African investment professionals earn less than their global counterparts due to the smaller assets and funds they manage, according to data on salaries and assets under management in African investment firms by Dream VC, a venture capital institute, and A&A Collective, a global investment community. 

The average annual salary for analysts at Africa-focused venture capital, private equity, and impact investment firms is $21,000. Outside Africa, that salary jumps by 33% to $28,000. At more senior levels, the gap widens—investment managers or principals outside Africa earn $40,000 more than a principal in Africa. 

The African investment salary gap can be explained by the size of assets under management (AUM) by African funds, with the average firm managing around $87.5 million for private equity (PE) funds. Most venture capital (VC) funds manage only $50 million, while impact investment funds manage $58 million. This pales compared to global counterparts like Asia, where the average VC fund size is $324 million.

“This report brings much-needed transparency to compensation, strengthening the industry for both emerging and established investors,” Mark Kleyner, the co-CEO of Dream VC, told TechCabal about the report, which pulled data from 209 participants across 28 African countries.

Investment firms pay salaries and other operating costs out of fund management fees. Venture capital firms, which account for two-thirds of the firms sampled, charge a 2% annual management fee on the fund size, leaving 80% of the capital for deployment. If a VC firm raises a $25 million fund, it earns $5 million in management fees over a typical 10-year fund cycle.

With the median AUM by African investment firms at $50 million, most firms operate with a $1 million annual operating budget, directly causing the salary gap. This disparity risks triggering a brain drain, as investment professionals seek better-paying opportunities abroad, further shrinking the pool of experienced talent in Africa. 

African funds may need to align compensation more closely with global benchmarks to retain leadership and expertise, especially as the ecosystem is younger than more mature markets and needs more experienced professionals. This may be possible in coming years as Africa’s ecosystem continues growing. In 2017, fifteen firms were founded for the first time; by 2022, that number had grown to 25. 

Besides the young firms, Africa’s investment sector is also dominated by young professionals, with 73% under 34 and 42% aged 25–29, reflecting an industry that is packed with emerging talent. Entry-level roles like Analysts (19%) and Associates (24%) are prevalent, while senior positions such as Principals (6%) and Directors (4%) are fewer. This imbalance shows the need for more African fund managers to strengthen and expand the ecosystem.

Given how young the average professional is, it’s not surprising that over half of investment professionals hold bachelor’s degrees, while 40% have master’s degrees, including 15% with MBAs. Only 39% of professionals have studied abroad, highlighting the demand for local market knowledge—a competitive edge in Africa’s cross-border investment landscape.

Carry—an investor’s share of investment profits—remains elusive for most professionals in Africa’s investment sector. Only senior roles like principals and portfolio managers receive meaningful equity, with a maximum carry of 10%, though the average remains low at 0.016% for principals. This contrasts with global norms, where carry is a key retention tool. 

Data around compensation among African employers and employees remain scarce, and with the report, the research team “sought to create a benchmarking study that could support salary transparency and help fund managers understand industry norms for compensation.”. 

The data, Kleyner said, would also help firms “professionalise Africa’s investment landscape”—a necessity as global capital flows into the continent’s tech hubs like Lagos, Nairobi, and Accra. 

You can read the full report for more context on the African investment salary gap here. 

Kenya’s Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC)  has fined digital lender Whitepath KES 250,000 ($2,000) for violating data privacy laws. Court records show that the regulator found that Whitepath, which operates Instarcash and Zuricash loan apps, listed an individual as a guarantor without their consent and subjected them to debt collection calls after the borrower defaulted. 

The fine—the company’s second in two years—adds to growing regulatory pressure on Kenyan digital lenders, who are scrutinized for aggressive debt collection tactics and mishandling customer data.

According to court documents seen by TechCabal, Dennis Caleb Owuor received an unexpected debt collection call from a Whitepath representative in November 2024. The caller claimed Owuor was listed as a guarantor for a defaulting borrower, despite Owuor having no prior agreement to such an arrangement. When he questioned the claim, the caller failed to provide any justification but continued to demand repayment. Despite Owuor’s instructions to stop, the calls persisted, prompting him to escalate the matter to the ODPC, alleging illegal privacy breaches and harassment.

Whitepath failed to respond to the regulator’s inquiries, but  Kenya’s Data Protection Act allows enforcement regardless. The ODPC ruled that Whitepath had no legal basis to process the complainant’s data, as listing someone as a guarantor requires explicit consent— which was never obtained. The company also violated data protection laws by failing to notify them that their data was being used.

In addition to the fine, the regulator directed Whitepath to erase the complainant’s data and provide proof of compliance. 

This is not Whitepath’s first data privacy violation. In April 2023, the ODPC fined the lender KES 5 million ($39,000) after nearly 150 complaints alleging unauthorised access to borrowers’ contact lists and sending unsolicited messages. The penalty came after Whitepath ignored an earlier enforcement notice. 

Whitepath did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The case highlights ongoing regulatory action against digital lenders using unethical data practices, including extracting contact details from borrowers’ phones, sharing debtor information publicly, and employing aggressive collection tactics.

