April 19, 2023

Tunde Salako: InsurTech Africa

40 minutes

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Tunde Salako, an active entrepreneur within the Africa FinTech, HealthTech, and InsurTech scene. Tunde wants to connect the dots between inclusion, insurance and technology In Africa.

Tunde co-founded HealthTech startup, Hadiel, to drive more health inclusion in Africa and is also the managing partner of the Africa InsurTech Lab, a platform aggregating InsurTech entrepreneurs, startups, corporates, enthusiasts, investors sharing trends on how technology is reverse engineering insurance on the continent and between continents.

Investment in the African startup ecosystem accelerated over the past two years with over $3 billion when investment opportunities fell for startups across Europe for instance.

During their discussion, Sabine and Tunde dive into 1) FinTech and InsurTech in Africa, 2) opportunities and challenges faced by the local market, and 3) drivers behind the $3 billion of investment made within the African market over the past two years.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

My background was as a medic, I trained as a physician, and for the past 16-17 years I’ve been on the insurance side of the fence despite the fact I remained within the healthcare system as well. In 2019, I started to go deeper into the insurance ecosystem after more interest was being taken in Africa, but there was no documentation or platform pulling it all together. So, we decided to showcase this to the world and build confidence in relevant areas, so Africa is not left behind.

10-15 years ago, if you wanted to build a website, you had to pay a high cost. By 2017 that changed. Now, building a website is something that’s a walk in the park for everyone, and there is a surge of technology hubs around the whole of Africa (over 700 today), which are very bullish on teaching, coding, programming, and building local talent.

The international ecosystem is now looking into what is happening in Africa, particularly regarding FinTech. Despite the fact there was a slowdown globally, it took until quarter 3 of the year before we started to see that kind of slowing down in Africa because the investors and VC ecosystem are bullish about putting out investments into the local ecosystem. That translated financially into by the end of 2021, the total funding in Africa was about $4 billion, out of which about 55% of those funds were to the FinTech ecosystem, and in 2022 that figure rose to $4.8 billion, still with about 55% to FinTech.

When you look at the next 3-7 years, we can churn out stellar innovation because of the technology that is now available in the insurance ecosystem. One of the things that is very clear is that now, with the major players in the industry and InsurTechs that are coming up with innovations, there are going to be more opportunities for partnerships and collaborations either by mergers and/or acquisitions.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Africa needs to be heard. There's a lot of things going on down here.’

‘We want to put a spotlight on the growth and the capabilities that have been developed year-on-year in terms of technology on the continent of Africa.’

‘We now have local talent that can build solutions that are amenable to our environment and the key problems affecting the African ecosystem.’

‘Incumbents want to focus on how they reduce risk and how to provide value to the customer, while at the same time leaving the technology to the startups.’

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Tunde Salako is the CEO of Hadiel, manages Africa InsurTech Lab, and is an advisory council member of Founders Factory Africa. You can find out more about Tunde below. If you want to know more, make sure to reach out to Tunde at Africa InsurTech Rising

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.

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