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East African Survey Deep Dives into Challenges and Opportunities Faced by the Region’s Tech Start-up Ecosystem

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4 years ago

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Start-up Ecosystem

New survey reveals lack of access to investors, reliance on international VCs and global recession trends as the biggest perceived barriers for East African tech start-ups to access funds as Covid 19 has slowed down investments across the region’s start-up landscape

NAIROBI, Kenya, March 22, 2023/APO Group/ — 

The lack of access to investors, the reliance on international VCs and global recessions trends are perceived as threats by respectively 59%, 56% and 55% of respondents; 28% of respondents indicated that covid 19 had slowed down investment across the East African start-up landscape, making it the biggest impacting factor over the last twelve months; 54% of seed businesses rely on family and friends to provide funding; 74% of respondents needed to meet up to 5 investors before securing funds.

A new regional survey of tech start-ups across East Africa reveals that whilst investment levels remained relatively stable over the last twelve months, the heart of Africa’s start-up ecosystem perceives many roadblocks as having the potential to disrupt the region’s growth trajectory.

The survey entitled, ‘A Deep Dive into East Africa’s Start-up Ecosystem: Challenges & Opportunities’, attracted hundreds of respondents, with 25.9% being seed businesses, 28.7% being Series A businesses, 25% being Series B businesses and 20.4% being Scale-up businesses. The survey, conducted by regional tech event East Africa Com (https://apo-opa.info/3lpMoSE) and tech news portal Connecting Africa (www.ConnectingAfrica.com), is part of a benchmark survey mapping barriers faced by regional start-ups as well as opportunities to power nascent tech businesses in the region.

Funding trends

The survey found that access to funds over the last 12 months remained relatively stable compared to the previous period, as 25% indicated that year-on-year investment levels remained similar, whilst 25% and 19% of respondents indicated respectively a slight increase and a slight drop of investment levels.

Although 28% of respondents indicated that Covid 19 had slowed down investment levels across the East African start-ups landscape, making it the largest impacting factor for those young businesses, 17% of answers collected indicated that the pandemic had also boosted the digitalisation journey of the region, with a potential to create more opportunities for tech start-ups across the board.

The region remains a dynamic hub for start-ups which explains how 74% of tech start-ups only needed to meet up to 5 investors before securing funds. This number drops even further for seeds businesses as 52% of them needed less than 3 investors before securing new investments, a number that seems closely intertwined with their reliance (54%) on friends and family for fundraising. By contrast, 22% of series B businesses only managed to access new funds after reaching out to more than 10 different investors.

The report also establishes that whilst start-ups get investments from 2.1 different types of funding sources on average, the more established the start-ups become (series A, B and scale-ups), the more they can rely on crowd-funding, government-backed loans and bank loans as well as VCs to raise money. By contrast, seed businesses have an average of 3.7 different funding sources, with 54% of those young businesses relying on friends and family for funding.

Investment priorities

The survey unveils that the top three priorities of funding allocation focus on investing in equipment (26%)

Across all funding stages, entrepreneurs carefully plan the way they are allocating their funds. The survey unveils that the top three priorities of funding allocation focus on investing in equipment (26%), entering new geo markets (21%) and developing products (16%). Scale-ups especially put a strong emphasis on business expansion as 35% of them use funds to expand to new geographies.  

Talent recruitment still receives 14% of the funds received across all funding stages. But attracting new talents doesn’t seem to be perceived as the biggest priority for fund allocation.

Challenges and opportunities

Whilst there is huge tech potential in the region, there are still significant roadblocks that need to be addressed for the region to maintain its competitive edge as a tech start-up powerhouse. After a few years of business disruption, East African start-ups seem tuned in to potential impacts of events happening on the global stage on the region. This is how 55% of respondents identify the risk of a global recession and / or national economic situations as a potential threat, with 32% identifying this as a very high barrier.

56% of respondents also identify the reliance on international VCs as a high risk for business growth, an interesting figure to look at considering survey answers were collected shortly before the SVB crisis unfold.

