructure.”



That is exactly what they did and that bet has paid off significantly. From attracting a $200 million investment from Visa who took a 20% stake in the business, which pushed the company into unicorn status to the recent injection of $110 million joint investment from LeapFrog Investments and Tana Africa Capital to scale its digital payment services across the continent, Interswitch has been at the helm of democratizing cash transactions to 200 million Nigerians over the past two decades.



“The vision at that time was to leapfrog and to take Nigeria where it was at a very backward stage to a stage where it was more advanced. So, we wanted to create enough innovation to drive the penetration and adoption for electronic money and to that extent we were able to achieve that,” says Elegbe.



For Elegbe, the goal was never to become a unicorn. In fact, he did not even know what that term meant.



“I only began to know about the term unicorn when someday we got to know that Interswitch was now being described as a unicorn. In all my years running Interswitch, unicorn was never the goal for me. It was more of the ability to take one problem at a time, solve it, see the impact it was having on people and be encouraged by the problem we are solving.”



“In our case we began to hear about the unicorn thing when Visa invested in us [to] a valuation that was about a billion dollars. The objective was to just keep solving problems and getting joy when you see the problem solved. The idea of a unicorn is knowing that you are a billion-dollar valued business but for me it is just a mark and means nothing. Sooner or later everybody will get there. The real issue is what impact are you making with the technology that you have deployed,” says Elegbe.

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UNICORNS- Interswitch: Joy From Solving Problems

<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“I hope it will serve to show others that this is actually a really big opportunity. I think we’re still in the early innings.”</blockquote>



<h2 class="has-text-align-center wp-block-heading" id="h-ham-serunjogi-and-maijid-moujaledceo-and-president-respectively-chippercash">Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled CEO and President (respectively), ChipperCash</h2>



By Marie Shabaya



THE UGANDAN-BORN CEO OF FINTECH unicorn, Chipper Cash, Ham Serunjogi, grew up watching his parents solve problems. Today, overcoming challenges is a daily routine and forms a culture of thought inherited from his upbringing.



“As an African, you’re in problem-solving mode all the time. For me, it was [multiplied] by ten, my parents were both self-employed, solo entrepreneurs, and [they had] a continuous problem-solving mindset,” recalls Serunjogi, speaking with FORBES AFRICA from San Francisco, California. 



Serunjogi fondly recalls the early memories that shaped his own entrepreneurial stature.



“We grew up on a farm so initially [my parents] were trying to figure out how to get the farm going. Eventually, they had a dairy business and they had to figure out how to get that going. My dad is a computer scientist by training and he had an IT firm as well and he had to figure out how to get that going and how to manage a small team…it left such a strong mark on me. I always wanted to do something of my own when I grew up.”



After completing high school in Kenya, Serunjogi made his way to the US to study at Grinnell College, a private liberal arts institution in Iowa State. It was here that he would meet his long-time friend and co-founder, Maijid Moujaled, from Ghana.



Moujaled who is now President of Chipper Cash was, like Serunjogi’s father, a computer scientist and had started a popular coding club at Grinnell. The two struck it off immediately noticing that they both saw the world from a similar vantage point.



“When I met Maijid, he was of a very similar mindset around the fact that there were so many opportunities in Africa for us to make a positive impact. We happened to be among the few [Africans] who got to go on and get educated in the US and we saw that as a privilege and an opportunity to learn in a new place and see how people solve problems in that area. For us, payments [in Africa] was [where] we felt that we could make a positive contribution,” he explains. 



“When I met Maijid, he was of a very similar mindset around the fact that there were so many opportunities in Africa for us to make a positive impact. We happened to be among the few [Africans] who got to go on and get educated in the US and we saw that as a privilege and an opportunity to learn in a new place and see how people solve problems in that area. For us, payments [in Africa] was [where] we felt that we could make a positive contribution,” he explains.



During their time at Grinnell, the two men began conversations around building a money transfer app that would enable Africans to easily make cross-border financial transactions; a gap which the antiquated continental banking system struggled to address for decades. They went on to establish ChipperCash in 2018, with combined savings of $30,000, launching a Beta version of the app in July that year. The service was simple but revolutionary, initially allowing users to send money between Uganda and Ghana, for free. It was a game-changer, not only was it easy-to-use it also overcame the cost hurdles presented by other alternatives available on the continent. In November 2018, they received their first injection of investor capital after 500 Startups, the San Francisco-based early-stage venture fund, agreed to put in $150,000.



Raising funds wasn&#8217;t easy. The founders had pitched to 50 VC outfits before the 500 Startups investment and many of the investors they had been in contact with were wary of an African prospect. Serunjogi, in an interview with Forbes earlier this year, notes that some of them were not just apprehensive but even averse to the idea of investing in an African startup with one investor reportedly telling Serunjogi, “regardless of what the metrics are, I have to apply a discount to this business because it’s in Africa”.



“With the pain we’ve gone through trying to raise money in a space where there has historically been no one [from the continent] raising money and the trauma of being overlooked that comes with going against those odds, I hope it will serve to show others that this is actually a really big opportunity. I think we’re still in the early innings,” he now reflects.



Today, ChipperCash is imbued with the spirit of its founders and has more than overcome initial hurdles. The company is highly-rated among investors, riding high with a $2.2 billion valuation after raising a total of $300 million to date with backing from noteworthy titans like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and a roster of blue chip VCs. Their most recent funding round closed in late 2021.



ChipperCash employs 350 people spread across their San Francisco headquarters and Africa offices in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. Their impressive growth, over the last four years, has enabled them to support a growing client base of 5 million in seven African countries. In addition to low-cost money transfers, they have also expanded their product stable with a crypto-trading service and a platform where their continental customers can purchase US stocks. Last year, the company’s revenues were well over $75 million up from $18 million in 2020.



