Beyond Funding: How African Founders Can Build Businesses That Last

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Babacar Seck is the founder and managing partner of Askya Investment Partners, a seed investment fund that supports entrepreneurs building generational businesses across Africa. With experience in investment banking, strategy and operations, private equity, and venture capital, including at Proparco, the investment arm of the French Development Agency, Mr. Seck has developed a clear and assertive vision of what it takes to create value on the continent. At Askya Investment Partners, he focuses on supporting founders beyond capital, emphasizing the creation of sustainable businesses. His perspective challenges many dominant narratives in the African venture capital landscape, particularly regarding exits, liquidity, and the role of investors versus founders. His core belief is that it is time to create Tech Dangotes—sustainable businesses and ecosystems that improve the lives of Africans through productivity and economic inclusion.

I wanted to start the year by interviewing someone like Babacar, given his 360° experience on the continent. In this interview, Mr. Seck reflects on the state of the African startup ecosystem, the lessons learned from building businesses, the specific dynamics of Francophone African markets, and what it will take to create sustainable and high-impact businesses over the next decade.

Interview with Babacar Seck

About 2025 and the outlook for 2026

2025 was a year of uncertainty for the African venture capital ecosystem, particularly among LP and VC investors. Much of the discussion revolved around exits, liquidity, and whether venture capital truly works in Africa. I found this confusing, as it didn't align with what I was witnessing on the ground: companies creating real value, with strong fundamentals and a clear impact on customers.

In my opinion, the problem stems from the fact that we often evaluate our ecosystem using an inappropriate framework. African venture capital is not about exiting companies. Our goal is to create strong, sustainable businesses that generate value by building a better future. Exits are a consequence of value creation, not an end in themselves. When we focus on the wrong objective, we design unsuitable models and structures.

Despite the prevailing pessimism, I've seen many companies, including some we work with directly, build strong businesses and deliver tangible value to customers, the economy, and society. Fundraising volumes are a useful indicator of the size and health of the ecosystem, but they are not the ultimate goal.

Regarding his professional background and investment philosophy

I wouldn't describe my career as a transition to investing. Since university, my ambition has been to become an investor who helps build African champions contributing to the continent's development. I started in investment banking, but I quickly realized I wouldn't acquire the operational skills I needed there. That's why I moved into the corporate world, joining AXA as an advisor to the CEO, to understand how businesses actually operate, how they grow, and how decisions are made in practice, before returning to investing.

One of the most important lessons I've learned is that every person or organization possesses unique core competencies, in which they excel in a unique way, and they must leverage these to reach their full potential. For a startup, this means that the most important success factor is building the best team in the world to solve the problem it has set for itself, drawing on its unique understanding of that problem. 

Another important lesson, one that many well-funded startups underestimate, is that capital efficiency is a powerful competitive advantage. Too often, we assume that spending money to solve a problem will solve it faster. I've seen companies that were extremely capital-efficient in their early stages become inefficient as soon as they raise funds. Capital efficiency is simple to measure: how much recurring revenue do you generate per dollar raised? If you invest two dollars and generate one and a half dollars in revenue, it only makes sense if the margins are exceptional. Otherwise, it's not a healthy business. This discipline helps cultivate the right mindset for scaling efficiently.

Finally, I learned that building a small business is just as difficult as building a large one, and that a business can never be bigger than its market. How you define your market and your ambition determines the ceiling of what you can achieve.

Focus, product-market fit, and founders' discipline

The biggest risk for founders in emerging ecosystems is distraction. There is still enormous potential for basic digitization in Africa, which means founders must remain relentlessly focused on what customers truly want and are willing to pay for.

As Marc Andreessen once said, the only thing that matters for a new startup is achieving product-market fit. Everything else is secondary. Events, visibility, and recognition are meaningless if you haven't solved a real problem that customers are willing to pay you for. Traction isn't revenue; it's how customers acquire your solution, even if it's imperfect.

About Askya Investment Partners and its investment philosophy

Askya Investment Partners is an investment firm whose sole purpose is to be the most valuable partner to founders building generational African businesses that leverage technology and AI to solve the continent's biggest challenges. We define value not by the capital we provide, but by how we help the startups we partner with scale exponentially to become leaders in their sectors and build a better future for Africa.

