Business & founders stories across Africa
Stories
Juliana Rotich co-founded BRCK after a familiar Nairobi problem: blackouts that cut internet access. The device keeps running for about eight hours without mains power.
From a Detroit family of eight children to the founder of Motown, Berry Gordy signed acts including the Supremes and Marvin Gaye and ran the highest-earning…
A trainee actuary at 22, Adrian Gore founded Discovery as a medical insurer. It became a diversified financial services group.
Refused a clothing licence under apartheid, Richard Maponya built a dairy, shops and dealerships in Soweto, and opened Maponya Mall in 2007.
Born in London, the physician and entrepreneur founded Flying Doctors in Lagos in 2007 and later co-founded a venture firm that invested in Paystack.
Karim Beguir and Zohra Slim started an artificial intelligence company that grew from Tunis to offices in London, Lagos, Cape Town and Kigali.
In the weeks after Kenya’s disputed 2007 election, a small group in Nairobi built a tool to collect reports by text message and plot them on…
Established in 1961 as the carrier for francophone West and Central Africa, Air Afrique declined from the 1980s and was liquidated in early 2002.
A chemical engineer from Denver who earned patents at Kraft, then moved into Goldman Sachs technology banking in Silicon Valley, Robert F. Smith founded Vista Equity…
A University of Cape Town graduate, Mark Shuttleworth founded the internet-security firm Thawte, sold it, and went on to create Canonical and the Ubuntu operating system.
Formed in 1997 from micro-lending businesses and registered as a bank in 2001, Capitec went after the low-income market and grew from 5 million clients to…
A Lagos lawyer who chose beauty, Tara Fela-Durotoye pioneered bridal makeup in Nigeria and built House of Tara into a brand with its own stores and…
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