Building the operating system for Africa's small businesses
Across Africa, the corner shop, the restaurant, the beauty salon, the market vendor. These are Africa's smallest businesses. They run on WhatsApp, memory, notebooks, and hustle.
And despite how hard the owners work, income quietly leaks out in ways that are hard to spot. An order gets lost in a WhatsApp thread. Stock runs out before anyone notices. A debt goes uncollected. A payment can't be matched to an order.
On a good month, a typical owner brings in $500 and takes home $50. Without those leaks, she could be closer to $130.
These businesses span retail, food, beauty, agriculture, creator economies, and FMCG distribution. Together they make up 97% of Africa's 44 million MSMEs and 64% of the workforce. And across the continent, a new generation of platforms is starting to build what these businesses have never had — an operating system that connects the order to the payment to the restock to the record.
Our new sector scan covers 60+ platforms across Africa building tools for microenterprises: from inventory and fulfilment to bookkeeping, order management, embedded finance, and business operations.
This webinar brings together founders, researchers, and ecosystem players to unpack what we found.
Our confirmed speakers include:
Jonathan Donner -Chief Knowledge Officer at Caribou
El Hadj Bah - Chief Policy Economist at the African Development Bank
Ritika Sood - Growth Strategist at Flowcart
Nick Markham - Investment Lead at Jobtech Alliance
Cathy Chepkemboi - Founder & CEO, Tushop
Together, we’ll explore:
why Africa’s smallest businesses matter so much for the continent’s economic future
what happens when micro-enterprises start using digital tools in their day-to-day operations
why many existing support models still miss the operational realities of running a business
and how platforms are increasingly becoming part of the infrastructure layer behind microenterprise growth
We’ll also hear directly from founders building in this space and the operators working closest to micro-enterprises on the ground.
If you work on MSMEs, digital economy, entrepreneurship, or livelihoods in Africa, this conversation will likely connect to questions you’re already thinking about.