However, for ChipperCash, reaching unicorn status was never the objective. While it remains a great vote of confidence from the market, signaling early success, the founders’ sights remain fixed on their initial motivations for founding the business, insists Serunjogi.



“Our task is to provide a platform that can help people move their money easily, invest in assets across the world easily, [and] interact with the online economy easily. Essentially, meet people at the fabric of their financial lives in Africa.”



Nevertheless, surpassing the $1 billion valuation mark is a feat for any business, African or otherwise, and very few from the continent have managed to scale such heights. The fact remains that Serunjogi and Moujaled have shifted the needle on what is possible for Africa’s innovators and entrepreneurs, establishing themselves as trailblazers in the fintech arena.



“If nothing else, I hope that ChipperCash can serve to show that there is a massive opportunity in Africa and maybe even pave the way for others who are more talented, more capable than Maijid and myself to come and do even more important work,” says Serunjogi.



“Africa offers the last great opportunity for exciting innovation in the world today.”


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Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled by Ethan Pines for Forbes 130L-03-0027

UNICORNS-Chipper Cash: A Chip Off The Old Block

Venturing into the world of entrepreneurship is often strenuous and risky business. But the rewards far outweigh the costs. Since 2013, the added prize of being lauded as a ‘unicorn’, that is a business valued at $1 billion or more, has become highly coveted among the entrepreneurial class. On the continent, very few can claim this status. FORBES AFRICA spotlights African founders who have scaled these heights, making their mark on the world at large and redefining the African story of success. 



By: Marie Shabaya, Chanel Retief, Lillian Roberts, and Peace Hyde



IN POPULAR IMAGINATION, UNICORNS CONJURE up the picture of a rare but beautiful mythical creature described by the ancients as resembling a horse, with a single horn emanating from the center of its forehead. A timeless symbol of purity and uniqueness, this rich symbolism also translates to the world of business. In the startup lexicon, a unicorn is also a rarity and defined as a relatively young company, usually less than 10 years old valued at $1 billion or more by public or private investors.



According to CBInsights, a New York City-based market intelligence company, as of October 2022, there were over 1,200 unicorns in the world. Popular unicorns include the artificial intelligence (AI) company, ByteDance, from China that is valued at $140 billion; Elon Musk’s spacecraft engineering firm, SpaceX, valued at $127 billion and Chinese online fashion retailer, Shein, valued at $100 billion. Some former unicorns include Airbnb, Facebook and Google. Furthermore, according to the report, the total cumulative valuation of these rarified businesses is $3,871 billion.



In Africa, the rise of these mythical commerce creatures is not different.



A few years ago, the continent saw the emergence of its first unicorn with the pan-African online retailer, Jumia Group. The company had capitalized on a major gap in the virtual market building a customized platform where consumers in 14 African countries can order their groceries, shop the latest fashion or order takeaway from their favorite restaurants online. In 2019, Jumia became the first brand from the continent to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), after commanding a valuation of $1.6 billion the previous year. Since then, six more businesses have entered this very elite club, illustrating that the rate of unicorns forming on the continent is fast accelerating.



“I suppose the rise of African unicorns is starting to validate the potential of African companies,” says Ian Lessem, Managing Partner at HAVAÍC, a company in South Africa that invests in early-stage, high-growth technology businesses.



“So, it’s one thing to say ‘I want to invest in African businesses’, and then someone will say, ‘well, what’s the potential, how is my investment to make money’…as a continent, [we’re] an emerging market or frontier market.”



While continental startup ecosystems are relatively young compared to more developed markets such as the United States (US), Israel, or the United Kingdom (UK), they are growing at around 15% faster than these more mature markets each year, according to Lessem.



“And in 2022, the African venture capital (VC) market is set to be the only region in the world to have grown year-on-year,” Lessem tells FORBES AFRICA.



“So, while on a relative basis Africa is a small part of the global startup and VC sector, it is growing, and growing quickly, and with a maturing ecosystem and the continued influx of capital, its place on the global venture stage is set to continue, with many more unicorns to follow as a result.”



According to a study by Mastercard, the global payments giant, on the state of fintech in African markets, startups within this sector boasted exponential growth in 2021. In terms of funding, the study showed that the continent’s fintech startups recorded 894% year-on-year growth in 2021.



“[What] Africa has to do as a continent is figure out [how] we overcome some of [the] barriers that make it difficult to build big enterprises and can we make it easier to do business across the continent?” Sarah Dusek, an Investor and Co-founder of Enygma Ventures and Co-founder of Under Canvas Inc. says to FORBES AFRICA. “Money movement across the continent is still very challenging. And that’s where we’re seeing most of the unicorn space happen right now, in fintech.”



Nigeria emerged as a leading fintech hub across the Middle East and Africa as startups there accounted for a third of all funding deployed into fintech in 2021.



The African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCA) noted in October that, within the first half of this year, African startups captured $3.5 billion in venture capital investment. The industry group further stated that the funding, raised by 300 different companies, represented a total growth of 133% compared to the same period last year.



“I think we have the potential for having a lot of unicorns on the continent. But equally, this ecosystem is really young,” says Dusek. “So if you think about how old the sort of Silicon Valley model of investing in the US is, it [is] 50 years old. [In Africa] we are under a decade in the venture capital model. Only $4 billion was invested in 2021 on the whole continent into businesses. So there&#8217;s no way we can have a lot of billion-dollar companies, when we&#8217;ve only invested $4 billion a year.”



However, there is a reason for the low investment volumes. Investor perceptions have long been marred with challenges and stereotypes that have been difficult to eradicate. However, Lessem believes that this is mostly due to lack of data.



