We’re proud to share that SuperReturn has named Baobab Network Emerging Manager of the Year for Africa.
This recognition reflects the focus and hard work our team has put in throughout the year: supporting founders, refining our platform, and pushing to raise the bar for early-stage investing across the continent.
A huge thank you to our founders, partners, and community for believing in what we’re building. Onwards and upwards!
Why we're investing in South Africa.
With a $400B+ economy, 85% of adults banked, $159B+ in digital payments per year, and e-commerce growing 20%+ annually, South Africa is the most industrialised large economy in Africa - with the systems, talent, and depth to build companies that scale.
That's why we've been investing here for years:
@trycommunitywolf - building the next generation of tech infrastructure for South Africa's security industry.
@photon_data - helping companies unlock insights from fragmented, siloed data.
Thola Energy - building the decision layer for off-grid energy infrastructure.
Petl Pay - the fintech and payroll layer for distributed teams.
Over the last year, South Africa has hit a turning point. SA received its first credit rating upgrade in 20 years when S&P Global lifted it from BB- to BB, and local currency debt moved up to BB+.
The drivers: higher fiscal revenue, structural reforms, and real signs that government debt is stabilising. An even more compelling region to invest in.
Baobab Network is long South Africa, and we're excited for what's ahead. 🇿🇦
Congratulations to the @emaisha_pay (Baobab ‘24) team on being selected for the 10th cohort of the @googleforstartups Accelerator Africa!
The team is using AI to tackle critical challenges in agritech, building digital financial infrastructure for agro-traders - helping them digitise payments, manage supply chains, and unlock financing using trade data instead of traditional collateral.
Well done to Sserubiri J. Uhuru and the entire team 🚀
Read more by clicking the link in our bio
🚀 Portfolio company, Creditchek (Baobab '24) is hiring!
Full-Stack Engineer (Mid–Senior level) - 🔗 in the bio
If you’re looking to join a fast-growing team building critical financial infrastructure, this is a great opportunity.
Why we're investing in PropTech in Africa
Real estate in Africa is booming - the market is projected to grow from ~$15 trillion in 2025 to nearly $22 trillion by 2029. Yet so much of how property is bought, sold, built, and financed still happens offline, with very little data underpinning it.
We were early to this opportunity.
In 2020, we backed ConDigital, supporting their vision to bring construction workflows in Ethiopia online. More recently, we invested in nesti, who are empowering a new generation of homeowners in Kenya by rethinking access, affordability, and trust.
As we go deeper into PropTech in 2026, our thesis is anchored around four areas:
1. Embedded fintech and payments - Infrastructure inside the property value chain: supplier payments, rent collection, capital flows, KYC, and reconciliation.
2. The mortgage asset class - Giving lenders the tools to underwrite and service mortgages with confidence for young professionals and families.
3. Construction and supply-chain digitisation - Software that cuts cost overruns, improves timelines, and brings transparency to a historically opaque value chain.
4. Property data and AI - Converting messy, unstructured data into pricing, risk, and liquidity signals - the missing layer for mortgages, insurance, and institutional capital.
Africa doesn't have a real estate demand problem. It has an infrastructure problem, and that's what we're backing.
Almost two years ago, Baobab Network acquired Reflector, one of South Africa's leading positioning and branding agencies. Today, it's being reborn as Baobab Labs - our new division focused on positioning, go-to-market strategy, branding, and communication, now open beyond our portfolio for the first time.
Over a decade of investing in African startups, one pattern kept repeating: the companies that moved fastest weren't always the best funded. They were the ones with the clearest positioning and the most distinct identities. Labs exists because that insight deserved its own home.
We're still backing Africa's best early-stage tech founders through Baobab Network. Labs is for the builders who understand that having a great product is only half the battle - the rest is having a story that actually makes sense in a crowded market.
Ready to sharpen your positioning and build an iconic brand?
Get in touch:
[email protected]
or via the link in our bio.
@voveid ID (Baobab '24) was featured in @financesnewshebdo , and the interview is a great window into what Khalid and the team are building: a reusable digital identity layer for Africa & MENA, where compliance moves as fast as growth.
"Verify once, use everywhere." - no small feat when every market runs on different documents, different rules, and different infrastructure.
Read the full feature by clicking the link in our bio.
@colis.ma (Baobab 2023) has opened its first international hub in Brussels, marking a major step in the company’s expansion beyond Morocco. 🇧🇪
This new hub gives the team a direct operational presence in Europe, strengthening control over cross-border deliveries and improving speed and service quality for customers and businesses alike.
Congratulations Issam Darui and the Colis.ma Team!
@lemonadepayment Payments (Baobab '24) was recently featured in VOA Venture Partners' "Bridging Borders with Africa" series - an in-depth look at mobile money's evolution across the continent and the infrastructure being built to solve its biggest challenges.
While mobile money has transformed financial access across Africa, fragmented payment rails, privacy concerns, and cross-border friction still create significant barriers. CEO Mark Machiri Kihara explains how Lemonade is tackling these issues head-on - unifying mobile money, bank transfers, and digital wallets into a single privacy-first platform that makes domestic and cross-border payments seamless.
Mark, Andrew, and the team are building the connective tissue for Africa's digital economy, and we're proud to back them all the way!
Read the full feature by clicking the link in our bio.
Congratulations to @peercarbon_earth (Baobab '24) on being named Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF)’s first Accredited Partner in Africa. 🌍
PCAF is a global initiative that sets the standard for how financial institutions measure and disclose greenhouse gas emissions linked to lending and investment activity.
PeerCarbon is building the emissions data infrastructure that enables African banks, lenders, and investors to calculate and substantiate financed emissions in line with the PCAF Global GHG Accounting Standard; producing audit-ready outputs that can be used for reporting, risk, capital allocation, and emissions management - helping institutions act on climate data at scale.
With PCAF’s global network spanning hundreds of financial institutions, this is a major milestone for the team, and an important step for climate accountability across African finance.
🔗 Read more by clicking the link in our bio.
@creditchek_hq (Baobab ’24) just shared their 2025 Year in Review, and what a year it was!
From new collaborations and acquisitions to major milestones, the team is laying strong foundations for what comes next.
Well done Kingsley Ibe, Lionel Orishane and the entire CreditChek team. We’re excited to see what 2026 holds.
🔗 Read the full review by clicking the link in our bio.