Most importantly, 59% of respondents perceive the lack of access to investors as a business barrier. In light of the SVB crisis, East African start-ups’ appetite to diversify their sources of funding is likely to only increase.

Positive developments are also underlined as part of this exclusive report, with many opportunities for growth being identified by start-ups. The report highlights that greater networks of supporting incubators (57%), a widening of the pool of industries receiving funds (56%) as well as the rise of local VCs / funding opportunities (55%) all represent excellent prospects for growth for East African tech start-ups. The report also highlights that 74% of respondents identify sustainability as very relevant for their business mission.

AHUB East, powering East African start-ups during East Africa Com

“We are proud to present these survey results which help us keep the pulse on East Africa’s vibrant tech start-up scene to better assess how our programme and networking experiences can help deliver solutions for promising tech businesses to access funding, be agile and resilient, whilst remaining both innovative and competitive” said Ciara McDonald Heffernan, Head of Events for East Africa Com. “Start-ups are a driving force towards economic growth in East Africa, but now more than ever we are determined to focus our efforts on creating a favourable environment for tech start-ups to thrive.”

As a result, East Africa Com will host on 26 April an exclusive day dedicated to unlocking new opportunities for the region’s tech start-ups, AHUB East. AHUB East will deliver a powerful mix of content with a focus, among other topics, on the critical role of the region’s tech start-up ecosystem to create a sustainable future across Africa, what the SVB crash means for start-ups across the region, and how to stand out to potential investors. To provide a wide array of perspectives, investors from Ingressive Capital, Wadson Ventures, South B Group, Africa50 and more will take the stage alongside some of the region’s most exciting start-ups, including Waga Tanzania, AFAYREKOD, Lifesten Health and more.

AHUB East will also be home to a lively pitch competition where tech start-ups will battle on stage as they showcase their solutions in front of a live audience of hundreds of tech and telecom leaders. Judging the live pitches and providing 1-2-1 feedback to the competitors will be tech start-up experts Laurie Fuller, Venture Partner at Raiven Capital, Dario Giuliani, Founder & Director at Briter Bridges and John Kimani, Developer Ecosystem Program Manager at Google Kenya. 

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of East Africa Com.

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Africa gains governance momentum in the 2026 Chandler Good Government Index, but sustaining progress is the real test

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17 hours ago

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October 29, 2026

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Africa

Across Africa, average scores improved in six of the seven CGGI pillars over the past year, with the strongest gains in Helping People Rise and Financial Stewardship

This signals that stronger government capabilities are beginning to translate into tangible improvements in people’s lives

KIGALI, Rwanda, October 29, 2026/APO Group/ –Africa was the second best-performing region for governance progress in the 2026 Chandler Good Government Index (CGGI), with 71% of the African countries assessed in both 2025 and 2026 achieving higher overall scores. However, the continent remains the lowest-scoring region overall, highlighting the challenge of translating improvement in government capabilities into better outcomes for citizens.

 




 
 

These findings were highlighted by the Chandler Governance Group (CGG) at a joint session with the Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) to launch the 13th edition of the Rwanda Governance Scorecard at the Kigali Serena Hotel on Thursday, 22 October 2026.

“This year, Africa’s strongest gains came in Financial Stewardship, followed by Helping People Rise, the CGGI’s outcomes pillar. This signals that stronger government capabilities are beginning to translate into tangible improvements in people’s lives, from access to quality education and healthcare to the public finances that fund them. The task now is to sustain that progress over the coming years,” says Dinesh Naidu, Director (Knowledge) at CGG.

Now in its sixth edition, the CGGI assesses government capabilities and effectiveness across 133 countries representing 94% of the world’s population, up from 120 countries in 2025. It measures 35 equally weighted indicators across seven pillars, providing governments with a framework to benchmark performance, identify gaps and learn from the experience of other countries.

Globally, the findings point to improving governance performance. Of the 120 countries assessed in both 2025 and 2026, 61% recorded higher scores, representing the highest annual share of countries improving since the Index launched in 2021. However, longer-term progress has been less consistent, with only 43% of the 104 countries tracked since 2021 recording an overall improvement.