“Africa is still a pretty new market&#8230;so investors will always be quite wary. The other challenge is when anything is new, there are very few data points,” Lessem explains. “So as a foreigner to go and say, ‘okay, well, I want to invest in Uganda’, what data do they have to draw from? In researching, you would see that it is probably hard for you to find some of the data you were looking for. ”



“I think it&#8217;s a bit of a chicken and egg [scenario],” Dusek adds. “Because I don&#8217;t think we can break those stereotypes without going to these places in the first place. If you look at most of the unicorns&#8230; how many of them are out of Nigeria? Most of them [are]&#8230; and that is just about building companies in big markets with big opportunities. And that&#8217;s actually one of the biggest challenges for Africa, we are a continent, not one country.”



Starting a business on the continent is not easy and is one that is riddled with a multiplicity of issues.



“Whereas I think in Africa, there is a perception that if you fail, it&#8217;s almost built for life, which I think is true, in terms of the stigma that comes with it. People almost don&#8217;t want to embrace failure. So I like to fail quietly. The only concern and a chance of failing quietly, is [that] for you to get assessed for business, you have to put yourself out there.”



Lessem further notes that one needs to remember that without meaning for it to happen, legislation and regulatory frameworks will always play a role in what businesses you invest in, particularly in Africa.



“Each country is different [and] we have very different legal systems. In southern Africa, we are very English and Dutch-law based. The same would be for Nigeria and Kenya. But then you look at Mozambique and Angola, and that will be Luciferians, which would be very kind of your Portuguese type of law, which is a little bit different.



“And then Francophone Africa; the DRC, Senegal, that would be French Civil Code. When you make an investment, you have to sign a subscription agreement and [understand] what you are actually signing in for [particularly if] you don&#8217;t have experience in the various kinds of laws [of] the country.”



Moreover, there is a reason why most of the continent’s unicorns are in West Africa or have founders from the region.



“Nigeria is a powerhouse economy in Africa with access to hundreds of millions of tech-savvy consumers who have access to mobile phones,” Lessem adds. “It stands to reason that it will attract VC funding and produce powerhouse startups. But taking a step back, and looking at what defines a unicorn, which loosely is a VC-backed early-stage business that has raised capital at $1 billion or more valuation.”



Lessem further compares Nigeria to South Africa. In terms of consumer numbers, Nigeria is far larger. However, from a capital markets perspective, South Africa has much more depth. What this means is traditional venture investors may lean towards markets such as Nigeria where their funding could play a more meaningful role, and potentially impact more people in the process.



“South Africa, on the other hand, has many other capital options besides venture capital funding and depending on the type of business can look to venture capital or to other capital pools as appropriate,” Lessem says. “That being said, venture capital funding plays an important role in South Africa, as well, especially for businesses looking to scale internationally and this is where we are going to see many unicorns emerging from South Africa in the coming years.”



And now that we are seeing growth happening in the unicorn space for Africans, the next barrier is breaking what could easily turn into a boys&#8217; club if more women are not welcomed into the space, as one can intimate from the unicorns profiled within these pages. But that, according to Dusek, can only happen with more investment.



Women make up 58% of Africa’s self-employed population and businesses founded by women ultimately deliver higher revenue—more than twice as much per dollar invested—than those founded by men. This should make women-owned companies more attractive to investors. However, with all the data and research available, we are yet to see a female-founded and led unicorn from the continent.



“Women have shown that they are capable of accelerating the economy but this is only possible through the provision of equal opportunities. With decades of gender disparity issues, women are not asking for preferential treatment but for the same opportunities as men,” says Dusek.



“To tackle Africa’s socio-economic challenges, we need to invest in women-led businesses, because when women work, they drive impactful changes in society. We already know that women-led businesses are statistically more profitable than male-led ones, [they are] more likely to repay debt, and more likely to continue to operate after the first five years in business.”



The story of African unicorns has been two years in the making for FORBES AFRICA. We’ve been watching the markets for the growth of these billion-dollar outfits and those behind them. The founders within these pages have not only grown and scaled their businesses, despite the odds, but have been thinking beyond reaching unicorn status, because for them, the work has just begun!  



<a href="https://shop.forbesafrica.com/product/single-digital-issue-dec-jan-2023/">For full list of unicorns, get your digital copy here</a>


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financial technology flowchart and basic income mining cryptocurrency with blockchain startup unicorn crypto money virtual diagram.businessman hand working with new modern computer.

Part 1: Ventures And Valuations: Africa’s Billion-Dollar Startups

AFRICAN STARTUPS ARE RAISING UNPRECEDENTED AMOUNTS AT RECORD SPEED. FOR NOW, THE CONTINENT IS THE ONLY REGION IN THE WORLD SEEING A RISE IN VENTURE CAPITAL FLOWS. PERSPECTIVES FROM WEST AFRICA.



AS FUNDING FOR STARTUPS FALLS ACROSS the globe, Africa it seems is undergoing a renaissance in this regard.



“We are seeing a time where funding for African startups rose to a massive $3.14 billion in the first six months of this year alone,” says Eric Idiahi, Co-Founder and Partner at Verod Capital, a leading West African private equity investor. “That is unprecedented and it really shows the interest in the continent!”



African entrepreneurs are raising money to solve pertinent socio-economic problems on the continent ranging from financial inclusion, providing access to healthcare for the underserved and vulnerable, and bridging the education gap.


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“Africa investment firms and angel networks have started putting money into African companies,” says Dr Akintoye Akindele, yet another West African entrepreneur, who is the Founder of investment vehicle Platform Capital in Nigeria.



“It took African entrepreneurs almost 10 months to raise $1 billion in 2019. It took the same group eight months to raise $1 billion in 2020. It took them four months to raise $1 billion in 2021 and it has taken them less than six weeks to raise $1 billion in 2022. That means capital is coming in faster into deals and last year for the first time in our history, African investors invested more than European investors. This is a major milestone.”



Akindele is himself focused on inviting investors “to see Africa the right way”.



“This is because we know the narrative that exists about Africa and the negative questions we get asked.”



The thesis of Platform Capital is that it deploys long-term capital to startups whose center of gravity is Africa.



