Playing Point - Musings of an Emerging Market Investor

Great Value Is Rarely Missing — It's Just Hiding in Plain Sight

Playing Point — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 13:59:42 GMT

Great Value Is Rarely Missing — It’s Just Hiding in Plain Sight

It’s a surprisingly important question—and one many people never ask themselves. Some of the greatest companies ever built are obvious only in retrospect.

The Distribution Era

Playing Point — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:28:48 GMT

I was in a pitch meeting recently with a founder who had built something genuinely impressive. The product was technically differentiated. The problem they were solving was real, and they understood it at a depth that only comes from living inside it. I left the meeting convinced they were building the right thing.

What I wasn’t convinced of was that the…

The End of Average

Playing Point — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 20:05:02 GMT

Every so often a technology arrives that doesn’t simply improve the way we work; it changes the assumptions we’ve held for decades about how an entire category should function. The internet wasn’t really about websites, smartphones weren’t really about putting computers in our pockets, and I’m beginning to think artificial intelligence isn’t really abou…

The Best VC Conversations Don't Involve a Pitch

Playing Point — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:58:11 GMT

I had drinks with an entrepreneur last night. No deck, no ask, no agenda. Just two hours of conversation about what he was building, what he was seeing in his market, and where he thought things were going.

I left that conversation having learned more than I do from most pitches.

What to Build?

Playing Point — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 22:18:13 GMT

The Conversation That Started This

My son finished his A-Level studies last week. It’s one of those moments as a parent where you feel time compress — you watch a chapter close and another open right in front of you. His tutor and I chatted this afternoon for the final session, and as we wrapped up, he mentioned, almost in passing, that he reads Playing …

The Next Decade Will Reward Different Investors

Playing Point — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 16:21:51 GMT

Earlier this week I was speaking with a family office based in the UK and the GCC. Somewhere during the conversation, we arrived at the same conclusion: the world isn’t simply changing — it has already changed. Most investors just haven’t updated their mental models.

We spend a lot of time discussing events. Wars. Inflation. Artificial intelligence. Elec…

Africa's Perpetual Capital Loop

Playing Point — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 11:31:47 GMT

Every few months, someone asks some variation of the same question: why doesn’t more capital flow into African venture capital?

The answers usually focus on the supply side. We need more funds. More LPs. More development finance institutions. More family offices willing to allocate to the asset class.

The Age of the Billion-Dollar Solo Employee Company

Playing Point — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 12:39:48 GMT

Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire yesterday. The headline itself is less interesting than what it reveals. Every era creates a new ceiling for what a single entrepreneur can build. A trillionaire suggests that the ceiling has moved again. There are forces now in motion that I think most people are underestimating.

A Simple Index

Closest to the Fire, Furthest from the Heat

Playing Point — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 07:49:32 GMT

The people closest to Africa’s greatest investment opportunity are largely sitting it out.

That is the uncomfortable truth beneath every conversation about local capital, ecosystem maturity, and African ownership of African innovation.

The New Kingmakers

Playing Point — Sat, 30 May 2026 06:48:17 GMT

The Africa VC funding conversation in 2026 has become predictable in its pessimism.

Many DFIs are reassessing and pulling back, with their share of LP commitments declining meaningfully from boom-year highs. US institutional allocators are occupied elsewhere. The funding winter that began in 2023 is thawing, but in the process it has reconfigured itself …

Quiet Capital

Playing Point — Sat, 23 May 2026 06:02:06 GMT

The loudest story in African private capital right now is about who is leaving. Institutional LPs are stretched. US endowments are navigating their own domestic pressures. The DFIs are still here — BII, TripleJump, Proparco, IFC, AfDB — and they still operate from a fairly established playbook.

That framing, however, misses something important. While the…

Africa’s Markets Are Not “Unbanked.” They’re Underserved.

Playing Point — Sat, 16 May 2026 09:33:07 GMT

I recently sat down with Michael Williams on his recent Serve & Grow Podcast. We explored startups, financial systems, informal markets, and what building companies in Nigeria has taught me about how economies really work.

One theme kept resurfacing throughout our conversation: some of Africa’s biggest opportunities are hidden inside systems most people …

Something Is Happening in Africa — And the Signals Are Getting Hard to Ignore

Playing Point — Sat, 09 May 2026 09:02:58 GMT

There is something happening in Africa.

This week alone, four different developments pointed to a deeper shift taking place across the continent. On the surface, they may seem unrelated: investment activity from unexpected parts of the world, the growing interest of elite business schools, the excitement around the Dangote Refinery IPO, and the anticipat…

How Plan B Quietly Becomes the Real Business

Playing Point — Sat, 02 May 2026 06:01:03 GMT

Something I find fascinating is how people go through self-discovery to uncover the kind of work they are truly meant to pursue.

This applies to entrepreneurs deciding which startups to build. But it also applies to companies themselves. Many businesses begin with one idea, only to discover that their real success comes from a second idea—or an offshoot …

Playing the Long Game in a Short-Term Market

Playing Point — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 08:06:20 GMT

Let’s discuss playing the long game in a short-term market.

I’ll use three examples to ground this. One is physical infrastructure—the Dangote Refinery. The second is digital—OPay. And the third is what we’re seeing directly within the Beta.Ventures startup portfolio.

When you look at the markets we are building on the African continent, the biggest mista…

Europe Is a Museum. China Is the Present. Africa Is the Future—If It Can Close the Loop

Playing Point — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 07:52:39 GMT

I heard recently—coming out of the Bloomberg Africa Report podcast—something that stuck with me; paraphrased:

When you walk through Europe, it feels like you’re walking through a museum.

Allies, Capital, and Code: Africa’s New Alignment Decisions

Playing Point — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 08:11:29 GMT

The world is no longer globalizing—it is fragmenting.

Supply chains are being redrawn. Capital is becoming political. Technology stacks are diverging. And increasingly, countries and companies are being forced to choose sides—explicitly or implicitly.

Debt First. Equity Second. Africa Is Rewriting the Venture Capital Sequence.

Playing Point — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 06:01:39 GMT

Last week, I discussed the changing structure of venture capital.

But that’s not the real shift.

The real shift is happening underneath—
in the actual composition of venture itself.

A…

Venture Capital in Africa Isn’t Broken—It’s Misdesigned

Playing Point — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 06:56:40 GMT

We often talk about bringing more venture capital into Africa.

But that framing misses the point.

The real issue isn’t the amount of capital. It’s the model itself.

Venture capital, as it exists today, was designed for a very specific environment—one with deep pools of patient capital, mature ecosystems, and predictable exit pathways. Africa has none of th…

The New Playbook: Build an Audience, Then Build the Company.

Playing Point — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 07:14:21 GMT

In today’s environment, as investors, we constantly ask where the world is going.

What exists is this: more people have the same ideas.

In the age of non-technical founders vibe-cod…