One of our main strengths lies in our network, which spans investments, businesses, governments, universities, and more. What matters isn't just having contacts, but building relationships based on trust—people who answer the phone and take action when needed. This trust has been cultivated over many years and consistently delivers tangible results for our startups.

We also develop targeted capabilities to help startups access the resources they need to grow. All of this is based on a long-term vision. We work with founders who want to scale and grow over the long term. Internally, we call these founders " Tech Dangotes"—people who have the ambition and the ability to create African giants, solve Africa's problems, and improve the lives of Africans on a large scale.

Our approach isn't focused on any particular sector. We support startups that are developing the African AI value chain and those that are making our economies more productive and inclusive. Generally, we focus on three areas: access to capital and the cost of capital (financial inclusion), human capital, and business productivity (B2B platforms and applications). We're interested in companies that can have a significant impact on GDP, not limited tools that only serve small niches.

Impact and value creation

We define impact in structural terms. For example, a consumer payment company that digitizes cash helps reduce the cost of capital for the entire economy. This type of impact extends beyond the company itself.

A startup can be profitable and innovative, but if it doesn't make a significant contribution to a broader economic transformation, it will quickly reach a growth ceiling. We are looking for companies that have the potential to play a systemic role in the economy. 

Regarding exits, liquidity, and the role of venture capital firms

Exiting is the investor's job, not the founder's. The founder's responsibility is to build a bigger, better, and more profitable company that solves a specific problem. When the ecosystem focuses on short-term exits, we lose sight of value creation and limit the potential of our startups.

If we examine African startups founded between 2014 and 2016, many are now generating significant revenue, are profitable, and are valued at several billion dollars. This is how we should measure the ecosystem's progress. Even in the United States, the world's most liquid venture capital market, the average lifespan of a venture capital fund is 13 to 14 years. The institutional venture capital ecosystem in Africa is much younger.

If investors overvalue companies in later funding rounds and then reject realistic exit offers, that's an investor problem, not a founders' problem. Liquidity expectations must be based on market realities. Venture capital firms are minority investors; they cannot—and should not—pressure founders into exits according to an arbitrary timetable.

Aligning founders, venture capital firms, and limited partners

This tension surrounding exits stems largely from the frustration of limited partners (LPs, the investors in venture capital funds). The solution is not blame, but transparency. Fund managers must communicate honestly with limited partners about market realities and take responsibility for their investment decisions.

The ecosystem and returns will grow sustainably when founders, venture capital firms, and limited partners align on a single goal: to create strong, sustainable businesses that solve important problems. This alignment reduces friction and, ultimately, generates both impact and returns, even if it takes time.

The future of African entrepreneurship

I don't know what the future will look like, but I know we can shape it. I would like to see an ecosystem more focused on building long-term businesses, with founders empowered to take bold risks, more investors providing meaningful support, and LPs recognizing the realities of African markets.

From a regulatory perspective, I would also like to see more developed fund jurisdictions across the continent. Currently, African funds are too reliant on Mauritius or non-African jurisdictions. A more diverse jurisdictional landscape would reduce systemic risk and strengthen the ecosystem as a whole.

In conclusion… Refocusing the debate on venture capital in Africa

Babacar Seck's perspective challenges one of the most frequently repeated refrains in the African venture capital landscape today: the obsession with exits. His argument is not that liquidity is unimportant, but that it cannot precede value creation. By reaffirming that the primary objective is business development, not exit engineering, he reframes the ecosystem's growth challenges as a matter of timing, alignment, and discipline, rather than structural failure.

Three themes emerge. First, capital efficiency is not a constraint but a strategic advantage, particularly in markets where capital remains scarce. Second, market structure matters more than labels : smaller, less competitive markets can be powerful springboards if founders remain focused on product-market fit. Third, roles must be respected : founders create companies, venture capital firms manage exits, and investors must align their expectations with market realities.

Mr. Seck's vision is ultimately a long-term one: fewer distractions, fewer misaligned incentives, and more ambition to create businesses that matter at the macroeconomic level. If African venture capital is to mature sustainably, his argument suggests that this will not be achieved by seeking premature liquidity, but by patiently accumulating value.