“Africans need long-term, nurturing and patient capital. Four to five years is too short in Nigeria for a business to turn capital around and grow and deliver profit to capital providers. I believe from my experience that five to six years does not create enough alignment,” says Akindele.



Based on their extensive research and experience investing in over 100 portfolio companies with a valuation north of $1.5 billion, Platform Capital invests in businesses that will become top in their sectors in 15 years. Akindele also believes his investments should be sector-agnostic.



“I believe in Africa, we should not be choosing what we cannot invest in&#8230; whether it’s energy, telecom, agriculture, infrastructure or value-added services like gaming, I believe consumers need their basic needs met and then on the back of that we can evolve.”



Akindele’s primary focus is those sectors fundamental to the development of Africa.



“We invest in key areas that Africa needs to catch up on&#8230;so things like technology infrastructure, agriculture or food value chains. They form our anchor sectors and that represents about 60% of our portfolio. Then, when you have people who have electricity, food and water, they then go into the next sector like finance as well as education or healthcare&#8230;Then our final sector is robotics, artificial intelligence, such as one of our companies that do smell cyborgs,” says Akindele.



The company he is referring to is Koniku, a synthetic biotech company that creates ‘smell cyborgs’ that can detect a range of compounds in the air in real-time, and which recently partnered with Airbus to launch biotech solutions for aviation.



The company has so far reportedly raised $49.2 million in four rounds and is part of a long line of African startups bucking the trend of venture capital (VC) investment worldwide.



According to Yaa Agyare-Dwomoh, a consultant with growth strategy consulting and research firm Frost &amp; Sullivan, African VCs reached $1.8 billion, up 150% compared to $730 million in the same period in 2021 and was subsequently, also the only region in the world to record three-digit growth in the first quarter of 2022.



As the biggest catch-up market, Africa’s advantage lies in its need for innovative solutions to leapfrog years of underdevelopment. For some pioneers like Oshiorenoya Agabi, the Nigerian-born scientist based in Silicon Valley and Founder and CEO of Koniku, that need for innovation has brought the continent to the age of biotech solutions.



The company, which was founded in 2017, is using technology to combine traditional computer cells with living biological neurons.



“We are creating a device capable of thinking in the biological sense like a human by creating neurons that are sensitive to particles and are able detect smell. By this method, the solution can be used for particle detection for aviation, military or agricultural application,”says Agabi.



Apart from biotech, the figures show that it is fintech that attracted the largest funding by sector by far, mostly spurred by the need to extend banking and financial services to millions of unbanked and underbanked Africans across the continent. “Fintech is now the most popular sector for investments in Africa. In 2021, fintech funding broke the $1 billion funding barrier and continued to receive the largest amount of funding on the continent, representing 54% of all venture funding deals. In 2022, the fintech sector was responsible for the biggest deals securing two-thirds of the total funding for Africa’s technology firms,” says Dwomoh.



And this trend looks set to continue.



“Despite the global trend of tech companies struggling to raise money, African VCs are still raising money at record speed,” adds Akindele.



An unexpected side effect of the coronavirus pandemic has been the need for inclusive development in areas that fundamentally impacts society. This new trend known as impact investment has also consequently been on the rise in the African VC space.



Impact investing is based on the notion that when money is managed effectively, it has the added benefit of positively impacting the lives of people as well as creating a return on investment.



Africa is home to the youngest population in the world, with a median age of less than 20 years, and 70% of the population under the age of 30. According to the Global Impact Investing Network 2020 survey, almost half of global impact investment capital goes to the African continent.



Raised to appreciate poverty and wealth at the same time, Akindele is also a firm advocate of his investments positively making an impact on his portfolio companies. Platform Capital writes cheques anywhere from $10,000 to $10 million with most of the companies in the portfolio growing by 500% in terms of money raised, according to Akindele. As an African advocate, each investment the firm makes has to have an impact that



is transformational to the continent and its people and most importantly, makes a profit.



The new influx of money into Africa is just an attestation of everything entrepreneurs like him have consistently been working towards.

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VENTURE CAPITAL IN WEST AFRICA: The Funding Surge

Despite the economic outlook in the region, the high-net-worth segment has been growing over the last decade, reaching a crescendo with the recent entrance of new foreign private banks and wealth management services into the regional market. FORBES AFRICA takes a look at these movements on how the wealthy and ultra-rich in East Africa are changing the way they manage their assets.&nbsp;



BY MARIE SHABAYA



OVER THE LAST decade, five East African nations have seen a net-positive growth in total wealth, according to figures from New World Wealth. Leading the pack are Rwanda (60%), Ethiopia (52%) and Uganda (50%). Delving deeper into this picture, Kenya, a growing economic hub for the region, has the highest per capita wealth in East Africa, and ranks eighth on the continent, at $1,700.



This makes a strong case for the new financial services now available to high-networth individuals (HNWIs) in the region. In fact, East Africa is now a growing market for wealth management services and experts. This is echoed by the changing trends in how this segment has been holding their wealth.



Traditionally, investment options for the wealthy and ultra-rich were concentrated predominantly in land, real estate (property and buildings) as well as cash. Over the last few years, there has been a marked shift with this capital being held in sovereign bonds or fixed income securities.



Why the shift? Charles Mwaniki, a business journalist who has been covering the regional financial markets for over a decade, notes that what we’re seeing now is the result of movements from the past decade, whose effects are now being compounded.



“The big shift I’ve seen is the move towards the professional management of wealth. 



Previously a lot of [wealthy] people were having to manage their own wealth in private family offices or as private individuals but over the last seven years, we were coming out of a period of plenty, between 2004 and 2015, when there was ample opportunity to make money,” he says.



