Investors are steering clear of Africa’s non-bank lending sector amid prevailing macroeconomic conditions marked by high interest rates and slowing growth. However, pockets of opportunities with compelling risk-adjusted returns remain within productive asset-backed financing.
Pollinator insect population are plummeting due to climate change, with Honeybee hives seeing a near-record 48% loss from April 2022 to April 2023, worse than the 12-year 40% average. This jeopardises global food production, which relies on pollinators, mainly bees, to fertilise plants and trees. This complex process holds an immense economic value of approximately EUR 153 billion.
Prior to 2022, African growth companies had begun raising $50m+ equity rounds regularly for the first time in history, mainly in fintech but increasingly in sectors such as logistics, education, and healthcare. Since the market downturn, those large rounds have slowed to a trickle, even though today there are more African companies than ever before who are truly “eligible” to raise that kind of capital.
The Bessemer Cloud Index, representing enterprise SaaS companies with a market cap of around $1.5 trillion, highlights the potential of embedded AI. A mere 10% AI value addition could yield a remarkable $150 billion boost.The true game-changer is applying embedded AI to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), where the impact could be 2-3 times higher.
Our latest blog examines the carbon accounting software market, expected to reach over $60 billion by 2030, quadrupling its current value. Similarly, the carbon credits market is projected to surpass $50 billion in the same year, presenting attractive investment prospects.
Climate adaptation offers significant investment opportunities in the growing market. With a potential value of $2 trillion annually within five years, private investors can tap into the groundwork laid by the public sector, whilst driving real near-term climate benefits.
The rise of Generative AI is on the verge of sparking a revolutionary shift similar to the transformative impact of AWS on enterprise businesses. Projections suggest that AI has the potential to contribute an astonishing $2.6 to $4.4 trillion to the global economy every year, paving the way for a remarkable transformation across various industries.
The growing digital economy in Africa offers a lucrative prospect for investors and entrepreneurs aiming to tap into the continent’s vast B2B payments market.
In our latest blog post, we emphasise that previous funding predominantly favored fintech companies involved in embedded finance and start-ups focused on digitising the business-to-consumer (B2C) value chain, such as digital banks and payment processors. However, the upcoming phase of investment will primarily focus on B2B payment solutions that integrate the CFO technology stack.
By shifting away from environmentally damaging animal agriculture to alternative proteins could significantly reduce emissions by up to 20% and save an astounding 39 billion cubic metres of water globally. Despite the challenges faced by industry leaders the sector remains resilient with investor interest remaining strong, as evidenced by start-ups securing $3.5 billion in funding in 2022. And the demand for alternative proteins is growing, with global revenues projected to exceed $290 billion by 2035.
Five years into helping African growth companies raise larger rounds, we’ve seen enough to pattern-match the key ingredients that help get larger deals over the line, through up, down and sideways market conditions. So, we thought it would be timely to share our distilled experience as so many growth companies on the continent navigate the next 12-18 months, which will be a defining window for the whole ecosystem.
While drones have been around for a relatively long time, their transformative potential within the commercial realm is only now being realised. In the United Kingdom alone, the deployment of almost 1 million drones is expected to contribute an estimated £45bn to the economy by 2030, with potential net cost savings estimated at £22bn. This will result in a reduction of 2.4 million tons of carbon emissions.
Building a credit-led neobank for Africa
Streamlining Africa’s complex supply chains to boost trade
Investing in African technology companies
Surviving & thriving after the Lagos State ride hailing ban
Solving Africa’s broken retail supply chain
Investing in Africa’s female founders
Transforming pharmacies into the ‘care co-ordination infrastructure’ for Africa
Tackling Africa’s $300bn logistics supply chain
Dare Okoudjou talks about building a pan-African payments company
Last month, after a prolonged hiatus due to COVID-19, DAI Magister, in partnership with DAI Nigeria, held its first Development […]