Building Back Home

Hey everyone,

Caleb here!

$90 billion

The size of Kenya’s economy.

Roughly 6% of Africa’s GDP.

50% more than all foreign aid sent to Africa last year. 

And most importantly, it's how much money Africa’s diaspora sent back home last year.

Diaspora remittances are a lifeline.

They keep families afloat, put food on tables, and send kids to school.

But - we’ve spent so much time counting the money that we’ve forgotten to count the people sending it.

Because the diaspora isn’t just Africa’s biggest funder.

It’s also Africa’s most powerful, untapped asset.

The richest Black country on earth

When we say “Africa’s diaspora”, we mean Africans abroad who can trace two generations of their families back to the continent.

By this definition, the African diaspora numbers 200 million people.

If that were a country, it would match the size of Nigeria - the world’s most populous black country. 

And this country’s pockets also run deep.

According to the UN, most immigrants send 10% of their income back to their home countries in remittances.

Doing the napkin math - if Africa’s diaspora sent $98 billion back home last year, they hold almost ~$1 trillion in wealth.

That's enough wealth to make it the richest black country on earth - and the 12th richest in the world.

So, why are the African diaspora so affluent? Well…

It’s rooted in the culture

For the African diaspora, your life comes with a lot of expectations.

Your parents or grandparents - having left their lives behind - have sacrificed everything for you to have better opportunities and an education.

From before I can remember, my parents suggested I become a surgeon when I grow up. 

But during a high school internship, I quickly learned that I didn't cope well with the sight of blood. 

…or the idea of studying for ten years and being on call all the time.

“We didn’t move to Australia for you to be average,” my Dad responded.

So, I went the only other acceptable pathway: Law.

Most second or third-generation diaspora reading this can relate to these expectations.

And these expectations prime diaspora for excellence.

In the United States, Nigerian-Americans are one of the most educated groups, with 65% of them holding a bachelor’s degree, and 29% holding advanced degrees on top. 

The African diaspora attend some of the best schools and move to the biggest cities like London, Paris and New York.

There, they learn, they earn, and they become highly talented.

And with all this talent, we need to ask:

Is money really the best Africa’s diaspora has to offer? 

When we take a flight over the Indian Ocean, we find a different answer.

India’s Return Ticket

In 2006, Sachin and Binny Bansal were software engineers at Amazon in the US.

They had moved to America a few years earlier on a familiar Indian travel route.

See, in India, if you’re smart, you go to an Institute of Technology.

And if you’re ambitious, you move to the US afterwards to work in tech.

Lots of Indians took this travel path. 

They’d work, then grow into managers or start their own companies.

The Bansal brothers saw what Jeff Bezos had seen in 1994: an explosion of Internet usage. 

And it was happening in India. 

So, Sachin and Binny took a different travel path: the return ticket back home.

And thats where they started Flipkart with 400,000 rupees ($4,700) - to start Amazon for India.

They started off selling books, then moved to smartphones and fashion.  

Eight years later, they crossed 100 million users, owning 50% of India’s smartphone market.

And today, Flipkart is one of India’s most valuable companies, worth $22 billion.

Sachin and Binny had an outsized impact building Flipkart.

About 44 Flipkart employees have gone on to start other Indian companies - minting six unicorns to date.

Sachin and Binny contributed more than remittances ever could to India - just by coming home to build.

There’s a playbook here for Africa. 

And it starts with a question:

What if Africa’s diaspora doubled down on the continent?

Coming to America Africa

In 2014, 22-year-old Iyin Aboyeji was at the University of Waterloo in Canada studying Law (see?).

There he met Nadayar Enegesi (Nigerian) and Brice Nkengsa (Cameroonian). They hit it off, and started working on projects together.

They built Bookneto - to let students buy past exam questions.

Then they built Fora, which helped African professionals get degrees abroad while they work.

Fora didn’t work out, but they spotted an opportunity.

Big tech companies needed more engineers than they could find. And in Nigeria many young people couldn’t find jobs.

So they started Andela - a startup that trained software engineers and hired them to global companies.

In 2014, Iyin made his move back to Nigeria as Andela grew.

Two years later, they raised $24 million from the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation.

In 2021 Andela became a unicorn, valued at $1.5 billion, and hiring people in over 80 countries.

When you dissect Africa’s biggest companies, many were founded by Africans who’d lived, studied or worked abroad.

And they all started with a simple but big decision: to go back home and build.

It’s India’s playbook working out here in Africa.  

But there's one challenge. 

Going home isn’t easy

It’s hard to leave a nice job, uproot your social life, and step into the less comfortable and more unknown motherland.

If I hadn’t been lucky enough to get a job in Ethiopia in 2019, I’d probably still be a lawyer in Australia (and my parents would be way less concerned for me). 

And this raises a real question:

How many Andelas, Jumia’s or Tech Safari’s never started because there was too much friction to even start? 

Our guess: probably a lot. 

We want to change that math and build the rails for Africa’s best diaspora talent to start…

Building Back Home

Introducing: Building Back Home (V0.1)

We’re picking 5 fantastic African diaspora and want to build high-impact ventures (companies, non-profits and unique projects).

Then connecting them to experts who have built big companies across Africa, to help them validate their ideas across one month. 

The thesis is simple.

If your idea works, you’re already halfway home. 

If it doesn’t, you’ve tested your hypothesis without losing anything.

By lowering the risk of return and helping diaspora validate early, we can unlock a new generation of diaspora talent.

And we have the right experts onboard to help.

If this works, we can grow a fresh flywheel of startups, jobs, and economic growth.

Because Africa doesn’t just need money - it needs its best minds working on its hardest problems.

Africa’s secret weapon

India proved that diaspora talent can turbocharge a country and an economy. 

Africa’s first returnee wave has already shown hints of the same.

And now, we’re going to make the second wave easier.

Today, we’re asking our community to take action and get involved.

• If you are an exceptional diaspora who should be a part of our first cohort, apply to join here. (Note: For this cohort, we’re just focusing on diaspora from the UK.)

• If you know someone who would be great for this, share the program with them

• And if you’re an ecosystem player who wants to get involved as we build this program (through expertise or funding), get in touch with us here.

What do you think would happen if 1% of Africa’s most talented diaspora decided to build back home?

Let me know here.

That’s it for this week. See you on Sunday for a breakdown on African tech.

Cheers,

The Tech Safari Team

PS. refer five readers and you’ll get access to our private community. 👇🏾

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