The overall economic climate during this time was one of a financial boom, allowing for the expansion of the HNWI segment in the region 



“It was a two-fold thing. One, it introduced a lot of new money into the economy and a lot of people got wealthy or got money that was investible within that period. Secondly, the people who already had money were making it more easily. It was easy to multiply wealth. So, you didn’t need much help to make money; there were opportunities everywhere…in trade, in the stock market, in bonds. But, from around 2014-15, it suddenly became a lot more difficult to make money here.”



What followed was an extended period of decline in both the stock market and the banking sector. Beginning in 2016, banks restricted their lending to the private sector due to a legislative cap on commercial lending rates.



“Trade also became more difficult. People started realizing [that they] needed help to unlock opportunities, to see where the money is and that is where they increasingly turned to professionals, especially those who had made new money in the decade before. Suddenly, there were no opportunities in the stock market, they didn’t know how to invest offshore, they didn’t know how to play the property sector so they turned to professionals,” posits Mwaniki.



This has seen a rise in dedicated wealth management units in some of the more established banks and lenders in the region, with new entrants joining the market as recently as this year. Stanbic Bank Kenya, formerly known as CfC Stanbic, is one of the larger service providers in the region, providing a private bank offering to both individuals and corporate clients with at least $1 million in investible assets. New entrant, Old Mutual, from South Africa, opened its doors to highnet-worth clients with at least KES 10 million ($83,130) in investible assets in July this year while I&amp;M Capital, a fund manager, launched in mid-2021 and famously raised $5.8 million in its first six months, indicating the growing demand for such services in the region.



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“ PUTTING IT SIMPLY, MOVING CAPITAL OUTSIDE OF AFRICA CAN OFTEN MEAN DIRECT ACCESS TO CHEAPER DEBT FINANCING AND A GREATER ARRAY OF PERSONAL AND FINANCIAL SERVICES TO INVEST BACK INTO THE REGION OR CONTINENT. ” – JON DE JAGER, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF C|T GROUP UK
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A majority of wealth in the region is family-led and organized by kin either in business structures or by ownership. This allows for wealth management efforts to be compounded over the generations, a model which has worked well in other markets. Tsitsi Mutendi, who consults for private family offices in the region draws a line between the services offered by the new private banks and the niche services required for those over a certain wealth threshold. 



“A family office is particularly created for ultra high-net-worth individuals and families. It makes sense to open a single family office, dedicated to one family and the management of its wealth and investments. It’s usually families that are worth a $100 million or more that can afford a single family office. Where you start off with your ‘Mom &amp; Pops’ store growing to bigger business, you can still have an accountant managing finances or a private bank managing income. When it gets to $100 million and above, in terms of net worth, a dedicated office has a better overview of what the asset holding looks like, what the available wealth in terms of finances looks like and what investments are being made. Family offices tend to hire investment managers as investments at this level tend to be larger.&#8221;



According to this year’s Africa Wealth Report, Nairobi is one of Africa’s wealthiest cities, anchoring the region with $48 billion in total private wealth with an estimated 5,400 HNWIs. Those over the $100 million net worth bracket, however, only number 12 with a healthy crop of multi-millionaires (net worth of over $10 million) at 260 individuals. Mombasa, Kenya’s coastal second city, plays host to 800 HNWIs with a combined wealth of $7 billion. Dar-es-Salaam, the Tanzanian capital and home to Africa’s preeminent billionaire, Mo Dewji, has the region’s second-largest HNWI community with 1,300 individuals holding a total of $24 billion in private wealth. The Ugandan capital, Kampala, which has seen marked growth in total wealth over the last decade is home to 900 HNWIs worth a cumulative $16 billion.



Many of these developments are being led by family wealth either through burgeoning businesses or the expansion of pre-existing wealth. Mutendi contends that this may be due to new perspectives on wealth building.



“We have a melting pot of different family businesses and different drivers to wealth [that is] being built. The movement of the world as well as the different generations and how [they] perceive wealth, manage wealth and [their] history within the wealth pocket [is a contributor]. The nouveau riche is usually centered on one demographic but it is one that is coming into wealth after many years of being disadvantaged with financial status. With funds moving out of the continent, you have different push and pull factors.”



These factors are the back-end of much of the wealth growth that we’re observing in the region.



According to the 2022 Africa Wealth Report, investment migration is fast becoming a popular option for the continent’s affluent families. In fact, it’s a proven wealth management and legacy planning tool with 19 of the G20 countries already implementing policies that encourage inward investment in exchange for citizenship or residence rights. Henley &amp; Partners, a London-based investment migration consultancy who authored the report, noted that they saw an 18% rise in inquiries about these programs from African clients in 2021.



Jon de Jager, Managing Director of C|T Group UK, an advisory firm working with African HNWIs, explains that the movement of capital goes beyond wealth migration and has been a prominent trend.



“There has been a trend of East Africa capital being consolidated outside of the continent although, equally, there has been significantly more wealth generated within the region. Jurisdictions outside Africa have historically been a more attractive base from which 



HNWIs can invest internationally across developed economy capital markets. Putting it simply, moving capital outside of Africa can often mean direct access to cheaper debt financing and a greater array of personal and financial services to invest back into the region or continent,” he says.



However, access to these foreign financial markets isn’t always guaranteed for African investors. Enhanced due diligence checks, Know-Your-Customer (KYC) standards among other regulations often bar HNWIs from the continent from transitioning to some of these offshore locations. Whilst this has happened in the past, now it is more difficult to achieve due to regulatory requirements.



“There is often a fundamental lack of understanding of the East African region, and of Africa as a whole. HNWIs originating from the continent of Africa are often classified in the same bucket and lazy assumptions can be made as to their source of wealth or political connections, for example. We have worked very hard the last few years in establishing a credible and detailed fact pattern for individuals looking to move their capital into different markets. It is often assumed that documents are lacking for the region to meet enhanced KYC requirements, but that is not the case. What many African HNWIs need is an opportunity to explain, transparently, the facts behind their background and business history,” notes de Jager.



