What really killed Africa’s startup miracle is not what you think

When Okra, Nigeria’s first fintech startup, shut down after raising $16.5 million, the tech community rushed to lean on familiar explanations: bad product-market fit, unsustainable burn rate, fierce competition, and founder squabbles. But according to McKevin Ayaba, a veteran Startup Ecosystem Architect and Investment Readiness Expert, those at-a-glance diagnoses are woefully inadequate, failing to capture what he says is the true killer of African innovation.

The true culprit? Indeed, as Ayaba describes, the “Ecosystem Tax,” a subtle toll that demands African startups pay for the gift of operating in underdeveloped markets.

The Perfect Storm That Never Happened

Okra’s narrative could be a startup success playbook, not a cautionary tale. The fundamentals were rock-solid:

Great Leadership: Founder Fara Ashiru came with world-class experience from Canva, JPMorgan, and BMW – the kind of pedigree that usually suggests success.

Perfect Timing: As the first mover in Africa’s open banking (2019) continent, Okra found itself in a market with little to no competition at a time when fintech was blowing up.

Explosive Adoption: API usage grew by 175% with partnerships across big names such as Branch, Bamboo, and RenMoney.

Big Backers: A $16.5 million financing round led by some of the smartest investors in the space, from TLcom to Susa Ventures, gave them plenty of runway.

But for all of the advantages, Okra gave back $4-5.5 million to investors, leaving three years of potential runway on the table. The question isn’t what went wrong and why – it’s what went so catastrophically right that it killed the company.

The Seven-Company Problem

This is where Ayaba’s diagnosis hits hard: Okra wasn’t building one startup. Unbeknownst to it, the site was building seven separate companies at once.

But, as investors believed that they were backing a narrowly focused fintech API company, Okra was functioning as:

1. A Startup At Its Core: Open banking APIs to the core
2. An Education Center: Teaching 2019 technology to banks that are mired in the ’90s
3. A Regulatory Consultancy: Crafting from the ground up rules and a system of regulation
4. A Developer Academy: Training talent that just wasn’t there
5. A Foundation Of Trust: Educating skeptics about data privacy
6. An Industry Standards Body: What “open banking” actually is in Africa
7. An Infrastructure Provider: Constructing primitive infrastructure because fixing prebuilt infrastructure was too expensive

This was not strategic diversification; this was survival taxation.

The Brutal Economics of Innovation

When Silicon Valley pans out $16.5 million to startups, the math is simple: hire engineers, buy servers, market the thing, keep the lights on. Scale, iterate, grow.

Okra’s budget told another story:

• Market Education: Proving to banks that APIs weren’t just more tech jargon
• Regulatory Explainer: Teaching regulators who had never even heard of open banking what it was
• Building Consumer Trust: Getting past years of financial mistrust
• Infrastructure: Establishing industry standards that had never existed
• Talent Development: Training developers in tech they’d never seen before
• Trailblazing Advocacy: Standing out as the voice of data privacy in such a privacy-less region.

This is not startup building – it is nation-building in the guise of entrepreneurship.

The Six Taxes That Are Strangling African Invention

Ayaba lists six separate taxes that African startups must give away with the money they receive to grow:

The Education Tax: Every interaction with a bank makes African startups educators. Banks need API education. Consumers need trust-building. Regulators need technology primers.

The Infrastructure Tax: Foundational basics that are already in place elsewhere must be created from the beginning. Payment rails, identity verification, data standards — all bespoke hassles.

The Regulatory Tax: Having to make your way through unclear rules while also helping to make them. Startups turn into unpaid consultants to governments.

The Trust Tax: Getting beyond institutional doubt about new technologies. It is another chance to acquire a customer; another opportunity to repair a relationship beset by the lack of a customer’s trust.

The Tangible Tax: Training teams with skills that don’t exist locally. Startups become inadvertent universities.

The Pioneer Tax: Incurring the entire cost of market creation, while not capturing any of the infrastructure benefits that followers will exploit.

Okra used business building money to pay all six taxes.

The Martyrdom Trap

This is a pattern that plays out repeatedly in Africa. ‘Behind every start-up, there are actually 5-7 businesses trying to get out.’ The founders are lauded for their “resilience” in building in spite of unlikely odds, but this celebration glosses over a more profound systemic failure.

The question is not why founders persevere, but why they should have to.

When a startup in Lagos dedicates 40% of its resources on things a rival in San Francisco gets for free, we’re not marveling at entrepreneurial resilience – we’re looking at systemic disadvantage in action.

The No One Wants to Pay for a Solution

What Ayaba is prescribing is easy to write down, but hard to do: Stop celebrating resilient founders, and start removing the taxes that are killing their companies.

This means coordinated investment in:

• Educational infrastructure: Training in how to prepare the market for innovation
• Regulatory Frameworks: Definitive rules not necessitating a startup to define them
• Trust-Building Institutions: Trusted intermediaries that save startups from having to pay to build trust
• Talent Development: Regional training programs to develop pools of trained workforce
• Pioneer Support: Dedicated funding facilities to cover some of the costs of market creation
• Infrastructure Sharing: Shared platforms that lower individual infrastructure costs

The Wake-Up Call

The shutdown of Okra is more than another startup failure — it is a reflection, however dark, on the unaccounted costs of African innovation. Each celebrated “resilient” founder is just kissing off some ecosystem development that ought to be going on at a system level.

