Every business starts with a story.
When Jumia listed on the NYSE in 2019, it sold an “Amazon of Africa” narrative that appealed to Western investors, but didn’t match the reality on the ground. Within four years it had shed that label. The board fired its Dubai-based founding co-CEOs, and the new chief executive embarked on a “fundamental transformation” of the company, including shutting down its food delivery unit in 2023. The story met the market — and the market won.
Today, Jumia’s share price is down roughly 70% from its IPO close. Now, some argue, history is repeating itself.
Last week, Aubrey Niederhoffer, a 19-year-old Thiel Fellow from Connecticut announced a $7.3 million seed round to build Swoop, which he calls “Africa’s first super app,” starting with food delivery in Lagos — a market he has limited experience in. The financing was raised almost entirely from North American investors, with no Nigerian VC firms participating. Nigeria’s tech ecosystem erupted. Some questioned the premise. Others the founder. Many pointed to a deeper frustration: the asymmetry of belief. Foreign founders successfully fundraise on potential; local founders must show proof. I’ve seen this firsthand. I spent several years as part of the founding team building Gozem, a mobility-led super app in Francophone West and Central Africa. We started in Togo — a country we had little experience in — with a ride-hailing product. We expanded into food delivery, logistics, and other verticals. We learned, slowly and expensively, what it actually takes to build a platform business in African markets that merits the term “super app.”
Three lessons stand out.
First: No one starts as a super app. WeChat began with messaging. Gozem started with zemidjans (motorcycle taxis). Every successful super app starts with a high-frequency “wedge,” then earns the right to layer on services through trust and habitual usage. “Africa’s first super app” is a fundraising story; the market will decide whether it has any substance.
Second: The product that scales is rarely the exact product envisioned. At Gozem, some of our most significant revenue streams emerged from needs we didn’t anticipate at the outset. We discovered them by being present, listening, and iterating — and having enough capital to course-correct. When you’re dealing in narratives, you have to close the gap between exposition and execution before the runway runs out.
Third: Libreville, or Lomé you scale through boots on the ground. Super apps in Africa are less digital platforms and more offline coordination engines and infrastructure projects — doubly so for food delivery. Operational discipline, not capital, determines outcomes.
We made a lot of mistakes at Gozem — and the team continues to learn as they build one of the few growth-stage VC-funded tech businesses in Francophone Africa. The markets humbled us repeatedly, and they will humble Swoop too. That’s not a prediction of failure — it’s the nature of the work. The founders who build lasting institutions in African markets are the ones who treat each humbling experience as data rather than defeat. The ones who don’t are the ones who show up with a story and leave with a lesson.
Ultimately, as a proverb from the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria says: “What was secret is revealed in the marketplace.”
Emeka Ajene is the founder of Afridigest, a media and strategic intelligence platform focused on African markets, and co-founder and former CEO of Gozem, a super app operating in Francophone West and Central Africa.