The University of Cape Town has produced the most CEOs of tech startups in Africa. TechCabal requested alumni and business consultants about the establishment’s secret sauce
According to Africa: The Big Deal information, the University of Cape Town (UCT) leads the continent’s tertiary establishments relating to alumni who turned CEOs of African tech startups. The Cape Town-based establishment has produced 74 CEOs, adopted by The American University in Cairo and the University of Oxford.
Of the high 12 universities to supply the most CEOs, solely 42% have been African establishments, with the majority comprising US colleges, adopted by the UK and France. Some of these US establishments embody Stanford, Harvard and MIT.
Understanding the pattern
According to Thando Hlongwane, co-founder and CEO of fintech startup Lipa Payments and an alumnus, UCT supplies entry to startup ideation initiatives, incubation amenities, and connecting college students with the broader Cape Town startup ecosystem. Hlongwane added that ideation initiatives reminiscent of UCT Flux allowed college students to construct new startups utilizing a design considering methodology.
“UCT had an enabling environment [for building tech products]. The information systems department had an innovation lab I was a part of. We had access to 3D printers, virtual reality machines, and a whole lot of other tech, which allowed us not only to ideate but also create,” Hlongwane informed TechCabal. “The alumni ecosystem of the school was also quite supportive, and through it, I met Jason Basel, founder of Akro, who today remains a mentor of mine and helped one of my other startups, Zaio, raise its first round of funding.”
Anda Ngcaba is the innovation director at UCT’s Financial Innovation Hub, and an important half of his job is main the hub’s innovation actions and pre-incubation packages. Students are given bursaries to cowl dwelling bills and incentivise them to deal with constructing their startups. The hub additionally places the startups in contact with their community of traders.
“We have about five research work streams ranging from blockchain applications to financial inclusion. I work hand in hand with the students to help them find ideas within their research and commercialise it. We either try and prepare the students that come out of the course for entrepreneurship or if we see that this person isn’t very entrepreneurial driven, we then try to find them a spot in one of our startups or in the broader ecosystem,” Ngcaba informed TechCabal. Seven startups from the hub have raised R16 million in grant and fairness funding in the final three years.
More entrepreneur improvement initiatives
UCT Flux is one other entrepreneur-development initiative by the college. Flux is an entrepreneurial enterprise recreation hosted by UCT Careers Service (CS) with the assist of its employer companions. It permits college students from all levels and years of examine to compete in groups to unravel real-world challenges and practise their strategic-thinking abilities. It makes use of the rising pattern of gamification to assist educate studentpreneurs the abilities concerned in enterprise planning and methods to pitch an concept.
During the full-day problem, groups obtain recommendation from consultants in Strategy, Marketing, HR and Finance. They then compile a enterprise technique and answer, which they pitch to a panel of judges. Three groups are chosen as finalists and sq. off in a ultimate 90-second elevator pitch, after which the winner is chosen.
“[FLUX] encourages [students] to think about questions such as, ‘Where is the funding going to come from?’ or ‘What are the business’s fixed costs?’. Although they have great business ideas, these are some practical questions that many students have never even contemplated. This makes the event an amazing learning opportunity,” mentioned David Buckham, co-founder of Monocle, one of the occasion’s sponsors.
There’s nonetheless room for enchancment
Despite producing the most CEOs, South African establishments like UCT nonetheless have some option to go. According to information by Statista, Nigeria has the most quantity of startups on the continent, with 3,360 entities, adopted by Kenya with 1,000 and South Africa with 660.
South Africa additionally lags in attracting enterprise capital [pdf], drawing $550 million in funding in 2022 by means of 78 startups. This determine is dwarfed by Nigeria’s $976 million from 180 funded startups, Egypt’s $812 million from 131 startups and Kenya’s $574 million from 90 startups.
According to Clive Butkow, CEO and companion at Kalon Ventures, a Johannesburg-based enterprise capital agency, the South African startup ecosystem would profit considerably from founders who’re apt at the technical and enterprise features of operating a startup. Butkow believes South African universities produce the continent’s brightest technical and engineering expertise. However, to complement this, he believes there must be extra emphasis on educating college students entrepreneurship in order that their options change into scalable and fundable startups.
“I receive numerous pitch decks from student-founded startups, and what is constant in these is the lack of clarity on how exactly the product would make sense business-wise,” Butkow informed TechCabal on a name. “To build a venture capital attractive startup takes more than just writing code. Universities must also enforce unit economics, accounting and other aspects in their course outlines. Combining top-tier engineering and top-tier business talent would elevate the South African startup ecosystem to another level.”
This view is shared by Ndabenhle Ntshangase, an alumnus of UCT and co-founder and CEO of AirStudent Travel. Students could make journey bookings collectively and entry group charges on this group reserving platform.
“My course gave me foundational skills of building a technology product, but what also matters, and perhaps was not fostered enough, are in-depth skills on the technical and business side of building a startup,” mentioned Hlongwane to TechCabal.
Hlongwane cites features like enterprise improvement, advertising and marketing, and gross sales as areas that the faculty’s curriculum might higher tackle. With entrepreneur assist buildings like the Financial Innovation Hub and Flux, it shouldn’t be stunning why UCT leads the means in churning out tech CEOs. However, challenges like a scarcity of assist for non-technical features of tech entrepreneurship nonetheless should be addressed. These challenges restrict the establishment’s true potential in producing CEOs in phrases of high quality and high quality, a hurdle which, if eliminated, would additional propel the establishment forward of its friends on the continent.
…. to be continued
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