Africa’s leading governments

Mauritius remains Africa’s highest-ranked country, placing 55th globally, followed by Rwanda (62nd), Botswana (70th), Morocco (79th) and Tanzania (80th). South Africa ranks sixth on the continent, in 85th place globally.

Rwanda features prominently in the discussion, ranking 11th globally for Leadership & Foresight and emerging as the highest-ranked low-income country in the Index. It ranks 61 places above where its income alone would predict. Across the Index, government capabilities track citizen outcomes more closely than national wealth does, suggesting that strengthening government capabilities matter in delivering better outcomes for citizens.

The joint session brings together the CGGI’s international benchmarks and the Rwanda Governance Scorecard’s assessment of governance in the Rwandan context, creating an opportunity to consider both global perspectives and country-specific priorities.

Progress across key governance pillars

Across Africa, average scores improved in six of the seven CGGI pillars over the past year, with the strongest gains in Helping People Rise and Financial Stewardship. These improvements point to progress in areas associated with public services, including healthcare and education, as well as the management of public finances.

Longer-term trends also highlight areas of progress. Between 2021 and 2026, nearly every African country assessed across the period improved its Data Capability score, with Morocco recording the largest gains. Ghana’s overall score improved in 2026, supported by stronger Financial Stewardship, while South Africa continues to show relative strength in Robust Laws & Policies, ranking 44th globally, and Attractive Marketplace, ranking 48th.

Despite these gains, the scale of the challenge remains clear. Africa’s regional average is still below its 2021 level, 23 of the 35 African countries in the 2026 Index rank outside the global top 100, and none is in the top 50. Seven African countries joined the Index this year: Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Guinea, Lesotho, Liberia and Togo.

“Rankings provide a useful starting point, but the broader value of the CGGI lies in helping governments understand where they are making progress and where further work is needed. Sustained improvements depend on the ability to strengthen institutions, manage resources responsibly and turn policy into meaningful outcomes for citizens,” says Naidu.

A tool for learning and improvement

The CGGI is designed as a practical diagnostic tool, helping governments identify gaps, track progress over time, and learn from peers facing similar constraints. The collaboration with the RGB brings international benchmarking together with locally grounded assessment.

“Every country faces its own governance challenges and is driven by varying priorities. Governments that are willing to take stock of the evidence and learn from peers to strengthen their institutions are well placed to achieve real improvements,” concludes Naidu.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Chandler Governance Group.

 

 




 

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Spiro brings electric motorcycles and battery-swapping technology to Ghana, expanding its pan-African footprint

Published

17 hours ago

on

October 29, 2026

By

Spiro

The integrated offering aims to reduce daily operating costs and minimise downtime, with battery swaps completed in just two minutes and potential savings of up to USD 2 per day compared with petrol-powered motorcycles

ACCRA, Ghana, October 29, 2026/APO Group/ —

  • Spiro’s entry into Ghana introduces the Ekon 450 M1 V3 electric motorcycle and its battery-swapping solution, bringing a new mobility option to commercial riders and delivery fleets.
  • The integrated offering aims to reduce daily operating costs and minimise downtime, with battery swaps completed in just two minutes and potential savings of up to USD 2 per day compared with petrol-powered motorcycles.
  • Test rides and product demonstrations across Greater Accra will support the rollout and help riders experience the benefits of electric mobility.

 




 
 

Spiro (www.Spironet.com), Africa’s largest electric mobility company, is expanding its footprint in Ghana with the introduction of the Ekon 450 M1 V3 electric motorcycle and its battery-swapping solution. Combining electric two-wheelers with access to charged batteries, Spiro aims to make everyday transport more affordable and practical for riders while supporting Ghana’s transition towards sustainable mobility.

For commercial riders and delivery fleets, fuel expenses and time spent off the road directly affect daily earnings. Spiro’s integrated offering addresses both challenges: riders can exchange a depleted battery for a charged one at a Spiro battery-swapping station in just two minutes, while potentially saving up to USD 2 per day in operating costs compared with conventional petrol-powered motorcycles.

