Botswana: A Veiled Tech Wetland Looking To Fling Wide Its Floodgates

Per Partech’s 2021 report on venture capital investments into African tech, funding into countries outside Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, and Kenya—The Big Four—amounted to USD 1.4 B, signifying a 382 percent increase from 2020’s not-so-impressive records. 

In an attempt to diversify, VCs are considering more underserved economies in the continent, giving way for about 29 other African countries to join the ongoing tech boom. The new wave sees the once-was outlier markets of Zambia, Morocco, Congo, and Namibia, among others, become hunting grounds for fairer-priced deals and higher-quality startups. 

Due to the overarching dominance of the continent’s four largest VC-backed tech markets, South Africa is the ruler of Southern Africa, just as easily as Egypt is king in the North. However, the Southern African region is active enough to allow smaller economies some of the fanfare. 

One such economy is Botswana. With a population of 2.3 million growing at 2.1 pe...