Digital Transformation
Financing and growing the rails of Africa's digital economy
Digital is both an asset class and a lever. As an asset class, it is some of the most investable infrastructure on the continent: fintech and payment rails, broadband and connectivity, data centres, and the platforms that ride on them. The next wave is already visible: Africa has a fraction of the data-centre and compute capacity its digital economy will need, and the capital to close that gap, from governments and DFIs to global infrastructure investors, is forming now. As a lever, digital and data, increasingly powered by AI, are what make every other investment perform better and reach further, from business model transformation and revenue expansion to the way a programme reaches the last mile.
We help investors and DFIs prepare and grow digital-infrastructure and fintech investments, and we help institutions and the companies they back use data and AI to widen access, sharpen decisions, and create value.
On AI, we are deliberately contrarian: most of the market treats AI in Africa as a policy debate. We treat it as an investment discipline and a working tool inside investment teams and portfolios, and we can tell the difference between what is real, what is hype, and what is genuinely financeable.
How we work
On the investment side, we bring the same readiness and implementation discipline we bring to any sector, with a clear view of the unit economics, policy, technologies, business models, and infrastructure that make digital assets bankable and valuable. On the capability side, we help teams put data and AI to work responsibly inside the real economy from e-mobility to agtech and renewable energy. The test is the same as everywhere else: did it move capital, performance, or access.
- Digital infrastructure investment
- Data centres, broadband, and connectivity
- AI readiness and value creation
- Digital strategy and transformation
Where value and access meet
Digital is both an asset class and a lever. We connect rails, platforms, data, and AI so investments perform better and reach further across the market.
What is shaping Digital Transformation
Mobile money has made Africa the center of gravity for digital payments
Africa processed US$1.4 trillion in mobile money transactions in 2025, roughly two-thirds of the global total, with 1.2 billion registered accounts on the continent and merchant payments and bank-to-wallet interoperability now scaling fast.
The transaction volumes are real and concentrated in Africa, but value is migrating from simple person-to-person transfers toward merchant payments, interoperability, and embedded financial services. Sponsors and investors that can underwrite the next layer of use cases, rather than the wallet itself, are positioned where the growth and the margins are moving.
Instant payment systems and interoperability are becoming public infrastructure
36 inclusive instant payment systems are now live across 31 African countries, collectively processing 64 billion transactions worth nearly US$2 trillion in 2024, with half of these systems now interconnecting banks, mobile money operators, and fintechs across domains.
Digital public infrastructure is shifting from national pilots toward integrated, cross-domain, and increasingly cross-border rails. For governments, this is a financeable infrastructure mandate, not just a policy reform, and for investors, it changes the competitive map by lowering the cost of reaching and serving customers across previously fragmented systems.
Capital is back, but it is more selective and increasingly debt-led
African tech funding rebounded to US$4.1 billion in 2025, up 25% year on year, with venture debt surging 63% to a record US$1.6 billion and investors hardening expectations around governance, profitability, and clear paths to exit.
The era of growth at any cost is over. Digital businesses now have to demonstrate revenue quality, governance, and a credible route to profitability to access the non-dilutive and structured capital that is growing fastest. That raises the bar on diligence for investors and makes board-readiness and value-creation discipline a critical condition for both fundraising and exits.
Our digital economy work runs from the public infrastructure rails to the commercial platforms that ride on them. In Central Africa, we worked with a DFI to develop a digital transformation roadmap and attract investments into commercial banks and microfinance institutions to scale up digital lending in partnership with fintechs, mobile money operators, and payment infrastructure platforms. On the investment side, we led the commercial due diligence for a private-equity firm's investment in a major African fintech group and then supported the corporate transformation toward a 5X valuation push.
Let's move your next investment forward.
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