Scrutiny aside, HNWI capital from the region is still finding its way to more stable settings, offshore.



“Dubai in particular has recently become a popular destination on a global basis, not just from Africa. This has partly been for protection; while Kenya has no doubt become a major economic hub, and I believe will gain further momentum as such, there has been some political instability that can trigger capital flight.



Another market that we see movement to is Singapore. It is perceived by many as a stable and fast-growing economy in Asia and we are seeing this trend not just from businesses in East Africa. Singapore does offer tax advantages to offshore non-resident companies and as a result is becoming the gateway to Asia’s banking and investment markets,” notes de Jager.



However, capital flight is not the only trend we’re seeing within this segment. A movement towards reinvestment in the region, and continent, may be due to a rise in locally-based wealth management services and offerings. While growth of this market has been slow, it does signal hope for HWNIs looking to consolidate their wealth within African economies.



“There is still domination from foreign entities or agents and representatives of larger institutions that have come to the continent that are encouraging family businesses or offices to invest offshore. At the same time, our wealth advisory industry is growing at a snail’s pace. Our institutions are opening up more to setting up family office offerings and private wealth offerings over and above private banking.



It’s the right start, over the past five years there has been a move towards more customised offerings and collaborations with institutions that can offer their clientele prestige banking that goes over and above what is available on the continent,” explains Tsitsi Mutendi who has been working in various African wealth markets.



Jon de Jager, agrees, noting that while offshore markets offer a buffer from prevailing instabilities in African economies, HNWIs from the region are seeking to return their capital to their home jurisdictions as long as conditions permit.



“There is an appetite as well as a continual desire to reinvest in Kenya, East Africa and generally across the continent. Especially now, due to the global demand of natural resources, we have seen a significant drive to reinvest in Africa. At the same time, it is noteworthy that six African start-ups were listed among the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers of 2022. Just as we have seen with M-Pesa, these start-ups are solution-driven and are leading the way in solving issues such cyber security, climate change and food security. In this context, I am positive that this will attract investment in Africa.”



What is important for the region’s wealthy demographic is choice. Given the myriad push and pull factors at play on the continent from economic to political instability, HNWIs often seek options that safeguard their hardwon multigenerational wealth or new avenues that enable them to build newly acquired money.



This is true for all investors, African or otherwise, so flight to economic safe havens is a natural strategy for this segment.



“It is natural for a successful entrepreneur to expand their horizons on an international stage by adding other geographies to their investments, in or outside of Africa, just as it is for a HNWI from Europe, for example, to invest in Africa. Establishing a presence outside of the continent for this purpose is necessary and efficient. Restrictive policy interventions are unlikely to facilitate growth within the region while persistent allegations of corruption or kleptocratic behaviours will always put off investors. Social factors, like high rates of crime, also come into play; issues like this simply add to reasons to move elsewhere in search of returns. Innovation is certainly attractive in terms of investing in Africa, but these must be supported by good governance and strong rule of law in establishing a stable environment in which to operate,” insists de Jager.



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“ THE NOUVEAU RICHE IS USUALLY CENTERED ON ONE DEMOGRAPHIC BUT IT IS ONE THAT IS COMING INTO WEALTH AFTER MANY YEARS OF BEING DISADVANTAGED WITH FINANCIAL STATUS. WITH FUNDS MOVING OUT OF THE CONTINENT, YOU HAVE DIFFERENT PUSH AND PULL FACTORS. ” &#8211; TSITSI MUTENDI
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Already, estimates indicate that wealth on the African continent is set to increase by 38% in the coming decade and this may be due to factors already at work within the continent’s markets. A key point, to capture this growth for the long-term, is ensuring that younger generations are equipped to take over the management of wealth sooner rather than later. According to Mutendi, at the family office or business level, this means having strong family governance structures that are flexible enough to incorporate the incoming generation, and their ideas, as they build.



“Africa’s got so much potential, there is still a vast amount of wealth that is coming from the continent and is going outside of the continent. So, there is so much possibility for families building wealth. They just have to continue cultivating innovation, especially the next generation…they are the ones that will build on the wealth that is currently being created,” she says. This is particularly important for East African families, says Mwaniki who has picked up on new patterns through his observation of the regional financial markets, noting that the younger generations are the ones leading the charge in new investment trends. “These are fairly young, wealthy people. Some of [their wealth] has been here but has been held by their parents. Once they inherit land they dispose of it because they don’t see themselves managing a farm, for example. So they invest in NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), cryptocurrencies or bonds. They are looking for options that will generate regular and high returns. Land you can hold but if you don’t have another source of income, it’s an idle asset. They are turning more and more to incomebearing instruments,” he says. When all is said and done, wealth creation remains a positive development across the continent. Kenya, the regional leader in continental rankings, is one of the ‘Big 5’ markets that account for more than half of total wealth in Africa.



The steady growth of HNWIs here will undoubtedly signal expansion in neighboring jurisdictions, encouraging more robust regulations and stable economic environments for their capital; wealth migration, notwithstanding, remains a mitigating factor.

Counting the Somaliland shilling

What East Africa’s Tide Of WEALTH Looks Like

FORBES Oct.Nov27125

MAKING CENTS OF INVESTMENT: The Professionals Behind Wealth Preservation In South Africa

The world of wealth is ever-changing, yet everlasting. High-net-worth individuals are constantly having to keep up with their wealth and the factors that impact it, like the pandemic, rising inflation and the economy’s boom and bust cycles. Safeguarding their money through volatile markets is of utmost importance. For the first time in 11 years, FORBES AFRICA is honoring the keepers of these vaults, who have persevered in the toughest of times. We speak to 10 of south Africa’s experts who specialize in wealth advisory and management services. A common theme: wealth preservation, not only in South Africa but across the continent, which is key to the growth of any economy, even as times and trends change. 







