What Anna Ekeledo learnt from main AfriLabs for a decade

After a decade of serving as the manager director of AfriLabs, a community of 500 tech hubs throughout Africa, Anna Ekeledo stepped down in January and is now within the strategy of hiring her alternative. Whoever will get the position can have their work reduce out for them. Since Ekeledo joined AfriLabs, it has grown to over 500 hubs unfold throughout 53 international locations, from simply 40 when she took over. 

“Even when I run AfriLabs for the following 10, 20, 30, or 40 years, I’ll nonetheless must step down sooner or later,” she stated on a name. “For us, it is a true take a look at of how sturdy AfriLabs as an establishment can’t simply develop, not simply maintain, however scale past me.”

Based in 2011, AfriLabs operates as a community of hubs that assist hubs throughout Africa, disbursing $2.7 million to hubs and startups in 2025, offering important assist and funding to the hubs that present a platform to entrepreneurs. 

What began as a approach for 5 hubs in 4 international locations to talk to one another has turn into a sprawling community of hubs in nearly all African international locations. AfriLabs grew alongside the hubs that it related, connecting half of the over 1,000 tech hubs that operated throughout the continent by 2021.

These hubs grew largely as a result of they plug primary infrastructure gaps like energy, connectivity, and workplace house that particular person early-stage founders can’t resolve alone. Whereas hubs assist early-stage founders with incubation and acceleration, funding, working areas, and networking, AfriLabs advocates with governments for the hubs, creates cross-border collaboration, and funds and trains hub managers. 

Hub networks decrease the barrier to entrepreneurship at scale throughout Africa, however the hubs themselves usually face the identical capital and sustainability constraints because the startups they serve. The cyclical nature of the grant- and donor-reliant funding mannequin that hubs depend on has meant that hubs have struggled to outlive for the reason that post-zero rate of interest phenomenon (ZIRP) period that noticed international funding scale back in African tech. Making a funding mannequin round supporting early-stage startups can also be unsustainable in Africa, the place most startups generate little income. 

In her decade-long run at AfriLabs, Ekeledo demonstrated that by funding hubs and startups by way of hubs and making a community connecting hubs, influencing coverage conversations, and worldwide capital, worth is created whilst particular person hubs proceed to battle.

For this week’s Ask an Investor, I spoke with Ekeledo about her departure, Africa’s funding increase and decline, how grant funding creates hubs, the way forward for hubs, how Africa’s tech ecosystem ought to evolve, and the way to scale tech in Africa.

This interview has been edited for readability and size.

You’re stepping down after a decade at AfriLabs. Why is that this the correct time?

There’s one thing I’ve at all times stated, particularly in my work constructing the African continent: Africa wants two issues: sturdy folks and robust establishments. That’s what the continent must create sustainable wealth for our folks.

Over the previous decade, I’ve been very intentional and made it my mission to construct AfriLabs into a really sturdy establishment that positively impacts our neighborhood, particularly innovation hubs and their supporting communities, the innovators, builders, and startups on the continent, and mainly strengthen the African startup ecosystem.

Via that decade, we constructed programs, sturdy pan-African and international partnerships, and institutionalised our occasions, programming, and assist to our members. I imagine that each one the efforts we’ve revamped the previous decade below my management ought to outlast any single chief. The concept is to not carry on operating the organisation however to construct an establishment that may outlast my management.

The true measure of any establishment’s energy is that every part developed below a pacesetter can outlive that chief and repeatedly develop. Being very sensible, even when I run AfriLabs for the following 10, 20, 30, 40 years, I’ll nonetheless must step down sooner or later. For us, it is a true take a look at of how sturdy AfriLabs as an establishment can develop and scale—not simply develop, not simply maintain, however scale past me.

What’s the succession plan like?

Final 12 months, we arrange a transition committee made up of some present board members, earlier board members, and trustees who’re additionally a part of the neighborhood. Working with the transition committee, we constructed a course of: we took in functions final 12 months, interviews will probably be held, then there’ll be a shortlist, and the complete board will make a remaining choice. 

It’s ongoing, and we hope to shut that by the tip of Q1. We’ll be asserting our subsequent govt director initially of Q2, hopefully, if all issues go nicely.

Is that this severing ties, or will there nonetheless be involvement in your finish?

As I’m stepping down, I’ll even be becoming a member of the advisory council, the place I’ll proceed to assist AfriLabs’ mission whereas creating house for a brand new chief to usher in their very own imaginative and prescient and method. It’s not the tip of the mission as I step away.

I’ll proceed to mentor the brand new govt director. I’ll proceed to work with the neighborhood, however in a non-executive capability. So sure, the connection will nonetheless be very a lot alive and rising.

