Askya wants to build ‘tech Dangotes’ starting with 10 African AI startups

Askya Investment Partners is looking for 10 African AI startups to join a six-week programme, with at least $200,000 going into one of the companies. The founders will not have to pay to join the programme or give up equity just to take part. But Askya is not pitching this as another accelerator where founders spend a few weeks polishing their pitch decks before meeting investors. The firm wants to work with startups that already have a product, customers and a problem worth solving, then help them deal with the less glamorous parts of building a company. Askya was founded in 2024 by Babacar Seck. Before starting the firm, Seck worked across investment and technology, including advising AXA’s chairman and CEO, helping establish Proparco’s $300 million venture capital programme and later running Digital Africa. He has backed close to 20 startups, including Moniepoint, Jumia, GoMyCode and Complete Farmer. Askya says those investments have generated more than $120 million in profits for investors, including one company that went on to list on the New York Stock Exchange. Seck has also worked on Africa’s AI investment strategy through the Smart Africa AI council.

This is not about another demo day

Seck’s view is that too many accelerator programmes are built around fundraising. Founders learn how to pitch, improve their decks and prepare for a demo day. Raising money becomes the finish line. Askya wants to spend more time on what happens after a startup has customers. A company can have a product people want and still struggle when it starts growing. Hiring gets harder. Technology needs to keep up. Governance becomes more important. Distribution becomes a bigger problem. The programme will bring founders together with operators and builders who have dealt with these issues before. There will also be sessions on go-to-market, distribution, pricing, governance and technology.

The bigger problem is the gaps between companies

Seck also sees a problem with how Africa’s technology ecosystem works. There are data centres looking for customers, startups spending heavily on cloud services, banks and large companies looking for technology solutions, and governments saying they want to work with African startups. But these groups do not always connect. Seck points to African startups that are already among the biggest customers of global cloud providers, with some spending more than $30 million a year. At the same time, African universities are producing AI engineers who often leave the continent because there are not enough companies operating at the scale needed to employ them. Askya wants to bring some of these groups closer to the startups. Telecom companies, banks and technology companies will be brought into the programme to put real business problems in front of founders. Askya is also working with Deep Learning Indaba to connect the startups to Africa’s wider AI community.

Askya is not looking for ideas

The startups applying need to be African founded and based on the continent. They must have full-time founders, a working product and their first customers. Idea-stage companies are out. The startups can be up to pre Series A, and Askya is not insisting that they already have millions in revenue. Seck says the firm will look at whether the company is solving a real problem, whether the product is better than the alternatives and whether the team can actually build the business. Then there is the part that may be harder to measure: commitment. Askya wants founders who are prepared to stay with the business for years, rather than building something with a quick exit in mind.

The ‘tech Dangote’ idea

Seck describes the type of company Askya wants to build as a “tech Dangote”. The comparison is deliberate. Aliko Dangote did not build his businesses around a five year timeline. His companies have been built over decades. Seck thinks African technology companies should be approached in the same way. A serious company may take seven, 10 or 15 years to build. So for Askya, the goal is not simply to find 10 AI startups that can raise their next round. It is to find companies that can still matter 10 or 15 years from now.