Anne Makena
Africa is having a deep tech moment.
At a time when AI, biotech and climate technologies are reshaping global industrial policy, packed halls at Africa Tech Festival and the Africa Deep Tech Summit alongside BioNTech’s $440 million acquisition of InstaDeep reinforce the sense that Africa’s deep tech ecosystem has arrived. National and continental AI strategies reinforce this shift, reflecting a growing consensus that science and technology are central to long-term growth.
Yet beneath this optimism is a stark reality: the research ecosystems that make deep tech possible remain chronically underfunded and structurally underdeveloped. If today’s enthusiasm hardens into policy without shoring up these foundations, Africa risks importing the symbols of innovation without owning the science behind them.
Over the past decade, African deep tech ventures have raised more than $3 billion, accounting for roughly 15% of the continent’s startup funding. Most African countries invest less than 0.5% of GDP in research and development (R&D), unsurprisingly resulting in only 1–2% of global research output – a mismatch that limits how much value can realistically be captured locally.
There are notable exceptions. South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt have increased research investment significantly, with Egypt’s R&D spending rising twelve-fold since 20003. Rwanda and Tunisia now exceed 0.75% of GDP in R&D. Not coincidentally, these countries are also where deep tech startups are emerging most rapidly, underscoring the link between research investment and innovation output.
Closing the innovation cycle
Deep tech innovation demands years of foundational research before commercial viability. In Africa, this timeline is further stretched by systemic bottlenecks including regulatory inertia, fragmented infrastructure, and institutional silos, rather than a lack of ideas or ambition.
A 2024 study across 20 African countries found that more than 80% lack direct access to manufacturers for research equipment, relying instead on intermediaries that inflated prices by as much as 116%. Chronic logistical challenges and inefficient procurement practices further increase costs and prolong development cycles, making African innovators less competitive.
While AI and related technologies could accelerate R&D cycles, there is an immediate opportunity in fixing infrastructure shortfalls in laboratory supply chains and logistics. Better internet connectivity and e-commerce integration could further narrow the distance between African researchers and global suppliers.
Additionally, African researchers must prioritize technologies tailored to the continent’s unique challenges, rather than racing to replicate global trends. For example, Cure Root in South Africa uses AI to accelerate drug discovery from the continent’s biodiversity of medicinal plants, while Ghana’s Yemaachi Biotech draws on African immunogenomics to develop next-generation cancer therapies.
Turning passion to capability
A lack of scientists remains one of the deepest bottlenecks in Africa’s deep tech pipeline with fewer than 100 researchers per million people – nearly 15% lower than the world average. Only around 11% of African deep tech founders hold PhDs, compared with almost 90% among pre-seed deep tech founders in parts of Europe. Although success depends on both technical brilliance and commercial acumen, this gap reflects how Africa underinvests in the technical training required for deep tech leadership.
Closing this gap will require curriculum reform that embeds intellectual property management, translational research, and entrepreneurship alongside core scientific training. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s Deep Tech Talent Initiative has trained over one million people in three years. In Africa the DELTAS Africa programme run by the Science for Africa Foundation has supported over 1,500 researchers across 54 institutions.
The next step is coherence. Identifying industry-relevant skills across the deep tech value chain will allow training programs to align more closely with industry needs, from AI-driven product discovery in biotech, to hardware prototyping in green manufacturing. Corporates partnerships are critical. Nigeria’s Institute of Petroleum and Energy Studies (IPES) at the University of Port Harcourt backed by TotalEnergies, demonstrates how industry engagement can strengthen advanced training. African universities must move beyond transactional partnerships if they are to become genuine launchpads for deep tech ventures.
Financing with purpose
Although African governments have repeatedly committed to spending 1% of GDP on R&D, most fall short. The larger, and still underutilised opportunity, lies with private sector.
The private sector accounts for more than 70% of R&D funding in the United States and the United Kingdom. In Africa, translational research remains heavily dependent on public funding and external donors; a model that is neither sufficient nor sustainable. Blended financing approaches, combining public-private partnerships, catalytic funds, impact venture capital, and mission-driven philanthropy, will be essential to fuel deep tech innovation.
A persistent hurdle, however, is the perception of excessive risk of nascent deep tech ventures and investment in African markets. While risks at the earliest start-up stages can be mitigated through research grants, commercial risks for proven deep tech solutions are often comparable to that of conventional technology sectors. Investors who are bullish on the continent point to advantages such as youthful demographics, competitive labour costs, and the market integration promised by the Africa Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AcfTA).
To catalyse capital at scale, Africa needs more visible research spin-outs that demonstrate the pathway from laboratory to market — a ‘fintech effect’ for deep tech. These successes must be amplified globally and supported by sustained venture-building ecosystems.
Coordination and collaboration
Deep tech doesn’t fail for lack of ambition; it fails when the pathway from lab to market is broken. Rebuilding that pathway means acting on three practical levers: time (stable, long-horizon research support), talent (training that blends science with IP, translational skills and entrepreneurship), and treasure (capital that bridges the “valley of death” from proof-of-concept to scale). African universities and research institutions must evolve from knowledge repositories into bold innovation engines, equipped to train talent, attract investment, and enable impactful commercialisation.
Africa has the opportunity to pioneer a distributed model of coordinated, inclusive, and agile research ecosystems. By investing strategically and coherently in research infrastructure and human capital while fostering enduring partnerships between academia and industry, the continent can ensure that scientific advances underpinning deep tech innovation are scientifically sound, contextually relevant and economically viable.