Ghana represents a major opportunity for electric mobility, with a rapidly growing two-wheeler market and increasing demand from commercial riders and delivery fleets

Designed to meet the everyday mobility needs of African riders, the Ekon 450 M1 V3 offers an alternative to petrol-powered motorcycles. Supported by Spiro’s battery-swapping technology, it allows riders to get back on the road without waiting for their motorcycle to recharge.

Auroasish Choudhuri Managing Director Central and West Africa, commented: “Our entry into Ghana is an important step in strengthening Spiro’s presence in West Africa. Our focus is on building a local ecosystem that riders can rely on, combining electric motorcycles with convenient access to battery swapping. By working closely with local partners and listening to riders’ needs, we aim to support the long-term adoption of electric mobility in Ghana.”

Kaushik Burman, CEO Mobility of Spiro said: “Ghana represents a major opportunity for electric mobility, with a rapidly growing two-wheeler market and increasing demand from commercial riders and delivery fleets. By bringing the Ekon 450 M1 V3 together with our battery-swapping solution, we are addressing two key barriers to adoption: operating costs and access to charging infrastructure. Our ambition is to build a strong foundation for electric mobility to scale across Ghana.”

To support its rollout, Spiro is engaging with prospective customers through test rides, product demonstrations and live demonstrations of its battery-swapping technology across Greater Accra. These activities give riders the opportunity to experience the Ekon 450 M1 V3 and understand how battery swapping can fit into their daily routines.

Mr Maxwell Dodd, Managing Director of Spiro Ghana, said: “For riders in Ghana, the value of electric mobility lies in what it can deliver every day: lower operating costs, less downtime and more time on the road. Through the Ekon 450 M1 V3 and our battery-swapping solution, we want to make those benefits accessible and support riders as they make the transition to electric motorcycles.”

Ghana forms part of Spiro’s wider expansion across Africa. Building on its recent USD 270 million equity funding round and an additional USD 18 million in debt financing from the Africa Go Green Fund, the company is scaling its electric mobility ecosystem with the ambition of establishing a presence in 20 African markets. Spiro is also preparing to enter new countries, including Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Spiro.

 

 




 

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Huawei Wireless Unveils Innovation Breakthroughs to Pioneer New Communications Networks

Published

17 hours ago

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October 29, 2026

By

Huawei

The innovation breakthroughs for pioneering new communications networks include RetinaMIMO, new materials, and OSCAR solution among other root technologies. By tackling coverage, energy consumption, and capacity challenges, the breakthroughs drive ubiquitous experience, simplified and green networks, and superior spectral efficiency. The breakthroughs have unlocked a wealth of new capabilities, including the world’s first commercial U6 GHz device VitaAAU, GigaGreen Plus series, and UBBPi series.
Huawei promotes A2A-T standards and drives commercial open-source OpenAN through extensive partnerships to build an open telecom agent ecosystem.

 




 
 

SHANGHAI, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 29 October 2026 – At Huawei Decoding China 2026, Fang Xiang, Corporate Vice President and President of Wireless Network Solution of Huawei, unveiled a series of innovation breakthroughs to pioneer new communications networks. The innovation breakthroughs mark major leaps in root technologies focused on ubiquitous experience, simplified and green networks, and superior spectral efficiency. With the breakthroughs, Huawei has launched the world’s first commercial U6 GHz device VitaAAU, GigaGreen Plus series, and UBBPi series. Additionally featuring the new progress in open ecosystem for telecom agents, the breakthroughs will lay a solid foundation for new communications networks.

With booming intelligent devices and services, new devices, traffic, and applications are taking shape in the mobile industry. The new devices are expanding network connectivity from people to things and agents, increasing the number of connections by 100 times. Device-cloud synergy for intelligent services calls for stronger uplink capabilities to support training and inference, shifting network focus from downlink dominance to both uplink and downlink. With new applications, come a diversity of new interaction modes, calling for higher standards in experience and driving networks to support ubiquitous steady ultra-low latency with a high reliability.