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Art Director: Lucy Nkosi WORDS AND CURATION: Chanel Retief &amp; Lillian Roberts Photography: Katlego Mokubyane; Assistant: Sandile Mkhize Studio: NewKatz.Studio by Katlego Mokubyane, Johannesburg Styling: Katlego Magano of Oak Ave Hair &amp; Makeup: Thapelo Letsebe Videography: Daniel Kopolande Video Editor: Chanel Retief 



<a href="https://shop.forbesafrica.com/product/single-digital-issue-october-november-2022/">Get your copy of your October/November issue now available.</a>

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The Wealth & Money Cover Stars: Meet The Professionals Behind Wealth Preservation In South Africa

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THE PLAYLIST: AFRICA’S TOP 20 MUSICIANS

<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">But the business side, you have to learn about it. Because that’s not natural, we’re not born with that knowledge, you need to learn it.</blockquote>



Spotify Monthly Listeners: 1.2 Million YouTube Total Average Views: 382 Million SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORTH Instagram: 15.3 Million Twitter: 5.3 Million Facebook: 7 Million TikTok: 1.8 Million



In 2018, Tiwatope Savage won Best African Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards, becoming the first woman to win the category. It marked a milestone but also the responsibility to do more for both young Africans and African women trying to enter the industry.



Currently on her European Tour and speaking to FORBES AFRICA from Norway, Savage says: “I feel like I carry a lot of that burden, as a female, as a leader and female Afrobeats artist. Coming into the game, there really wasn&#8217;t that many females doing it, and there still isn&#8217;t. But there&#8217;s more now than when I started.”



Savage was born on Lagos Island in Nigeria and describes her upbringing as quite strict as the only girl growing up with three brothers, which is why she started in the music industry quite late.



“But it felt good to be protected. And my parents were very strict about us getting good grades in school. My dad and my mom did listen to music, but I didn&#8217;t grow up in like a musical home where my parents were into music or singers. It was more like ‘you&#8217;re going to grow up to either be a doctor or a lawyer, not a musician,” she explains.



This is quite the common theme for many young women on the African continent where it was expected that you either enter a traditional career or a ‘traditional’ home where you would become a housewife.



This is also why Savage chose to go into music much later, in fact, she obtained her business degree first.



“I got my first degree in business and accounts. I also went to Berklee College of Music. I studied jazz. So I got a second degree in music.”



The business degree has come in handy too for her as an artist.



“It’s called the music business,” laughs Savage. A lot of artists, in her opinion, would find it difficult to succeed in this industry not because of their lack of talent but due to a lack of knowledge when it comes to the business aspect of things.



Savage jokingly calls herself “shrewd”, diligently going through all her contracts, business details, and the receipts “for even just a Starbucks coffee”.



“It&#8217;s as important, sometimes even more important for you to be able to handle the business element because the music thing, and the entertainment part comes naturally; that&#8217;s a gift that God has given to you naturally,” Savage explains. “Sometimes you don&#8217;t even have to think about that, you just have to harness that gift. But the business side, you have to learn about it. Because that&#8217;s not natural, we&#8217;re not born with that knowledge, you need to learn it.



“At the end of the day, you can&#8217;t leave your business or your finances to complete strangers unless maybe your mom or your brother is managing you.”



Savage moved to London when she was 11 but says her heart has always been with the continent even when in America collaborating with artists such as Snoop Dogg and Fantasia. It was when in Los Angeles in 2012 that Savage was inspired by the growth of the Nigerian music industry, around which time Afrobeats was gaining in popularity.



Savage chose to move back to Nigeria.



What made her return? She puts it simply: “It was the sound.”



“There was something so raw about it. There was a soul that I wasn&#8217;t getting from the music that I was surrounded by, living in America… I would find myself listening to it in the car, in my house. And, obviously, but when I go out to clubs, or when I go out to wherever; I probably wasn&#8217;t intrigued then. And I found that I was bored. I just wanted to go home and listen to the latest Wande Coal song.”



And so she did.



“It&#8217;s so good to be African now. We are so proud of it and we’re shouting about it from the rooftop.”



But there’s still much work to be done in the industry, especially for women and young people.



“When I started, I didn&#8217;t come into it trying to be sexy, but I was labeled that. It was hard for a lot of people to accept because women shouldn&#8217;t have tattoos, women shouldn’t really wear revealing clothes, especially women who are married or a woman who is a mother,” Savage explains.



“So obviously there was so much backlash. And now, a lot of female artists too, who are coming in, who are sexier, or have tattoos, or are more controversial than me don&#8217;t even get 10% of [the backlash I got]. And that&#8217;s fine. But it was the journey that was hard to get the culture to understand and embrace that. And sometimes, you know, that&#8217;s just your calling and you&#8217;re the scapegoat.”



In a story as old as time, the music industry still has work to do when it comes to equal opportunities for female artists.



Although Savage believes that transformation is only 10% better, the work that needs to happen is for female artists to be given the same sort of preferences as their male counterparts.



“We just want the same equal platform…,” says Savage. However, that said, Savage thinks the future of the African music industry at this point looks promising. This is a fitting sentiment even as the second part of Savage’s Water &amp; Garri album is set to release in August.



“The future looks beautiful right now, it looks like you know when you just have a newborn baby, and it&#8217;s just like it could do no wrong,” she laughs. “I really don&#8217;t know what the future would hold. I can&#8217;t tell but I would only hope that African music will and should become a stable genre.”

