They promised us flying cars

Hey, Sheriff here 👋 

Today, I’m writing about a pet peeve: the world has too many software companies.

And Africa seems to be following suit.

If you want to know why this is a problem and what Africa needs instead, read till the end.

But before we get into it, I have something to share…

Now, into the story…

In 2021, science author J. Storrs Hall asked a simple question: “Where’s my flying car?”

This was a reference to the promise tech made but never delivered on.

See, back in the ‘90s, everyone thought tech would deliver a utopia.

One with cheap and limitless energy, safer cities, endless convenience, and flying cars in every garage.

Instead, we got TikTok.

And the world’s fastest-growing companies all make software — just like TikTok.

But in the world of what you can touch and feel, not much has changed.

In Africa today, that’s also happening.

Africa loves software

Every year, hundreds of startups launch across the continent.

Most of them are software companies.

They’re fast to build and cheap to scale.

Think Facebook hitting 10,000 users while running out of a dorm room.

So investors throw money at these companies, looking for the same outcomes they’ve seen in Silicon Valley.

But there’s one issue: software can’t fix Africa.

You can’t plough land with an app.

You can’t manufacture goods with a SaaS subscription.

And you definitely can’t perform better surgery with a telemedicine call.

Africa’s biggest problems exist in the world of atoms, not bits.

• Agriculture → More than half of Africa’s workforce is in farming, but our productivity is the world’s lowest.

• Manufacturing → Only 10% of Africa’s GDP comes from manufacturing, because factories are broken.

• Healthcare → There are only two doctors for every 10,000 people in Africa.

• Energy → Power grids are broken, and many countries deal with frequent power cuts

In short, we don’t make enough stuff.

Africa needs hardware. But we’re not just thinking wires and chips.

We’re talking physical products that solve physical problems.

Like KaFresh, a spray coating that makes fresh foods last up to two weeks without refrigeration.

Or Releaf, building efficient food processing machines for farmers.

But compared to software startups, these companies are rare.

And there’s a reason why.

The hard thing about hardthingsware

Building hardware products is brutally hard.

Here’s why:

1. Iterations are expensive

If you’re building software, you can push changes to your product many times a day.

For a physical product, each iteration costs money and time and could risk another mistake.

Developing a wearable fitness tracker for instance, can cost up to $300,000—and that’s just for design and prototyping on a small scale.

The more chinks you need to fix, the higher your costs.

2. Scaling is hard (and costs even more)

Software has zero marginal costs.

This means for each extra customer, there’s little to no extra cost.

So they can grow fast on little cash.

But hardware’s different. Every extra unit you sell means extra costs for manufacturing and logistics.

So it’s hard to scale on a shoestring budget.

3. You need an ecosystem of suppliers

Hardware startups can’t exist in a vacuum.

They need supply chains, manufacturers, and logistics—all of which Africa lacks to varying degrees. But not China.

China’s Shenzhen is a city built on making gadgets.

If you need a specific screw, chip, or sensor, you can get it within hours.

And the cost of designing, making and testing a product here is super low.

Africa doesn’t have that ecosystem. And that makes it harder for hardware startups to build.

But sometimes, hard is good.

Like building a defense startup

Most African startups build fintech apps.

A few do logistics.

Almost none do defence tech.

But in 2022, two young founders changed that.

Maxwell Maduka had built drones for the Nigerian Navy at 15.

By 20, he had built and sold a drone company.

Nathan Nwachukwu dropped out of college to build Klas, an edtech startup that grew to 700,000 users.

Together, they started TerraHaptix, a defense startup that builds AI-powered surveillance drones.

It’s like Anduril—the US defense startup that makes drone missiles for the military.

The key difference—their drones don’t kill, and they don’t serve the government.

Their customers? Big businesses with big security problems:

• Oil & gas companies

• Mining firms

• Banks & logistics giants

Nigeria alone loses $23 million a day to oil theft—that’s almost $2 billion a year.

Security isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s an existential problem.

So TerraHaptix built three products to fix it:

• A drone that flies for 3 hours and scans 200km of terrain per flight.

• A self-driving ground vehicle that patrols industrial sites.

• And an AI-powered brain that processes all the surveillance data.

The result? A fully autonomous security system that never sleeps.

But the cool thing about TerraHaptix isn’t just the fact that they built the company.

It’s how they built it.

No Inventory, No Problem

Hardware startups usually have a big problem: inventory.

Factories cost money. Warehouses cost money. Unsold products cost money.

TerraHaptix dodged all of that.

They only build drones after getting paid.

No warehouses. No wasted cash. No unsold stock sitting around.

And their best move so far?

Charging businesses $15 per 10GB of storage for Artemis OS—the AI brain that stores and makes sense of the surveillance data.

And since companies store terabytes of security footage each month…

TerraHaptix makes money long after selling the drone.

It’s a business model straight out of Anduril’s playbook—except these drones can’t shoot.

In just two years, they’ve racked up $2 million in orders and only raised $300,000.

Yet they’re protecting $1.3 billion in critical assets across Africa, and they have a former Anduril executive on their board.

TerraHaptix might not be making flying cars, but they make flying security guards.

And that’s something Africa desperately needs.

But Africa also needs other things, like:

• Aerobotics: which makes drones that help farmers in South Africa make better planting choices

• mDaas: which builds medical devices and diagnostic centers to give Africans better medical care.

• Roam Electric: which builds electric buses that make city transport much cleaner

  

  The Roam Electric Bus could change what transport emissions look like in East Africa

One thing these companies all have in common is they’re…

Building for the real world

TerraHaptix is proof that what makes hardware hard is also what makes it valuable.

Sure, building these companies takes time, capital, and deep expertise.

But all those things pay off, big.

When you build proprietary tech, your challengers need to build a better product than you.

That’s a genuine moat.

And once you get bought (like in the case of TerraHaptix), it’s harder for your customers to switch.

Africa needs more of these hardware companies in healthcare, agriculture, and education.

How can we get more hardware startups in Africa?

Write us back and let’s talk.

That’s it for this week. See you on Sunday for a breakdown on This Week in African Tech.

Cheers,

The Tech Safari Team

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