Africa has over the years displayed remarkable entrepreneurial capacity. Within the last decade, there has been a notable rise in the number of entrepreneurial ventures driven by visionary founders who are building solutions to the continent’s unique challenges and creating opportunities for global impact. These trailblazers are architecting the future of African innovation through their businesses.
It’s worth noting that every African who has ever transitioned from ideation to implementation and as a result, launched a technology product or service has made an impact on the future of technology in Africa, however small it may be. But we can only spotlight a few at a time.
In the following sections, we are spotlighting a few exceptional African founders whose ventures are positioned to define the future of the continent and beyond. In essence, these founders represent the next generation of African leadership in the global economy.
Obi Emetarom
Company: Zone (formerly Appzone)
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Focus: Fintech Infrastructure & Blockchain Payments
Obi Emetarom is a serial tech entrepreneur who has spent the majority of his career contributing to the growth of Africa’s fintech ecosystem. He co-founded Appzone in 2008, and through it, he has dedicated his energy to building cheap, fast, reliable, and scalable payment infrastructure for Africa using blockchain technology.
Appzone, now operating under the Zone brand, has achieved numerous successes over the years, including securing multiple funding rounds to improve its core technologies and expand across Africa. The company aims to build a financial operating system that will help to fully digitise and automate financial services on the continent.
Under Emetarom’s leadership, Zone has evolved from a traditional fintech services provider to a cutting-edge blockchain-powered payment infrastructure company, positioning itself at the forefront of Africa’s digital financial revolution.
Going forward, Emetarom’s vision of decentralised payments could fundamentally transform how money moves across Africa, making cross-border transactions faster, cheaper, and more accessible for millions of Africans.
Melissa Bime
Company: Infiuss Health
Location: Cameroon
Focus: Healthcare Technology & Clinical Research
Melissa Bime is a Cameroonian nurse, tech entrepreneur, and co-founder of Infiuss Health, a “Unified Solution for Outsourced Clinical Research in Africa.” Seeing the numerous cases of preventable deaths happening across African hospitals, Melissa decided to do something about it and ended up founding Infiuss Health to provide the solutions she sought. But the company has since evolved into a comprehensive platform connecting researchers with clinical trial participants across Africa.
Infiuss Health leverages technology to connect researchers with volunteers for clinical trials and research across Africa
Under Melissa’s leadership, Infiuss Health has achieved significant success and received many rewards in the process. Most notably, the company received the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund in 2021. The company’s solution addresses a critical gap in medical research, ensuring that African populations are properly represented in global health studies while accelerating the development of treatments relevant to the continent.
Melissa’s efforts in democratising access to clinical research in Africa are helping to accelerate medical breakthroughs while ensuring African voices are heard in global health innovation.
Seye Bandele
Company: PaidHR
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Focus: HR Tech & Payroll Solutions
Seye Bandele is the Co-founder and CEO of PaidHR, an HR tech company with solutions tailored to the critical needs of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in Africa. PaidHR’s solutions combine streamlined payroll, HR management, and innovative features like earned wage access and cross-border payroll in multiple currencies. These features were designed to help businesses manage their human resources more efficiently and improve the financial well-being of their employees.
Fueled by his passion for the future of work in Africa, Seye has successfully led PaidHR’s rapid expansion efforts, with the company establishing solid operations in Kenya and South Africa. As a result, PaidHR has quickly grown to serve hundreds of businesses across various sectors in multiple regions. Their recent seed round fundraising further validates the company’s mission and Seye’s role in fulfilling it.
Overall, PaidHR is making essential HR and financial tools accessible to African SMEs, and Seye is at the forefront of it all. With the company poised to make significant strides in the coming years, it’ll be interesting to see how Seye’s influence will direct the impact.
Dacod Magagula and Tao Boyle
Company: FoondaMate
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Focus: EdTech & AI
Dacod Magagula and Tao Boyle are the brains behind FoondaMate, an innovative education technology company that is rewriting access to quality education for millions of students across Africa and Southeast Asia. The company leverages popular messaging platforms like WhatsApp to provide an AI-powered study buddy for users in multiple languages.
By focusing on accessible technology and leveraging AI, FoondaMate addresses the challenges of limited internet access and scarce learning resources in many developing regions. The platform’s ability to switch between multiple languages makes it particularly impactful, providing a personalised and engaging learning experience for students.