The arithmetic is simply unforgiving: When startups squander 60-70% of their resources on ecosystem taxes in lieu of product development, they are doomed to fail, regardless of the quality of the team, the market timing, or the amount of funding raised.

The choice is plain: African innovation can keep on celebrating martyrs, or it can start building the infrastructure in which martyrdom is a thing of the past.

Okra’s legacy should not be its shutdown — it should be the cold shower that at last compels the ecosystem to face up to the taxes that are killing African innovation from the inside.

It is not a matter of whether or not African startups can overcome these obstacles. The question becomes whether innovation in Africa can survive the cost of its success.

From May 26 to 30, 2025, the vibrant city of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, will host the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group’s 60th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors and the 51st Meeting of the Board of Governors of the African Development Fund (ADF). Held at the prestigious Sofitel Abidjan Hotel Ivoire, this landmark event will bring together over 6,000 delegates, including heads of state, finance ministers, central bank governors, private sector leaders, academics, civil society organizations, and global development partners. Under the theme “Making Africa’s Capital Work Better for Africa’s Development,” the 2025 Annual Meetings will serve as a critical platform for addressing the continent’s economic challenges and opportunities in a rapidly evolving global landscape.

A Pivotal Moment for African Development

The 2025 Annual Meetings mark a significant milestone for the AfDB, as they coincide with the election of a new president to succeed Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, whose transformative 10-year tenure ends in September 2025. The election, scheduled for May 29, 2025, will see the Bank’s 81 governors select a new leader from five candidates representing various African nations. This leadership transition comes at a time when Africa faces complex challenges, including rising debt burdens, climate change, and shifting global trade dynamics, with 47 of Africa’s 54 countries affected by new U.S. trade measures, including tariffs of up to 50% on exports.

The theme of the meetings reflects a strategic focus on harnessing Africa’s diverse capital—human, natural, financial, and commercial—to drive structural transformation. As Prof. Kevin Urama, the AfDB’s Chief Economist and Vice President for Economic Governance, emphasized during a pre-event press conference, the goal is to leverage Africa’s existing resources to foster inclusive, resilient, and sustainable economies. Discussions will center on mobilizing domestic capital, strengthening regional value chains, and navigating geopolitical tensions to ensure Africa controls its economic destiny.

Key Highlights and Knowledge Events

The 2025 Annual Meetings will feature a robust agenda, blending statutory governance sessions with high-level knowledge events designed to spark innovative solutions. Key events include:

• High-Level Presidential Dialogue: A cornerstone of the meetings, this dialogue will bring together African leaders to discuss strategies for optimizing the continent’s capital for development. The session will emphasize bold reforms and domestic resource mobilization.
• Launch of the 2025 African Economic Outlook Report: This flagship report will analyze the global economic landscape, Africa’s debt challenges, and strategies for resource mobilization to build effective institutions. It will serve as a roadmap for policymakers seeking to address economic disruptions.
• Leveraging African Capital for the Energy Transition: This side event will explore blended finance mechanisms to accelerate renewable energy expansion and support a just, climate-resilient transition.
• Empowering Africa’s Agripreneurs: Focused on young agricultural innovators, this event will highlight the role of youth in transforming Africa’s agriculture sector, a key driver of economic growth.
• Regional Corridors as Drivers of Integration: Discussions will underscore the importance of infrastructure investments, such as road and rail networks, in boosting intra-African trade and unlocking underutilized natural and agricultural resources. The AfDB has invested over $50 billion in infrastructure over the past decade, reinforcing its role as a leading multilateral funder in this space.
• Harnessing Civil Society’s Role: This session will emphasize the growing partnership between the AfDB and civil society organizations (CSOs), highlighting their role in inclusive development. The Bank’s engagement with CSOs has strengthened over the past decade, giving a “voice to the voiceless” through initiatives like the Civil Society and Community Engagement division.

A Decade of Impact and a Vision for the Future

The 2025 meetings will also reflect on the AfDB’s transformative achievements under Dr. Adesina’s leadership. Over the past decade, the Bank has facilitated access to drinking water and sanitation for 96.2 million Africans, connected over 25 million people to electricity, and trained more than 4 million individuals across various sectors. The Bank’s High 5s strategy—focusing on energy, agriculture, industrialization, integration, and quality of life—has impacted over 565 million people, with 128 million gaining access to improved health services.

Looking ahead, the AfDB’s Ten-Year Strategy (2024–2033) will guide its efforts to scale these impacts. The strategy aligns with global frameworks like the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the African Union’s Agenda 2063, and the Paris Climate Agreement, emphasizing digital transformation, robust governance, and climate resilience. The 2025 meetings will also address the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is seen as a critical milestone for regional integration and economic growth.