If you first took over, what had been among the challenges you confronted, and the way did you deal with them?

I’ll begin by saying we had a really sturdy neighborhood. Our community was about 40 members throughout 20 African international locations, full of very passionate people, all dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs throughout the continent.

Nonetheless, the fragility was extra throughout the infrastructure beneath. As an organisation, we didn’t have the form of programs to maintain development. We had been primarily depending on donor funding, which is, in fact, one of many challenges in improvement on the continent. We had quick bursts of initiatives to execute, with lengthy gaps when there was no funding obtainable. There wasn’t a powerful crew, mainly. So I constructed the crew as an organisation to this stage.

Over the previous decade, we have now constructed a powerful and largely pan-African crew unfold throughout totally different areas, with our secretariat in Nigeria. We formalised our governance constructions, diversified income fashions, and institutionalised a variety of our partnerships, programming, and occasions.

That approach, we persistently constructed a system the place we at all times present assist to our neighborhood members, no matter how the funding flows throughout the ecosystem. When it comes to our core mandate of constructing neighborhood and offering assist, we’ve persistently maintained that by constructing sturdy programs and diversifying our partnership mannequin. We’ve additionally grown the neighborhood from 40 members to over 500, throughout 200-plus cities in 53 African international locations.

AfriLabs now spans 500 hubs in nearly all African international locations. What number of of those hubs would you say are genuinely sustainable and may maintain themselves independently?

I don’t have an actual share, however we have now considerably extra sustainable hubs right this moment than we did a decade in the past. Once I began, hubs had been nearly completely donor-dependent, which meant they had been weak to funding cycles. 

Normally, that is the way it went: a grant ends, a donor shifts priorities, and instantly, a hub serving numerous entrepreneurs is prone to persevering with that work.

Through the years, we’ve designed our AfriLabs capacity-building programmes particularly to alter that. We’ve constructed programmes and interventions, together with an AfriLabs Academy, the primary of its variety, a hub administration curriculum centered on two principal strands. 

One: supporting a hub to construct and run sustainably. Two: offering the correct kind of assist to startups, from the very thought stage to scale, together with accessing investments. 

We’ve additionally carried out peer-to-peer mentorship, toolkits, and sources centered on equipping hubs with the correct expertise and information to be sustainable.

Over the previous decade, we’ve seen hubs diversify their funding sources and discover methods to commercialise their worth by way of services and products to a various set of stakeholders, whereas retaining their mandate to affect innovators and startups of their neighborhood. We positively have much more sustainable hubs on the continent which have saved their lights on and sustained their affect.

Throughout the funding increase (the ZIRP period), had been you seeing something that was worrying you?

Positively, as a result of throughout that point, we noticed founders and innovators concentrate on fundraising as an finish aim, relatively than a way to an finish. We noticed hub methods and startup methods that mainly pivoted to suit funding cycles and never essentially to satisfy the true market challenges of their communities. 

Wherever the developments had been going, in direction of what traders wished to see startups construct, in direction of what funders wished to see hubs concentrate on, that’s the place the main target was. It was fairly regarding.

One other factor I noticed was self-importance metrics being celebrated greater than actual enterprise metrics. Metrics centered on raises and sign-ups when it might have been optimised for actual buyer acquisition as an alternative of producing income and earnings. Quick development with out revenue.

In fact, adaptation is vital. If you’re constructing any enterprise, you continue to have to draw the correct stakeholders, together with traders. However there positively needs to be a steadiness between fixing for the true market, fixing the true challenges in your neighborhood, and assembly exterior priorities.

What would you say are among the proudest achievements you’ve had within the final decade?

If I put it in a single sentence, I’d say it’s institutionalising AfriLabs to be a powerful pan-African community organisation that now has the capability to affect a big neighborhood of innovation hubs, entrepreneurs, and startups throughout numerous sectors throughout the continent, whereas additionally holding house and having a powerful, influential voice in international and pan-African conversations.

That is particularly vital once we discuss coverage. We have to advocate for higher coverage, and over time, that’s one of many issues I’m pleased with. We’ve been very intentional, and we’ve been a part of pushing for the correct insurance policies. A few of the startup acts on the continent, just like the Senegal startup act, the Nigerian startup act, and innovation insurance policies like Rwanda’s and DRC’s, have been largely pushed by the participation of the neighborhood that we’ve constructed.

Even now, as we speak concerning the African Continental Free Commerce Space, AfriLabs as an establishment is in a really sturdy place to assist the implementation of the AfCFTA settlement whereas additionally holding governments accountable. It’s one factor to assist startups to leverage it; it’s one other factor for the implementation to truly materialise. That’s what I’m most pleased with.

What does AfriLabs seem like with out Anna?

