1,300 apply to Askya Growth Platform, 11 picked

The enthusiasm among Lagos investors and founders contrasts with the persistent pessimism about Africa's AI prospects, which often centers on missing computing power, capital, and energy. Babacar Seck of Askya Investment Partners frames the goal as making AI rather than renting it, which could mean smaller models tuned to African languages and systems that let governments and businesses keep control of sensitive data. Marlon Nichols of MaC Venture Capital, which has deployed $20 million in early-stage investments in Africa, sees venture capital shifting back toward physical infrastructure and technologies harder for AI to disrupt, and he is more interested in the technology that runs data centers than in the facilities themselves. That suggests African companies may not need to build the biggest models to share in AI's value creation. Still, capital remains scarce, infrastructure expensive, and many startups' commercial prospects untested, as the small share of funding going to AI-native companies illustrates.