Screenshot 2022-08-15 at 09.44.37

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Spotify Monthly Listeners: 505K YouTube Total Average Views: 21 Million SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORTH Instagram: 465K Twitter: 96.7K Facebook: 2.4 Million TikTok: 37.4K



The winner of five Grammys with 14 albums to her name, Angélique Kidjo is one of the greatest artists in international music today. Time Magazine has called her “Africa&#8217;s premier diva” and she has cross- pollinated the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&amp;B, funk and jazz, as well as influences from Europe and Latin America. She recently released Queen of Sheba – it’s on Spotify – with Ibrahim Maalouf from Lebanon. In an exclusive interview with FORBES AFRICA from Paris, Kidjo says she is right now, in a moment where “things are blooming in her inspiration zone”. She talks life, work and the road ahead for her – and African music. Excerpts:



Q. At age 21, you became a star in Benin, with the album Pretty. But you had to quietly flee your home for Paris at 23, because of the regime that took over in Benin. It was Paris in the 1980s and you were at the prestigious jazz school, CIM. How did you connect with African music? What were you influences at the time?



A. My permanent influence in my music until now is always the culture and tradition of my country. The magnificent thing I learned from my musical journey doing my trilogy album tracing back the roots of slavery through music, is that there&#8217;s not one music in which I don&#8217;t find Africa, it does not exist. We live in Africa not knowing and realizing the power of our culture, how we have ruled the music on the planet. People can say no to it, but it&#8217;s okay. That fact is it’s never going to disappear. Because we are all from Africa – homo sapiens came from Africa. And for me, in that journey, looking back at my culture was something that empowered me the most. I wrote a song called The Sound of the Drums. Because I have to come back, after all this, I said to myself, ‘I have got to figure out if I am dreaming, if I am fantasizing, I am romanticizing the power of my drums and the music of my continent and my country’. And I went back, the awe was still there&#8230; And I&#8217;ve been booed, been bullied and asked ‘is this classical music, you can’t say this’, and I say ‘I will prove to you one day’. All the way, it’s proving to people that everything I do is to build cultural bridges for people to see not only through music that we have one music, but also we are one humanity, we are all unique.



Q. When you went on stage to receive your Grammy this year (Best Global Music for Mother Nature), was there any other emotion you felt that you didn&#8217;t the previous four times you received the award?



A. I did not expect to win, even though I was nominated three times in that category. Because the competition was tough. Being nominated is already a great honor. For me, each nomination is [proof ] my work is out there. People are paying attention to what I do. When I won, I was humbled and didn&#8217;t know what to do&#8230;



I was in total panic, because I did not expect to win. For me, winning a Grammy is not only my work – and I work hard – but also [that of ] the people that come and share the talent with me. And we have a conversation about climate change on this album with new artists.



Since I&#8217;ve written my autobiography (Spirit Rising), I&#8217;ve been doing a lot of talks at universities, and it&#8217;s always exciting, challenging, thrilling to speak to youth in campuses. They have so many ideas. I&#8217;ve been sitting with deans of universities, telling them how come we do not prepare our kids for the workforce&#8230; You can&#8217;t just give them education and let them run out like that, it’s not productive or constructive for us, because we lose a lot of great people the way we are doing this.



Q. On young people and artists, your album Mother Nature also featured Africa&#8217;s young superstars, such as Mr Eazi, Yemi Alade, Burna Boy&#8230; what was that experience like?



A. What I learned from them is their professionalism – it’s mind-blowing. Every music that had been sent was spotless. I had waited for this day&#8230; And on top of being artists, these are entrepreneurs, they understand they have to be free. [In my time], I had to sign a contract for 10 years&#8230; These kids have the right to do whatever they want. They sat back and learned from my experience, and the experiences of Youssou N&#8217;Dour, and Salif Keita. And they don&#8217;t want to take that road. They want to be free in their own right and they are right to be free. And they have to learn that to last, they need discipline: when you say you have got to deliver, you have to deliver. Because when you come from Africa, it&#8217;s a double tragedy, because they expect you to be late, they expect you to do a job that isn&#8217;t good, everything goes against you.



You always have to prove that what you say is what it’s going to be and you can deliver. 



Q. Is that perception changing globally now?



A. Not really. It’s changing but slowly, because those young artists are filling up big venues, and they are unapologetic and taking whatever opportunity they have to be here. Some people are resisting that thinking that it’s going to be a fashion that will dwindle, but it’s going to last and they&#8217;re going to come to the ball. They&#8217;re going to jump on this boat sooner or later.



Q. What is in the next phase of your career?



A. I don&#8217;t know what the future holds. But what I know deeply at the center of my work is that if you don&#8217;t see your own humanity, you can’t see humanity in anybody. If you have freedom and you are not fighting for the freedom of others, you don&#8217;t have any. It’s not just words for me, it’s fact. When we lose sight of those principles, of those self-evident truths, we put ourselves in danger. Because when we allow the bully to walk away with crimes without being punished, they will knock at your door and do the same thing. Our complacency and silence have allowed many people to live a very difficult life that was unnecessary.



So for me, my energy comes from the fact that I believe that what is true is true, what is fair is fair, and let&#8217;s work together. And in that, there is no concept of color, of language, of religion, nothing!



Q. You have global fame. What does fortune mean to you?



A. Fortune for me has never been a matter of money. Because money is a tool that allows you to buy things. But essential things, money can never buy – such as health, and the air you breathe, which is polluted. You can have billions of dollars in your bank account, but you can’t clean that air.



You have got to be happy with yourself and content with what you have to be able to live a balanced life&#8230; What is our purpose on this earth? And that&#8217;s the question I ask all the time, you have to find your purpose before making any plans. And when you start making plans, don&#8217;t make one, have plan A, B, C, D, E, as much as you can. If one door closes, get to the next one. You can fall all the way beneath earth, but you can always rise if you want it&#8230;



In business, having money is a good thing but my father&#8217;s mother always used to say to me that if you are given the choice to choose between your friend and wealth, choose your friend because your friends, when you need them, will be there. When you are down, they will come and talk to you.



Q. And is social media your thing?



A. That is part of the game. But being on stage is what creates a career. I never liked being in a studio, because I started my career on stage. But I knew that going through the studio was compulsory for me to be able to have a career. So doing both is equally important.



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