The Enabling Ecosystem

"We're still at a stage of ecosystem evolution where the blind are leading the blind." - interviewee

That observation was made in 2022. It is less true now than it was. The African scaling ecosystem has matured meaningfully: more founders with exit or failure cycles behind them, more rigorous investors, a clearer view of what actually works, and a much larger empirical base on which to ground decisions. But it remains young compared with ecosystems in India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, and it still lacks the institutional depth and accumulated knowledge that characterise more mature markets. The work of becoming is not finished.