Navigating Global Challenges

The meetings come at a time of significant global economic shifts. With proposed U.S. funding cuts of $555 million and reduced USAID support, African nations are urged to diversify trade partners and strengthen internal markets. Dr. Adesina has warned of potential economic disruptions due to these policy shifts, underscoring the need for Africa to build resilience through domestic production and regional cooperation. The AfDB’s role as a convener of global thought leaders will be critical in shaping strategies to address these challenges.

A Call to Action

The 2025 AfDB Annual Meetings in Abidjan will be more than a gathering of leaders—they will be a defining moment for Africa’s economic future. By focusing on mobilizing the continent’s vast resources and fostering inclusive development, the AfDB aims to empower African nations to overcome obstacles and achieve sustainable growth. As Dr. Adesina reflected, “A Mission, Not a Job!” his decade-long leadership has laid a strong foundation for the Bank’s next chapter. The incoming president will inherit a dynamic institution poised to lead Africa toward greater financial sovereignty and resilience.

For those interested in participating, registration details and the full program are available at the official AfDB Annual Meetings website (https://am.afdb.org). Journalists wishing to attend must submit a press card and employer letter to [email protected] to receive a registration code. With its blend of high-level dialogues, innovative knowledge events, and a focus on transformative action, the 2025 Annual Meetings promise to be a catalyst for Africa’s development journey.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of African fintech, Djamo stands out as a digital banking startup with a clear focus: serving the underbanked in Francophone West Africa. While many competitors target the continent’s largest markets—Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa—Djamo has found its footing in the Ivory Coast and, more recently, Senegal. With over one million customers now using its services across these two countries, the Y Combinator-backed company is proving that smaller, often overlooked markets can yield significant opportunities.

Djamo recently secured $17 million in an equity funding round, marking the largest ever for an Ivorian startup. This surpasses its previous $14 million Series A in 2022 and signals strong investor confidence in its mission to democratize financial access. Led by co-founder and CEO Hassan Bourgi and chief product and technical officer Régis Bamba, the company launched in 2020 to address a persistent challenge in French-speaking African countries: limited access to formal banking. While traditional banks in the region tend to serve wealthier clients, the majority of the population relies on mobile money—using phone numbers for basic transactions—as a more affordable alternative.

The Mobile Money Ceiling

Mobile money has been a game-changer for financial inclusion in Africa. According to the World Bank, 28% of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa had a mobile money account as of 2022, with the region accounting for over half of the global total. This growth has brought millions into the financial ecosystem, enabling cash deposits, withdrawals, peer-to-peer transfers, and bill payments. However, mobile money’s simplicity is also its limitation. It lacks the advanced tools—like credit, investments, or long-term savings—that many users need as their financial needs evolve.

Djamo is stepping into this gap, positioning itself as a hybrid between the accessibility of mobile money and the sophistication of traditional banking. Its approach mirrors strategies used by heavyweights like Softbank-backed OPay and Transsion-owned PalmPay, which have scaled to tens of millions of users in Nigeria. Djamo’s target audience is a growing cohort of younger customers who have outgrown mobile money but remain wary of traditional banks due to high fees, outdated services, or inaccessibility.

“These users are evolving,” Bourgi said in an interview. “But they don’t want to go where their parents went, into institutions with predatory pricing and aren’t adapted to the new generation of customers. And this is what we are building, trying to become the go-to bank for this huge cohort of customers that is evolving now to more complex, wealth-building financing opportunities.”

A Growing Product Suite and Regional Ambitions

The $17 million raise will fuel Djamo’s plans to expand its offerings for both retail customers and the thousands of small businesses it has onboarded over the past two years. While Bourgi declined to disclose the company’s new valuation, he confirmed it has doubled since the 2022 Series A, reflecting its rapid growth and market potential. Djamo currently serves over one million users, a testament to its appeal in a region where financial inclusion remains a pressing challenge.

In the Ivory Coast and Senegal, where few adults hold bank accounts, Djamo’s mobile-first platform provides an affordable entry point to services like savings accounts, debit cards, and, increasingly, credit options. By catering to small businesses as well, the startup is tapping into the backbone of these economies, offering tools to help entrepreneurs manage cash flow and grow.

A Niche With Big Potential

Djamo’s focus on Francophone West Africa sets it apart in a crowded fintech space. While Nigeria’s market size and South Africa’s established infrastructure draw significant attention, the French-speaking countries of West Africa represent an underserved yet promising frontier. With a combined population of over 60 million across the Ivory Coast and Senegal alone, the region offers ample room for growth.

Investors, including Y Combinator and others in the latest round, see Djamo as a bet on this untapped potential. The startup’s success also highlights a broader trend in African fintech: tailoring solutions to local needs rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach. For Djamo, that means building a bank that resonates with a new generation—one that’s ready to move beyond mobile money but demands affordability, convenience, and relevance.

As Djamo scales its operations and product suite, it’s not just raising capital—it’s raising the bar for what digital banking can achieve in Francophone Africa. For the million-plus customers it already serves, and the millions more it aims to reach, Djamo is more than a fintech startup; it’s a bridge to a more inclusive financial future.