Chidiebere Onyishi
As Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem continues to mature and expand, 2025 has been a year of remarkable insights from the continent’s business leaders.
From fintech pioneers to climate tech innovators, these entrepreneurs are not just building companies, they’re reshaping Africa’s economic future. Here are 25 inspiring quotes that capture their vision, resilience, and determination.
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On Innovation and Vision
Victor Asemota, Africa Partner at Alta Global Ventures / Founder, SwiftaCorp (Nigeria/Ghana)
Victor top building for Silicon Valleyโs shadow. The most profound market gaps in Africa arenโt where global tech is looking; theyโre in the nuanced spaces between our formal and informal economies.
The winner in 2025 wonโt be the one with the most VC dollars, but the one whose technology becomes invisible – woven so seamlessly into the daily fabric of peopleโs lives that it ceases to be โtechโ and simply becomes โhow things are done.”
Stated during a keynote address titled “Beyond the Hype: Architecting the Next Decade” at the Future of Fintech Africa Summit in Lagos, Nigeria, in March 2025.
2. Tony Elumelu, Founder, Heirs Holdings & Tony Elumelu Foundation (Nigeria)
“The future of Nigeria won’t be written in far-off boardrooms but is being shaped by passionate entrepreneurs who refuse to settle for average.”
From a November 2025 statement emphasizing local entrepreneurship as the key to Nigeria’s transformation.
3. Tony Elumelu, Founder, Tony Elumelu Foundation (Nigeria)
“Africa’s transformation won’t be led by aid but by empowering the next generation of African entrepreneurs with tools, funding, training, and networks.”
March 2025 speech at the Tony Elumelu Foundation event, advocating for entrepreneurship-led development over traditional aid models.
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4. Victor Asemota, Africa Partner at Alta Global Ventures / Founder, SwiftaCorp (Nigeria/Ghana)
โThe best African tech solutions aren’t born in boardrooms debating ‘TAM.’ They’re born from a founderโs personal frustration – the visceral โThis is broken and I cannot take it anymoreโ moment. That anger, when channeled, builds better than any business plan.โ
5. Olumide Olayinka, Partner, Prime Startups (Nigeria)
“We get excited about the innovative idea, but we are passionate about the commercial success that follows because that’s where true, sustainable impact lies. Every job created, every market expanded, every dollar raised, is a testament to the sheer potential of African entrepreneurship and our unwavering commitment to helping it thrive.”
July 2025 media briefing ahead of Lagos Startup Week 2025, emphasizing the importance of moving beyond ideas to execution.
6. Olumide Olayinka, Partner, Prime Startups (Nigeria)
“When we started ten years ago, the ecosystem was just taking shape. Today, we’ve helped nurture countless ventures into market leaders. Our theme, ‘Disrupting the Nexus,’ reflects how Lagos has become a hub for innovation and our commitment to shaping the next decade by turning brilliant ideas into commercially viable businesses.”
July 2025 reflection on Lagos Startup Week’s journey and evolution.
7. Lesly Marange, Founder & CEO, Glytime Foods (Zimbabwe)
“Entrepreneurship is not for the faint-hearted. We need to go to war regardless of how rough the terrain is.”
July 2025 statement about the challenges facing African entrepreneurs and the mindset required to succeed.
On Social Impact and Empowerment
8. Ayoola Dominic, Co-Founder & CEO, Koolboks (Nigeria/France)
“Every day, I meet small business owners, mostly women, who are forced to throw away unsold food or burn diesel just to stay open. For them, cooling is not about convenience. It’s about survival, dignity, and income. This raise allows us to deepen our reach, build locally, and put power literally back in their hands.”
August 2025 statement following Koolboks’ $11 million Series A funding round, highlighting the social impact of solar-powered refrigeration.
9. Dr. Awele Elumelu, CEO, Avon Medical Practice (Nigeria)
“Nigeria’s growing population means we’re sitting on a goldmine; a massive market, future workforce, and generation of innovators waiting for someone to believe in them.”
August 2025 speech emphasizing the opportunity within Nigeria’s demographic growth.
10. Jesse Moore, CEO, M-KOPA (Kenya)
“People are extremely economically active even if they’re not formally employed. African ‘everyday earners’ [will] reach 1 billion by 2034.”
September 2025 statement at the Next 3 Billion event during UNGA, reframing how we think about Africa’s informal economy workers.
On Market Opportunity and Growth
11. Tony Elumelu, Founder, Heirs Holdings (Nigeria)
“Electricity is the oxygen of modern economies. Without it, Africa’s dreams of digital transformation would suffocate.”
July 2025 statement at Afreximbank meetings, highlighting infrastructure as critical to Africa’s tech future.
12. Ayoola Dominic, Co-Founder & CEO, Koolboks (Nigeria/France)
“It took us a while to understand the market and achieve product-market fit. We think we have it now and are ready to scale. All the while we’ve been building the tech and understanding the market, but we’re ready to scale.”
