But it was a subsequent interview with TechCrunch that really triggered a loud backlash with #KOT (Kenyans on Twitter) and Kenyan social media users. So last month when Robin Reecht, a young French founder on a visitor visa, raised $1 million in pre-seed funding for a Kenyan food delivery app called Kune, a collective eyebrow was raised. This comparison with other African markets only serves to deepen the frustration of many of Kenya’s long-term tech watchers. It’s worth noting that this trend doesn’t apply elsewhere on the continent: In Lagos’ booming tech hub, 55% (12) of the founders identified in the same analysis were Nigerian, while in South Africa, 56% (14) of the founders were locals. Four startups had a mix of foreign and local founders, while 11 had expat founders. It’s an issue that hasn’t gone away in the last five years, Adedana Ashebir, regional director for Africa and the Middle East for Village Capital, told me.Īnalysis of 2019 data showed that only one of the Kenyan startups that raised more than $1 million that year had a local founder. Things came to a head in 2017, when a Village Capital report titled “Breaking the Pattern” appeared to confirm what many local founders and journalists had been saying: In East Africa, 90% of disclosed startup investments in 20 went to companies with one or more European or North American founders. It was promptly dubbed “Silicon Savannah” as startups sprouted and tech talent flocked to Nairobi.īut by 2016, there were mutterings in local circles about how the funding seemed to be disproportionately favoring North American and European founders who were launching companies in the country. In the early 2010s, Kenya’s fledgling tech ecosystem was used as a shorthand for a wider “Africa Rising” narrative. ” Ngũgĩ was recalling a moment of realization from his childhood in colonial-era Kenya, but the quote feels apt today. While talking to a Kenyan tech founder about this last week, I was reminded of a line from Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s memoir, Dreams in a Time of War: “Belief in yourself is more important than endless worries of what others think of you. Meanwhile, local and regional founders say they still have difficulty pulling together capital after years of attempts. Last month, a furor broke out on Kenyan social media when a French startup founder, who had only spent a few months in the East African country, seemingly had no trouble raising $1 million in pre-seed funding for his new food delivery app.
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