The very first thing that got here to my thoughts, to be trustworthy, is stronger and higher. That is the place succession is essential. Over the previous 10 years, I’ve constructed partnerships, platforms, programs, and a crew, and grown the neighborhood to some extent that the following chief simply wants to come back in, take all of this, and fly. Actually. 

With out Anna means taking every part that Anna has executed and scaling the affect, scaling the work, and driving funding into the ecosystem.

For instance, one of many platforms that we’ve constructed over the previous two years, which we’re trying to actually launch this 12 months, is the AfriLabs Join Deal Room, which connects traders from throughout Africa and past to startups for follow-on funding. We’ve traders with billions of {dollars} in belongings below administration who’ve pledged to entry it. The subsequent chief approaching board as I step down subsequent quarter will are available in to assist operationalise that. That’s only one instance.

We’ve coverage conversations which are ongoing. We’ve partnerships. And we have now a neighborhood—I got here on board in 20 African international locations; now we’re in over 53. The complete continent is roofed. The subsequent particular person would are available in to construct and scale. We’ve constructed the inspiration for AfriLabs to multiply its affect.

You grew AfriLabs from 20 international locations to 53, with over 500 hubs. What did you study scaling when constructing a community to this degree?

There are such a lot of methods to reply that query. However throughout the African context (scaling throughout the African continent), which is one in every of our principal mandates, supporting startups to scale by way of innovation hubs as launchpads and nodes, we will’t obtain scale at scale with out harmonisation of insurance policies. One of many greatest challenges we face is the fragmentation of insurance policies and laws throughout the continent, and this cuts throughout the board.

One other one is ease of motion. In implementing one in every of our flagship occasions, the AfriLabs Annual Gathering, which we run in a distinct African location yearly, we have now held 10 to this point in 9 international locations, together with these hosted by the African Union and United Nations in Kenya and Ethiopia, and one digital throughout COVID. One in all our greatest challenges was motion. We needed to construct relationships with governments to offer visas. We needed to foyer—some international locations had been simpler, whereas others had been tougher.

In the case of supporting startups to scale, in case you are a fintech or a healthtech in anyone location and also you wish to scale to new international locations, it’s important to begin the regulatory course of yet again. It’s important to get new licences, that are typically costly. Generally it’s important to adapt your small business mannequin. After which getting your crew to settle into the nation – the immigration legal guidelines are totally different, and there are worker legal guidelines for foreigners and all of that.

So I’d say one factor I’ve discovered about scale is that for us to scale, whether or not we’re scaling companies, enterprise fashions, or affect throughout Africa, we positively must work tougher collectively, collectively, in direction of harmonising our insurance policies throughout the board.

Innovation hubs throughout Africa have been hit laborious by the funding downturn. Many depend upon grant funding, and we all know how the US—the world’s greatest supplier of grant funding—is rethinking that now. How can hubs survive within the present funding surroundings? Do they should evolve?

Sure, I believe hubs must evolve, as a result of everybody must evolve. That’s the entire thought of innovation, and hubs are already evolving.

Through the years, we have now had hubs which have diversified their providers from simply supporting entrepreneurs, which they needed to depend on exterior funding for, to supporting a goal group that might afford their providers, particularly in much less mature ecosystems. They needed to evolve from having only one mannequin of supply or one buyer section to participating different stakeholders. 

We’ve hubs which have advanced to offering consulting providers to company organisations, supporting open innovation methods, working with improvement companions and governments to run capacity-building programmes for innovators and ladies’s companies. We’ve had hubs which have developed totally different enterprise fashions, arrange funds, and the like.

Hubs have been and can proceed to continuously evolve their enterprise fashions, the purchasers they serve, and the way they serve them. It’s additionally evolving based mostly on the maturity of the ecosystem. In much less mature or nascent ecosystems, hubs are primarily centered on constructing consciousness round entrepreneurship and digital expertise. In additional mature ecosystems, the dialog has gone past startup insurance policies to: what are our AI insurance policies, knowledge sovereignty insurance policies, market entry insurance policies? The evolution of hubs has at all times occurred and can at all times occur.

What sort of assist can change a founder’s trajectory?

The assist relies on the stage of the startup. On the very early stage—the thought stage—what issues helps a founder refine their enterprise thought, construct an MVP, and validate the mannequin available in the market with actual customers. After which, within the case of needing capital, elevating seed funding, most startups elevate from household and buddies. However the place a founder doesn’t have that, simply join them to angel traders who should buy into their thought.

After that, market entry. Paying prospects. Connecting a startup to at least one enterprise buyer, or two or three or 5, that may assist them obtain their targets of producing thousands and thousands of {dollars} a 12 months, is far more precious than simply offering capital. At a sure stage, when the enterprise mannequin has been validated and the know-how has been constructed, market entry is essential.

