VC Money Or Not, Is The Timing Finally Right For African SaaS Startups?

After working for the startupping industry in San Francisco, Yoann Berno—an American national—decided to take on a new, more meaningful venture challenge, one that warranted his move to Africa in pursuit of an entrepreneurial endeavor. 

A few years after leaving his home country, Yoan had founded and built Flowigo to deliver, from Kenya, software technology to solar energy companies operating in six African countries—including Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, and Senegal. 

Despite successfully helping these renewable energy firms grow and control their operations better, Flowigo’s streaks with POS mobile apps, data dashboards, databases, and digital integrations amounted to all usefulness and inspiration but no growth. According to Yoan, the results were “deceiving”, and the hockey-stick growth chart does not apply to the African software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry.