Hi, welcome to Tech This Evening, an After-Work Tech Newsletter from Techparley Africa. Sure, there is a lot to unpack right now. Sit back, while I walk you through.
Top Story: Why Are African Startup Founders Struggling to Secure Early-Stage Funding? Here’s What We Found
African startup founders have firmly established the continent as one of the fastest-growing technology frontiers in the world. Across markets, founders are scaling products, attracting users, and building solutions for problems global companies have long ignored. Their progress continues to demonstrate that innovation is not exclusive to Silicon Valley.
Yet, despite this momentum, securing early-stage funding remains one of the most difficult challenges for African founders.
In this Techparley’s conversation with founders across the continent, we uncover the forces defining Africa’s early-stage funding landscape. What emerges is a clear pattern that shows the difficulty is no longer about ideas or market demand. It is about perception, trust, and structural realities that make raising capital more difficult than it is for their global peers.
Founders say the investment landscape is shaped by mismatched expectations, misplaced assumptions, and reputational challenges that often have nothing to do with the strength or potential of their ideas.
Other Tech News Stories You Should Read:
Complete Guide on How to Measure the Impact of Your Startup Media Visibility. Read now.
How to Create a Financial Model for Your Startup. Read now.
How to Build a Scalable Business Model for Your Startup. Read now.
On Startup Spotlight:
How Kenyan Startup, Zendawa, is Digitising and Bringing Africa’s Neighbourhood Pharmacies Online
Zendawa, a Kenyan startup based in Nakuru, believes the future of African healthcare runs through micro-pharmacies. Founded in 2022, the team has developed a modular software platform that connects thousands of chemists to digital supply chains, working capital, and essential business management tools.
Unlike many health-tech startups that pursue rapid disruption, Zendawa takes a modular, incremental approach designed to complement existing systems.
According to the startup, its goal is to bring last-mile pharmacies online, but not through “disruption” as most startups claim at their inception.
“Our main adoption barrier has been pharmacies that already have a management system,” Will Chege, Zendawa CEO, said. “We innovated around this by making our platform modular, such that they do not need to migrate from the systems but rather adopt the modules from our system, which they do not have access to.”
Quadri Adejumo brings you all the details. Read here.
Also Read:
How Nigeria’s Bottomline Assist Is Proving that Africa is the World’s Next Outsourcing Powerhouse. Yakub Abdulrasheed brings us the details, here.
Quote of the Day:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to magic.” – Arthur C. Clarke.
Thank you for joining me yet again this evening. Stay safe, and see you tomorrow for the next tech newsletter.
Best, Quadri