After which, supporting startups to shut offers. I believe that is one thing folks underestimate within the ecosystem. It’s nice to assist startups with introductions. It’s nice to place collectively networking occasions the place they’ve entry to potential traders or shoppers. However offering that assist as much as the purpose of closing the deal could make a ton of distinction and save a startup actually months or years of regularly chasing and pitching.

What makes you optimistic concerning the African startup ecosystem proper now?

The expansion, regardless that I recognise that development shouldn’t be evenly unfold throughout the continent. However typically, I imagine we’ve grown to some extent the place we have now recognised that we have to construct for the continent. This realisation is coming from a collective perspective—the hubs, the startups, sure governments, totally different stakeholders, and even improvement organisations that used to come back with exterior priorities. There’s positively extra alignment now in direction of cooperation, versus being informed what the blueprint is.

We’re more and more fixing for actual market challenges. Sure, fintech nonetheless tops the funding influx. However if you see extra logistics tech firms receiving funding, that’s fascinating, particularly with the concentrate on intra-Africa commerce and governments extra dedicated to breaking down obstacles.

There’s additionally extra interconnectivity. The structural obstacles nonetheless exist, however we see extra startups taking daring strikes to construct for a number of markets. Even startups in a extremely giant market like Nigeria are constructing not only for Africa however for the worldwide market. That’s thrilling to see.

After which the rise of mergers and acquisitions (M&As). We had a time the place everybody mainly constructed what they wanted to construct in several sectors. With the funding downturn about two years in the past, startups needed to pivot and consider different fashions. As we see extra M&As, what we envision is stronger, better-built and better-run African companies on account of the approaching collectively of various startups.

Once we look again at the moment 10 years from now, what do you suppose will outline this era?

If we proceed on this path, I’m fairly optimistic. I’d say we’d see that we have now constructed extra for the African continent, for our markets. We’ve discovered to focus extra on our priorities and resolve for our personal markets. And most significantly, we’d have damaged down a variety of the structural obstacles and laws which have saved us fragmented.

Ten years from now, we’ll say this was a pivotal second that led to harmonised insurance policies. Any fintech or well being tech or logistics tech constructing in anyone African market—whether or not in Djibouti—can simply scale to South Africa or Kenya or Côte d’Ivoire, as a result of the insurance policies are harmonised. There’s assist infrastructure from the regulatory our bodies: wherever you might be, if you wish to register an organization, you simply go on a platform. It’s streamlined and digitised. We’ve the Digital Protocol on Commerce that covers harmonisation of e-commerce, knowledge safety, and knowledge flows. And ease of motion—we hope we’re not nonetheless having the identical dialog about visa functions that take three weeks, whereas the enterprise alternative is gone.

First: constructing an ecosystem on our personal phrases, for our personal priorities and markets, and our personal definition of success. Second: breaking down structural obstacles that make it laborious to scale. And third—which is required for the primary two to occur—mobilising home private and non-private capital.

The entire considerations about dependency on donor funding in the course of the startup increase had been additionally right down to the truth that we don’t have sufficient home capital mobilised, from our governments and our personal sectors. However we’re seeing an uptake. Angel traders, VCs, and PE corporations have more and more raised capital for African startups. In 10 years, I’m optimistic that almost all of the funding going into African startups will come from home capital, from Africans.

You’ve operated throughout totally different regulatory environments. The place have you ever seen governments actually assist startups?

Some governments have made very constructive strides. I’ll begin with Nigeria, the place the AfriLabs secretariat is located. In 2021, the Nigerian Startup Act was enacted. That was a constructive sign by the federal government to say: We’re listening to you. It got here from years of conversations. Now we continuously see insurance policies on the state and federal ranges geared in direction of supporting the innovation ecosystem. There’s nonetheless work to be executed, however for essentially the most half, the political will is current.

Rwanda is one other very intentional nation, particularly in attracting startups from different international locations. Rwanda has damaged down its obstacles to entry. Ease of motion is straightforward; as of final 12 months, they fully scrapped the e-visa requirement. They’ve made it straightforward to arrange a enterprise; you would register on-line inside a couple of hours. They’ve invested closely in digital infrastructure and connectivity, and so they’ve strengthened their tutorial ecosystem to offer the expertise wanted to assist startups.

We even have Tunisia. Algeria has Algeria Startup Ventures, with which we partnered a couple of years in the past. South Africa has numerous interventions. Final 12 months, we had been hosted by Kenya for our Annual Gathering. Kenya could be very bullish about driving the AI ecosystem and supporting startups constructing options in AI. So, we have now totally different international locations implementing insurance policies and interventions for the ecosystem.