A recent LinkedIn post by Farouk Mark Mukiibi, a prominent voice in Africa’s tech ecosystem, sparked wide reflection and debate on why even well-funded African startups often fail in the very markets they set out to transform.
His essay-style post titled “Why African Startups Fail In Their Own Markets?” delves into what he frames as a misalignment between startup execution and the deep, informal rhythms of African markets.
Mukiibi points to notable venture-backed startups such as Sendy, Copia, Dash, 54gene, and Rocket Health, all of which raised millions in capital, but eventually shuttered operations.
While acknowledging external barriers like weak infrastructure, difficult regulations, and fragmented logistics, he argues that the deeper issue lies in local founders assuming they fully understand the market simply because of cultural or linguistic proximity.
“The real failures happen when local founders, fluent in language and culture, misread markets they believe they’ve already decoded,” he said.
“And one under-discussed pattern cuts through many of these collapses: startups scaling before syncing with the market’s underlying rhythm.”
He suggests that many startups rush to scale before securing true embeddedness, confusing visibility with viability. In his view, trust, routine relevance, and social proof, not just tech innovation or funding are the infrastructure that sustain African startups.
Aboyeji Responds
However, tech entrepreneur and co-founder of Andela and Flutterwave, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, offered a counter-perspective.
In his response, Aboyeji warns against over-intellectualising startup collapse, cautioning that failure is not an African anomaly but a global startup norm.
“The challenge with narratives like this is that it ignores the reality that failure is the default outcome of a startup,” he wrote. “More than 90% of startups all over the world fail before their third year.”
Aboyeji argues that while proximity to customers and cultural fluency are important, they are not a foolproof formula against failure.
Instead, he promotes a realistic framing: once founders accept that the odds are stacked against them, they are more likely to make deliberate, strategic choices that could prolong survival or increase their chance of success.
For him, the danger lies in romanticising resilience as a guaranteed outcome of following certain principles. In doing so, founders may be misled into thinking failure is entirely avoidable, when in fact it is often structural, unpredictable, and universal.
“But as long as perpetuate the myth that failure in startups is something you can control by doing x, y and z we will just keep misleading startups,” he added.
Realities of Startup Survival in Africa
Africa has over 5,200 active startups. According to Statista, as of 2020, 54% of African startups failed, with some countries like Ethiopia and Rwanda recording failure rates as high as 75%, while Kenya stood out with a comparatively lower rate of 24%.
On a broader scale, 90% of global startups fail, with 10% shutting down in the first year and nearly 70% unable to survive beyond five years of operation.
Experts warn that in Africa, these failures are not merely statistical but structural. They point to limited access to long-term capital, high-interest rates, infrastructure gaps, and policy instability as recurring hurdles that shape the fate of many ventures.
As experts note, while entrepreneurial enthusiasm remains high across the continent, the environment in which startups must survive is still fundamentally fragile.
Talking Point
The conversation sparked by Mukiibi’s post and Aboyeji’s response reveals a deeper tension within Africa’s startup ecosystem. At Techparley, we believe this is not just a philosophical divide but a practical dilemma founders must navigate daily.
The lesson here is twofold: being local does not automatically mean being embedded, and having funding does not always mean you’re ready to scale.
Founders must learn to move at the pace of the people they hope to serve, often earning trust in informal spaces long before formal metrics begin to register.
Founders must know that failure is the global norm. The true shift is about managing it wisely, building resilient models that outlast early missteps, and surviving long enough to iterate into relevance.
For us, the path forward lies in blending deep local insight with sober global awareness. Founders who build with this dual clarity stand the best chance not just of launching, but of lasting.
