NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

By Gabriella Mulligan

The latest blow to much discussed African unicorn came at the Africa Tech Summit Kigali in February, in a panel session exploring the investment environment in Africa “from seed to scale”.  Panelists were asked whether an African unicorn can be expected in the near future.

The unanimous answer? No.

Stephen Gugu, founder and director of Viktoria Ventures summed up the unicorn challenge: “For you to get to the point where you have a unicorn, in Africa, you would have to scale to several markets.  And that comes with various frictions – regulations, infrastructure, as examples.  So I don’t really see unicorns coming out.”

To go further, some felt that the obsession with unicorns is irrelevant in Africa.

Photo courtesy of Olu Eletu.