September 2025 interview with TechPoint Africa about Koolboks’ evolution and plans for expansion.
13. Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Founder, Future Africa (Nigeria)
“Build for the 94%.”
October 2025 statement reflecting his investment philosophy of focusing on solutions that serve the majority of Africans, not just the elite few.
14. Olumide Olayinka, Partner, Prime Startups (Nigeria)
“The spark we saw ten years ago has ignited a fire, and now, it’s time to direct that flame strategically. The next decade will be about unlocking the full, undeniable power of African ingenuity, taking our innovations from local brilliance to global leadership.”
July 2025 vision statement for the next decade of African innovation.
On Building Sustainable Businesses
15. Jesse Moore, CEO, M-KOPA (Kenya)
“If we’re not making people’s lives better, we’re going to be out of business in a minute.”
2025 podcast interview emphasizing customer-centricity and impact as core to M-KOPA’s business model.
16. Victor Asemota, Africa Partner at Alta Global Ventures / Founder, SwiftaCorp (Nigeria/Ghana)
โWe donโt have a talent shortage in Africa. We have an experience funnel problem. We must create the environments where our brilliant first-time builders can make their mistakes, learn, and become the seasoned architects our ecosystem desperately needs.โ
17. Jesse Moore, CEO & Co-Founder, M-KOPA (Kenya)
“We are thrilled to make the FT Fastest Growing Companies in Africa list for the 4th year in a row. Our growth continues to accelerate, and we now onboard a new customer to M-KOPA every 9 seconds. Thanks to Africa’s digital payment rails, we now receive 15 payments per second, which in turn creates a unique and deep dataset to understand the financial needs of everyday earners. We are still in the early stages of scaling, with an addressable market that will surpass 1 billion people in Africa by 2040.”
Speaking in July 2025 about M-KOPA’s continued growth and the massive opportunity ahead for serving Africa’s “everyday earners.”
18. Ayoola Dominic, Co-Founder & CEO, Koolboks (Nigeria/France)
“The idea for Koolboks was sparked by cooling boxes at French campsites.”
May 2025 interview with Bloomberg about the unexpected origins of a company now serving 600 million people without electricity access.
19. Uwem Uwemakpan, Head of Investment, Launch Africa Ventures (Nigeria)
“The companies getting funded aren’t competing in basic payments or lending anymore; they’re building regtech, embedded finance, B2B trade finance infrastructure that benefits from fintech’s maturation.”
2025 analysis on the evolution of African fintech beyond basic services.
20. Jesutofunmi Adedoyin, Funding Tracker Analyst
“Cleantech overtook fintech as the most-funded sector, highlighting investor interest in sustainable innovation over traditional African fintech bets.”
2025 funding analysis showing the shift in investor priorities toward climate solutions.
On Women in Entrepreneurship
21. Isioma Utomi, Lead, Women Who Launch (Nigeria)
“Today, half of our participants are women, and we’re pushing for even more representation at the leadership, investment, and policy levels.”
July 2025 statement at Lagos Startup Week media event about gender inclusion in entrepreneurship.
22. Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, Founder & CEO, soleRebels (Ethiopia)
“At soleRebels we believe that people around the world want much more from their brands. They want to see that the company that makes the products cares as much about the people who make their products as they do about reducing their footprint on the world. We believe that concern for our workers is real style and something that never goes out of fashion!”
Statement from 2025 reflecting her philosophy on ethical business and fair trade practices.
On Africa’s Global Potential
23. Olumide Olayinka, Partner, Prime Startups (Nigeria)
“Our journey over the last ten years has been about more than just finding promising startups; it’s about moulding them into resilient, market-leading companies.”
July 2025 media briefing emphasizing the shift from discovery to development in the African startup ecosystem.
24. Byron du Plessis, CEO, MultiChoice South Africa
“Adding Kiswahili as a navigation option makes Showmax even more accessible and personal to a large market segment in Africa.”
February 2025 statement about localization strategy for streaming services in Africa.
25. Jesse Moore, CEO, M-KOPA (Kenya)
“The principle is we can help make everyday earners’ lives better, or in M-KOPA we say make progress, in their lives with the financial access and the digital access while at the same time building a business that will be more than sustainable, will be profitable, and it will provide adequate returns to shareholders and lenders.”
2025 podcast interview explaining M-KOPA’s “no tradeoffs” philosophy of combining social impact with commercial sustainability.
These quotes from 2025 reveal a maturing African entrepreneurial ecosystem characterized by several key themes: a shift from aid-dependent models to entrepreneurship-led development, increased focus on serving the mass market rather than just the elite, growing emphasis on climate solutions and sustainability, recognition of the importance of execution over ideas alone, and commitment to inclusive growth that empowers women and underserved communities.
