Why It Would Be Really Hard For Africa Moon-Shot Startups To Exist

FEB 09, 2015

 

Moonshot ideas are those very big ideas that some startups are working on. Very few of those startups are African. Why?

A lot of reasons, but the critical one is this — there is almost nobody who would fund a moon-shot idea by an African in Africa. Generally, capital is very wary of Africa because of the risks involved — so safe bets like e-commerce, travel, financial services get funded usually.

A moon-shot idea is never safe. It is also usually quite expensive. A VC who puts money into such an idea would be exposing himself to massive amounts of risk.

Any wise entrepreneur at the current stage of the market will focus on ideas for which he can raise money. So it needs to fit into a certain pattern or narrative — anything outside of that will simply go nowhere.

So you have the smart entrepreneurs not going for moon-shot ideas. And you have the capital owners not funding such ideas. So moon-shot ideas don’t get birthed, they don’t get discussed, and so don’t exist.by Mark Essien