The Unseen Systems Shaping Africa's Next SaaS Giants

Hey hey, good morning.

Angela here.

If you’re building SaaS in Africa, you already know growth here is different. Slower when it comes to infrastructure, unpredictable when it comes to regulation and extremely rewarding for founders who know how to read the patterns everyone else ignores.

This week, I want to walk you through two stories. Not hype. Not noise. Real systems. Real signals. Real execution.

These are the kinds of stories I break down. Think of this like a friend pulling you aside and saying: “Here is the thing everyone else is missing.”

Let’s get into it.

Kenya never woke up one morning with instant banking. It was built step by step before anyone cared.

Here is the timeline that matters:

2013
Banks were stuck with slow interbank transfers. Meanwhile, M-Pesa was moving money in seconds. Instead of trying to compete with a wallet they couldn’t beat, the Kenya Bankers Association decided to build a shared system that allowed everyone to win.

2015
Integrated Payments Service Limited was formed.

Late 2016
PesaLink quietly went live.

2017
Kenya had true 24 hour instant bank to bank transfers. No flashy launch. No loud marketing. Just clean execution in the background.

Fast forward almost ten years
PesaLink is now integrated across 80 plus institutions and quietly powers a huge portion of Kenya’s digital payments. Mobile apps. USSD. Bank to bank rails. Most people use it without even realizing it.

And now the big shift
If the proposed integration between M-Pesa and PesaLink goes through, Kenya could have one shared pipe linking the country’s dominant wallet to 39 banks. That means fewer transaction hops, lower costs, more reliability and a system that starts to look like India’s UPI or Nigeria’s NIP.

Why does this matter for SaaS founders?
Because PesaLink is the perfect example of the type of infrastructure that changes entire industries without making noise. The big lesson is that the most profitable SaaS opportunities are often built on top of quiet systems like this. Not the flashy products everyone is chasing.

Here are your takeaways:

1. Build for the rails, not around them.
When a new pipe is created in the ecosystem, it always creates new opportunities. Cheaper transfers mean new pricing models. Faster transfers mean new automation. Fewer hops mean more accurate data.

2. Watch infrastructure more than you watch competitors.
The founders who win are the ones who anticipate what becomes possible when the pipes expand. Not the ones who obsess over who copied their UI.

3. Look for the boring problems.
Every high growth SaaS company in Africa solved a problem that looked unglamorous at first. KYC verification. Settlement automation. Multi currency reconciliation. Fraud reduction. These are the real money makers.

4. Build in a way that allows partnerships later.
PesaLink works today because it was built to integrate from day one. If your SaaS cannot plug in, you will struggle to scale.

Quiet infrastructure creates loud opportunities. Study it.

Last week, Latitude59 announced the 30 startups chosen for the Kenya Pitch Competition. They were selected from 222 applications across 27 countries. That alone is impressive, but the real signal is the type of founder that showed up this year.

This wasn’t just creativity. It was technical depth plus ambition.

Some highlights:

Acre Insights
Building AI tools that make carbon verification easier, faster and more accurate.

Balozy
Helping people find trusted service providers in a market where trust is often the biggest friction.

Koolboks
Solar powered cold chain designed for regions where electricity feels like a suggestion.

RUN
AI powered logistics for markets where predictive modelling isn’t optional. It is survival.

Loop Pet Food
Circular pet food innovation built to reduce waste and redesign supply chains.

Across fintech, climate, agriculture, energy and health, one clear pattern emerged. African founders are building with global levels of rigor. User research. Data. Field work. Months of real validation before writing a single line of code.

Liisi Org, CEO of Latitude59, said the quality this year was incredible. She is right. You can feel the shift. The founders who are coming up now aren’t just building startups. They’re building categories.

This week (in progress), the top ten pitch live in Nairobi. And if last year is any indication, the companies you see on that stage will shape entire markets over the next decade.

What does this mean for SaaS founders on the continent?

1. The bar has officially gone up.
You are no longer competing on ideas. You are competing on rigor. Research. Repetition. Execution.

2. Depth beats noise every single time.
The companies that stood out weren’t the loudest. They were the ones who could articulate real user problems backed by real data.

3. The next African giants will come from founders who build for complexity.
Climate. Infrastructure. Logistics. Regulation. The continent rewards founders who go into the hard problems instead of running away from them.

4. There is a clear shift toward global ambition.
Africa is no longer building “African versions” of existing products. It is building original products shaped by real pain points that global markets are now watching.

Study the founders who are doing the real work. They are showing you the future.

Shorter onboarding wins. If users cannot understand how to use your product in the first two minutes, you will lose adoption. Simplify flows until a seven year old can complete them.

Your pricing model is part of your product. Do not copy US pricing structures. Price based on local purchasing power, usage patterns and volatility.

Distribution beats features. You can have the best product, but if you do not have a repeatable distribution channel, you do not have a company.

If you are building SaaS in Africa and you want:

Better tools
A stronger network
Access to founders actually building at scale
Real growth frameworks you can apply this week
A community that feels like a place you belong

Then you should join the Smarter SaaS Growth community. I speak to founders every day and the number one thing they tell me is that scaling alone in Africa feels like walking in the dark. It doesn’t have to. If you’re reading this, great! You’re already a part of it. Make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter here

If you want your brand in front of over 3,000 founder operators and professionals, book a meeting with me. We only work with teams who are serious about growth.

If you want to stay ahead of events, workshops and founder meetups across the continent, join our events calendar.

And if you want the founder stories, playbooks and breakdowns that go deeper than what I post here, follow my personal LinkedIn page and the Smarter SaaS Growth page. That is where I share daily insights.

I hope this playbook gave you clarity, direction and one or two ideas you’ll act on immediately. I’ll see you on the next issue.

Cheers,
Angela