Good morning.
Angela here.
If you are building SaaS in Africa and trying to push past the early chaos into real scale, you already know this truth. The breakthroughs come from unglamorous decisions made early, again and again.
This week’s playbook is about two of those signals.
One is a startup quietly fixing a problem most people ignore.
The other is a fund proving that local conviction is finally showing up in serious numbers.
Let’s get into it.
Bluworks and the power of building for the real workforce
In 2022, two founders in Cairo, Hussein Wahdan and Farah Osman, noticed a problem almost every business lives with but few talk about.
Managing blue-collar teams.
Manufacturing. Retail. Logistics. Hospitality. Construction. These teams keep the economy moving. Yet behind the scenes, operations are held together by paper attendance sheets, payroll delays, compliance stress, and managers who have no real visibility.
Bluworks made a clear call. This should not be normal.
Instead of building another generic HR tool, they built a platform designed around frontline reality in Egypt. Attendance. Scheduling. Payroll. Compliance. All in one system. Built with local regulations in mind. Built for how work actually happens on the ground.
No Western HR copy and paste. Just practical systems for the teams that drive real revenue.
That focus is now getting strong conviction from investors. Bluworks has closed a 1M dollar Seed round backed by A15, Enza Capital, Beltone Venture Capital, and Acasia Ventures. That mix tells you something important. This is not a “nice to have” product. It is infrastructure.
What SaaS founders should learn from Bluworks
First, pick painful problems.
HR for blue-collar teams is not trendy. But it is expensive, widespread, and deeply broken. Those are the problems that sustain long-term SaaS businesses.
Second, local context is the moat.
Bluworks wins because it is built for Egypt’s rules, workflows, and constraints. Global competitors struggle here. That is not a weakness. It is the advantage.
Third, infrastructure scales quietly.
Products that sit at the operational core do not need hype to grow. Once embedded, they are hard to replace and easy to expand.
If you are building SaaS and asking yourself what investors really mean by “defensible”, look here. Solve something operational. Solve it locally. Solve it deeply.
Chui Ventures and why African capital finally feels different
Some weeks remind me why staying bullish on African tech still makes sense. This is one of those weeks.
Chui Ventures just closed their first fund at 17.3M dollars, beating their original 10M dollar target. But the number is not the most interesting part.
Ninety percent of the investors are African.
Sixty percent are African women.
That is a real shift.
Since 2023, Chui has backed 18 companies across five countries. These are not abstract ideas. They are products solving day-to-day problems.
PricePally improving grocery access in Nigeria.
Leta fixing logistics in Kenya.
Uncover building skincare for African women.
Flex Finance helping SMEs stay on top of finances.
The measurable impact matters.
Over 1,200 direct jobs.
Over 40,000 indirect jobs.
More than 285,000 people gaining access to financial services.
One story stood out. A woman going from earning 40,000 Kenyan shillings a month to managing hundreds of insurance agents and earning nearly half a million. That is what real scale looks like. Quiet, structural, and life-changing.
Led by Joyce-Ann Wainaina, Chui is now preparing Fund II at 60M dollars, expanding into North Africa and doubling down on fintech, B2B software, digital commerce, and climate tech.
What this means for SaaS founders raising capital
First, the ecosystem is maturing.
Funds like Chui are not betting on vibes. They want clear problems, real traction, and numbers that hold up.
Second, African capital is starting to trust African operators.
That changes the fundraising conversation. It rewards founders who understand local users and can explain their business clearly.
Third, fundraising is easier when your business makes sense.
Solve something expensive. Show usage that grows. Know your numbers. There is no shortcut around this.
If you are planning to raise in 2025, now is the time to get serious about fundamentals.
Three practical ideas to apply this week
First, audit your product for operational value.
Ask yourself where your tool removes daily friction for a user. If the answer is vague, you have work to do.
Second, localize on purpose.
Pricing, workflows, support, and integrations should reflect where your users actually live and work.
Third, track one metric that truly matters.
Not everything. One thing. Usage frequency. Time saved. Revenue recovered. Make it undeniable.
Before you go
If you want to be around founders building at this level, that is exactly why Smarter SaaS Growth exists.
Inside, we break down plays like these in detail. What to copy. What to avoid. How to adapt them to your market. We also bring founders together who are already thinking beyond survival and aiming for real scale.
If you want your brand in front of over 3,000 founder operators and professionals who care about what they are building, you can book a meeting with me. We keep this intentional and focused.
If you want updates on upcoming events, private sessions, and founder meetups, join our events calendar.
And if you want daily founder stories and weekly playbook breakdowns, follow my personal LinkedIn page and the Smarter SaaS Growth LinkedIn page. That is where I share the thinking behind the scenes.
That is all for this week.
If this helped you think differently about your product, forward it to one founder who needs to hear it. The best ideas spread quietly.
Until next time,
Angela
Smarter SaaS Growth