In May, I profiled first-time founders who were seeking global mobility in the hopes of securing funding. They left Lagos, Nigeria, believing proximity to foreign investors would help unlock capital.
For venture capitalists, mobility is no less critical. In Europe or the United States, detailed reports and structured data are readily accessible. In Africa, where that data is not accessible on the same level, investing is more than reading spreadsheets.
Foreign investors often have to spend time on the ground to understand opportunities. Flying in with a chequebook and flying out neither builds conviction nor lasting relationships and often results in investment mistakes. For local investors, moving freely within Africa is crucial if a firm’s investment geography is pan-African, as what obtains in Nigeria hardly works in Kenya.
spoke with founders and investors about what it takes to build context across borders, and why presence on the ground matters as much as capital.
Building context across borders
Alyune-Blondin Diop, Investment Principal at LoftyInc Capital
“It is critical to build local context, especially in Africa. People like to treat Africa as one bloc, but it is not. Even within the same region, the differences are sharp. Doing business in Senegal is not the same as Ivory Coast or Benin. The culture is different. The economy is different. In Senegal, you would go straight to the person at the top. In the Ivory Coast, you go to someone in the middle. These details change the entire process of how work gets done.
Our work is about people, and you cannot build trust on Zoom. You build it by being there—by drinking tea, being invited into someone’s home, watching how they live, and understanding what drives them. That is how you avoid mistakes. Many of the failures we have seen in Africa’s ecosystem could have been prevented if investors had spent more time reading those human signals.”
Diop’s investment career has taken him across multiple markets where he has deployed capital. Born in Senegal, he has lived and worked in the Ivory Coast, Morocco, Kenya, Nigeria, France, and the UK. As an investor, he has backed companies across Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, South Africa, and Cameroon, and outside Africa in the UK, France, and Italy.
“Mobility has shaped me. I always say I am wealthy culturally. I have been exposed to so many ways of doing business, and that makes me better at analysing people, better at negotiation, and better at building relationships. Our job is relationship-driven. If you do not understand people, you cannot succeed.
When I invested in Tunisia, I first spoke with local people to get a broad picture. Then I travelled there to test and challenge what I had heard. Finally, I built friendships I could rely on over time to keep me updated. In France, it was different. The information was already available, structured, and accessible. In Africa, you have to create your own information set. That is the difference.”
Diop believes mobility is not optional for investors interested in Africa.
“When you invest in a company, you are also investing in a country, in a sector, in a value chain. In Nigeria, that chain may look very different from Kenya or Morocco. You only see the intricacies when you spend time on the ground. That is why physical presence matters. Without it, you will miss things, and missing things is costly.”
When global expectations meet local realities
Mallick Bolakale, CEO of Startbutton, a Nigerian regtech startup which helps companies expand compliantly into new markets
“The biggest challenge foreign investors underestimate is storytelling, helping them understand the local problem. You may be solving something urgent here, but to them, it looks like something solved twenty years ago.
Data is another hurdle. In Africa, you don’t have a single reliable source to size your market. You patch information together from many places. Foreign investors look at you and then compare you to a company in the US or Brazil doing the same thing, growing two times month-on-month. They set the same expectation here, without recognising the differences in purchasing power and adoption.
Investors are starting to build context by placing partners in Lagos, Nairobi, or Johannesburg. Some co-invest through African VCs so they can see deals and insights without boots on the ground. I have seen foreign investors lose money when they invested blindly. The ones who succeed often partner with funds here who already know the ecosystem.”
The invisible cost of context
Olubayo Adekanmbi, CEO of EqualyzAI, a Nigerian AI startup building hyperlocal, multimodal models for emerging markets
“I call it the cost of context. In Africa, building is not copy and paste. You design for offline use. You deal with patchy internet. You plan for longer integration cycles.
Foreign investors underestimate how much of a startup’s calendar time and working capital goes into these frictions. It is not just about selling a product. You often need to help your clients build the capacity to use it. That takes time and money.
In my sector, artificial intelligence, the danger is that investors compare Africa’s journey to the West. That is misleading. The problems we are solving and the way we deploy technology are different.
In the West, AI is built on layers of infrastructure and data already in place. In Africa, the infrastructure is not always there. You have to build technology while also creating the conditions for it to work. If you ignore that, you misjudge the timelines and the true cost.
When investors come with a quick-win mentality, they get frustrated. Africa’s potential is real, with 1.4 billion people and the fastest-growing youth population. But the path is long. You cannot expect Silicon Valley speed when infrastructure and user behaviour move differently here.
Working with an investor is like marriage. Both sides must align on reality. The worst mismatch is when founders pretend to be what they are not, and investors imagine Africa as a mirror of Silicon Valley. That is where frustration begins.”
Why foreign operators wait until later stages
Brenton Naicker, South African, Principal and Head of Growth at Crypto Valley VC, which has invested in several African countries
“Africa is extremely nuanced. Each country has its own culture, infrastructure, and business realities. Foreign investors struggle with that. That is why many of them do not invest at the seed stage. They wait until Series A or later, when they can rely on metrics to tell the story.
The best way to close the knowledge gap is to partner with local investors. Co-investing gives both sides what they need: the local perspective and the foreign networks. Founders benefit from both at once.
Without that, there is too much room for misunderstanding. Foreign investors are right to be cautious. But Africa has shown that when context and capital come together, the results can be powerful.”
Mallick Bolakale and Olubayo Adekanmbi will be speaking at Moonshot 2025, our flagship event taking place on October 15–16. Meet and learn from Africa’s top founders, creatives & tech leaders for 2 days of keynotes, mixers & future-forward ideas. Get your tickets now: moonshot..com