As the world steps into an intelligent era, the value of connectivity is not only about quantity—it’s more about quality. This has been inspiring Huawei to convert cutting-edge breakthroughs into the commercial practices of new communications networks by focusing on root technologies for ubiquitous experience, simplified and green networks, and superior spectral efficiency.

Pioneering ubiquitous experience

RetinaMIMO is a new pioneering technology designed to solve the challenge of concurrent ultra-high bandwidth and ubiquitous coverage. It features the industry’s first Retina scanning system that allows RF link topologies to be reconstructed to eliminate coverage collapse in the vertical direction. It also adopts a reconstructed antenna array architecture to address the diminishing marginal gains as array elements (AEs) increase.

Based on RetinaMIMO, Huawei has launched the world’s first commercial U6 GHz device VitaAAU. Compared with similar products with 1024 AEs, VitaAAU widens coverage by about 30%, enabling U6 GHz to match C-band in both horizontal and vertical directions. This enables operators to deliver U6 GHz coverage for new communications networks on their C-band sites, minimizing overall TCO. To date, VitaAAU has seen commercial adoption in the UAE and other markets, with peak downlink speeds exceeding 10 Gbps, making ubiquitous premium experience a reality.

Pioneering simplified, green networks

Huawei’s pioneering EP power amplifier (PA) architecture capitalizes on new materials and technologies to solve the problem of energy efficiency decline on higher frequency bands, maximizing energy conversion efficiency. The industry’s first-ever multimode dielectric filters allow antennas to have small dimensions and low power consumption on multi-channel networks with high frequency bands. Powered by new materials, technologies, and architectures, VitaAAU antenna is reduced to 1.5 m in diameter while supporting “0 Bit 0 Watt 0 Loss”, delivering superior energy saving efficiency. These innovations enable Huawei’s GigaGreen Plus series products to achieve significant reductions in dimensions, weight, and power consumption, better positioned to power simplified and green networks.

Pioneering superior spectral efficiency

Multi-band, multi-cell, and multi-user interference is a major restrictive factor of capacity. The time scaling of the Tau (τ) law is introduced to base stations for the first time to realize optimal dynamic resource scheduling across all domains based on the OSCAR solution. With low-latency bus and high-speed interconnect technology, a high-speed architecture is built to enable the real-time exchange of massive data. Thanks to software and hardware synergy, new UBBPi series products improve average user experience by 1.3 times while reducing power consumption by approximately 40%, further improving spectral and energy efficiency.

Pioneering open-source autonomous networks

Autonomous networks have emerged as an inevitable choice to deal with the growing AI services and increasing network complexity. RANSpirit is another industry first from Huawei, implementing single-domain network autonomy based on the telecom foundation model and digital twins. To date, RANSpirit is serving more than 1.2 million cells across 25 networks around the world, providing assistance to more than 2,000 engineers.

Extensive agent collaboration relies on an open, win-win ecosystem. This galvanizes Huawei to join industry partners to develop ecosystem standards, communities, and industry alliances. In terms of standards, Huawei adapts to the TM Forum, building a cross-agent foundation on the A2A-T standard and framework agreed upon by the industry. In terms of communities, Huawei jointly promotes neutral open-source communities and donates open-source agent components to the Linux Foundation, driving global collaboration and innovation. With regard to industry alliances, Huawei has taken the initiative to pool ecosystem strengths to accelerate business implementation based on the GSMA industry platform.

Fang concluded with the reiteration of Huawei’s unswerving pursuit of dual-drive innovation to promote new breakthroughs in mobile networks and work with partners from around the world to deepen the OpenAN ecosystem, advancing new communications networks through technological innovation and open collaboration.

FAQs

Q1: Why is it challenging to balance ultra-high bandwidth and ubiquitous coverage?

Ultra-high bandwidth depends on higher frequency bands. As we know, a higher frequency leads to a greater propagation loss of electromagnetic waves and a weaker ability for them to penetrate obstacles, because high-frequency signals attenuate fast and have short coverage distances, while ubiquitous coverage requires signals to travel a long distance in complex environments. Inherently, the two priorities pull in sharply opposite directions.

  




 

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