Considering how FoondaMate’s solution directly impacts the development of Africa’s future talent, it’s safe to say that Tao and Dacod are actively shaping Africa’s future. It’s also worth noting that both co-founders were recently featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for their remarkable work. Going forward, it’ll be interesting to see how Dacod and Tao will build on these achievements to continue impacting the African tech scene in the coming years.
Amin Ben Abderrahman
Company: Konnect Networks
Location: Tunis, Tunisia
Focus: Fintech & Cross-Border Payments
Amin Ben Abderrahman is the Chief Executive Officer of Konnect Networks, a fintech company committed to simplifying complex financial flows and promoting financial inclusion in Africa. Konnect provides cross-border payment solutions offering practical, secure, and low-cost channels for companies and individuals to send and receive payments.
Within a few years of operations, Amin has spearheaded Konnect Network’s significant growth, leading the company to widespread popularity, investor funding, and overall improvement of its solutions to better serve different user demographics across MENA. The company has built a robust digital payments infrastructure, and Amin is right at the head of it all.
Amin Ben Abderrahman’s Konnect Networks is building critical infrastructure for seamless cross-border payments, thereby fostering economic integration and empowering the unbanked across Africa. With this foundation, Amin has positioned himself to make an even greater impact on the African fintech industry in the coming years.
Tobi Asu-Johnson
Company: Zap Africa
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Focus: Crypto Exchange & Wallet Solutions
Tobiloba Asu-Johnson is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zap Africa, a startup operating non-custodial cryptocurrency exchange and wallet solutions for Africans. In an ecosystem where trust and financial autonomy are a premium, Zap Africa is redefining financial independence for Africans by giving them complete control over their crypto assets, free from third-party restrictions.
Zap Africa is operating a non-custodial wallet with plans to introduce international payments and virtual cards, which could significantly impact how Africans send and receive financial assets across borders. Tobi’s vision is to build the go-to crypto platform for Africans all over the world, making secure and autonomous digital financial services more accessible for Africans regardless of their location.
In essence, Tobi’s Zap Africa is on the cutting edge of financial independence in Africa, offering solutions that empower users with greater control over their assets and facilitate seamless cross-border transactions.
Miranda Perumal & Barbara Woollams
Company: Scale
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Focus: Fintech Infrastructure & Agency Services
Miranda Perumal (CEO) and Barbara Woollams (Co-founder) are the dynamic duo behind Scale, Africa’s First Fintech Agency. Scale addresses a major bottleneck in the African fintech ecosystem: the slow, complex, and expensive process of issuing payment cards and bringing new payment products to market. Their “issuer orchestration platform” simplifies the backend complexities, allowing fintechs to launch card products faster and with fewer headaches.
Scale’s vision is to become the default platform for card issuance across Africa, unlocking speed, scale, and revenue growth for startups that previously couldn’t afford to play in this space. In essence, Miranda Perumal and Barbara Woollams’ Scale is becoming an indispensable enabler for the African fintech scene, streamlining complex processes and accelerating the launch of innovative payment solutions across the continent.
By building the infrastructure that supports other fintechs, Miranda and Barbara are playing a crucial enabling role in accelerating the entire continent’s financial technology landscape.
Paul Kimani
Company: Workpay
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Focus: HR Tech & Payroll Solutions
Paul Kimani is the CEO and Co-founder of Workpay, a leading payroll, benefits, and HR solution provider serving businesses in Africa. A serial entrepreneur and a firm believer in the African dream, Paul had already cut his teeth as a founder with two other tech companies and a stint with Equity Bank, one of East Africa’s largest banks, before co-founding Workpay in 2019 with Jackson Kibigo.
Workpay offers a comprehensive cloud-based HR and payroll SaaS platform that manages the entire employee journey from onboarding to offboarding. This includes payroll processing, time tracking, leave management, expense tracking, performance management, and employee benefits administration. Workpay aims to make HR and payroll efficient and compliant across diverse African regulatory environments. It currently serves over 1,000 businesses in more than 20 African countries while processing over $200 million in payroll annually.
Paul Kimani, through Workpay, is addressing a critical operational challenge for businesses expanding across Africa. The company is providing a scalable and efficient solution for HR and payroll management that directly impacts the growth and formalisation of companies on the continent.
