Building in Web3 Through the Eyes of African Founders: ETHSafari 2025

Lisk hosted ETHSafari 2025 in Nairobi, where the story of Web3 in Africa was told not through charts or whitepapers, but through lived experience.

BeInCrypto attended the panels, where African founders and builders spoke candidly about their struggles and breakthroughs. More importantly, they revealed the vision driving them to create products in one of the world’s most challenging environments for startups.

African Web3 Founders Share Hard Lessons, From Grants to Growth

What emerged was a portrait of grit! Entrepreneurs are building businesses on lean budgets and forging accountability networks when institutional support is lacking.

The motivation? Applying blockchain not as hype but as a tool to solve deeply local problems.

Lisk executives Dominic Schwenter and Gideon Greaves had pointed to this effect, but BeInCrypto wanted an up close and personal with the builders themselves.  

The Funding Tightrope

For many founders, the hardest challenge is not ideas or talent, it’s capital.

Local venture funding remains scarce, forcing entrepreneurs to balance the allure of grants against the need to stay customer-focused.

One founder warned that grants can easily become a distraction.

“Grants can shift your eyes away from improving the product. You start chasing milestones that please donors but don’t solve customer needs,” the conversation started.

Instead, incubation programs that blend modest funding with practical training are proving more impactful.

“We didn’t want just cash thrown at us. We wanted to be trained, pushed, and held accountable. That’s what actually makes a business survive,” another founder shared.

This framing highlights a distinctly African dilemma: build for sustainability, not vanity metrics.

Accountability as a Currency

Without deep-pocketed VCs, founders are designing their own systems of discipline. One startup leader recalled how a simple peer accountability ritual transformed his cohort.

“Every Friday, we got on a call and reported progress, even if it was small. It wasn’t investors chasing us. We were chasing each other,” said Ikenna Orizu, founder and CEO of Jamit.

That structure, peers holding peers accountable, replaced the typical investor pressure seen elsewhere.

It created networks of mutual trust, which one participant described as “a currency just as important as capital.”

From Scarcity to Ingenuity

Constraints have forced creativity. One founder recalled facing $600 monthly costs to host podcasts on US platforms. The math did not work for local creators. His solution: decentralize.

“I realized Africans can’t pay $20 a month to host a podcast. I built something for cents, and suddenly, people who never thought they could publish weekly now could. Once I saw that, I knew we’d never go back.”

Such stories reveal how Web3 is not an abstract theory but a tool to unlock affordability and accessibility in places where global platforms overlook the market.

The Incubation Effect

Beyond individual wins, structured programs are seeding ecosystems. A founder who entered an early cohort described how transformative the experience was.

“Before, I thought building a startup was just about coding. But inside the incubator, I had to think about marketing, compliance, and my customers. It forced me to grow into a real founder, not just a developer.”

Another added:

“If I weren’t in an incubation program, I might have quit. But being surrounded by people just as hungry as me, nobody sleeps until 3 a.m. because we’re all building. That kept me going.”

The networks formed in these programs often outlast the funding itself, creating support webs across cities and countries.

Compounding Success

A recurring theme was the idea of reinvestment, where founders give back once they succeed, creating a flywheel effect.

“Even if you win small, give back. Because the ecosystem compounds. What you share today multiplies tomorrow,” one participant told BeInCrypto during the panel.

This mindset reflects a shift from survival to abundance: every win is not just individual but collective, building an ecosystem brick by brick.

Why Africa is Not “Catching Up”

Perhaps the strongest message was a rejection of the narrative that Africa is lagging. By necessity, African founders are building leaner, sharper, and more customer-focused businesses.

“We’re not waiting to catch up. In some ways, we’re already ahead,” a panelist articulated.

With stablecoin-based merchant payments, decentralized content platforms, and accountability-driven incubation programs, Africa is developing a Web3 culture that looks less like Silicon Valley and more like its own.

A Call to Investors and Policymakers

For investors and policymakers, the takeaway is clear: supporting African Web3 is not about parachuting capital, but about strengthening ecosystems where networks, training, and peer accountability matter as much as money.

ETHSafari’s panels demonstrated that Africa is not just a frontier for Web3. It is a proving ground. And the founders telling their stories showed that the next wave of blockchain innovation may not come with a Silicon Valley accent, but an African one.