While enforcement is increasing, concerns remain over whether current penalties are sufficient. A KES 250,000 ($2000) penalty may not significantly deter a firm that disregarded a KES 5 million fine in 2023. Stronger regulatory measures, including larger fines and criminal liability for repeat offenders, may be required to ensure compliance and protect consumer rights.

As cryptocurrency adoption grows in Nigeria, founders are building hybrid finance apps to simplify access to crypto. These hybrid apps reduce the education barrier and overwhelming user experience flows common in crypto trading apps, allowing users to interact with cryptocurrency as easily as they do with fiat money on their traditional mobile banking apps.

Hybrid finance apps integrate traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralised finance (DeFi) features that allow users to buy, sell, or convert crypto to Naira without the need for an escrow or peer-to-peer (P2P) trading. Since mid-2023, startups like Taja, Palremit, Prestmit, Azasend, and Pandar have sprung up to create these hybrid solutions to enable more Nigerians to take part in the crypto sector. At least 20 such startups currently operate this hybrid finance model in Nigeria.

“I’ve only used Bybit when I had small amounts of Dogecoin and Bitcoin in my wallets,” said David Ayankoso, a non-frequent crypto user based in Lagos. “I find the process of exchanging crypto on Bybit to be complicated. The app is overloaded and not as simple as some other platforms. So instead, I buy Solana or Bitcoin elsewhere [on hybrid finance apps] and transfer it to my Phantom wallet to buy or trade random altcoins.”

Nigeria is one of the hotspots for crypto adoption globally, yet that high transaction value is only spread among a few knowledgeable people in the Web3 space. Sending and receiving crypto doesn’t quite work like fiat currencies in traditional banks. With one wrong click, funds are prone to losses, and bank accounts to freezes, making many Nigerians averse to digital assets.

The pitches of these hybrid finance startups often go like this: if you’re not familiar with the crypto P2P trading setup, use a hybrid finance app to avoid overwhelming yourself with the process of dealing with an escrow—or worse, getting scammed. Users simply open an account, gain access to a virtual account (a service hybrid finance apps provide through partnerships with payment processors), fund the account, and buy crypto directly from the app.

“Founders who build these apps see an opportunity to take advantage of a ‘grassroot movement’,” said Ayo Adewuyi, head of product at Prestmit, who claims the startup has over 700,000 users, thanks to additional features like gift card trading which attracts users from several countries. “For example, one of the reasons Patricia [one of the earliest to use this model] was an important crypto hybrid app was because people saw it as a Nigerian brand that wanted to localise crypto. Founders saw this and tapped into it.”

The clampdown on P2P trading and the strict regulatory oversight on big crypto exchanges paved a way for hybrid apps to thrive, said Adewuyi. He claimed Prestmit’s users grew significantly after large crypto exchanges deprioritised the Nigerian market.

While hybrid finance apps are not new, there is a growing focus on integrating crypto payment options into traditional finance systems. Beyond buying crypto for investment holdings, these apps let users manage digital assets like local currencies. They can pay bills, buy airtime and data, trade gift cards, send crypto directly to others through app tags, and pay for online services with crypto. Hybrid finance apps are also important to freelancers who earn in crypto, allowing them to convert to their local currency without relying on the P2P space.

Unlike building a crypto trading app, for example, operating a hybrid finance model is a much simpler setup. These startups provide three key things: the platform (proprietary technology like an app or a web-app), virtual accounts for user account management, and crypto liquidity.

Imagine walking into a mom-and-pop shop in your neighbourhood. With cash in hand—your local currency—you ask the storekeeper to sell you a crypto asset, say Bitcoin. The storekeeper collects your money, and two things could happen: either they process your order as the counterparty because they have the means, or they use a back-door service to obtain the required amount of crypto to sell to you. Either way, the hybrid app remains the counterparty to every trade. Most of these apps rely on crypto infrastructure providers to enable users to buy and sell crypto, while some outsource liquidity to over-the-counter (OTC) traders and institutions that provide bulk crypto liquidity.

“Liquidity is not manufactured out of thin air; liquidity providers, in some cases, are the P2P guys just that in this case, they go through a much more rigorous KYC process because startups want to be sure that the funds they are receiving are not illegal,” said Adewuyi.

The result of this outsourced liquidity often means that users have to play by the rules of the providers. Most liquidity providers cap the minimum amount of crypto users can buy or sell, which can be a bad experience for people buying or exchanging small amounts. For example, Luno, which can be considered a hybrid startup, allows users to offload their Bitcoin liquidity from 0.000025 BTC ($2.03), which means users cannot sell or off-ramp their coins below this amount. Some apps set the minimum crypto sell-off amount higher.

Since hybrid finance apps primarily make money from transaction fees, the costs are higher compared to trading platforms. Users get charged a percentage of their deposits on some of these platforms, and when they try to exchange, they do so at a higher, marked-up rate than the official exchange rate. In P2P trading apps, where liquidity is provided by traders who are directly responsible for their revenue, competition drives down prices.

“A lot of people are not interested in the complex part of crypto, and hybrid apps come in here. They provide the liquidity that users need at a specific rate, and if you’re fine with it, you go through with the transaction,” said Adewuyi.

Yet, hybrid finance apps pitch their tent on the value they provide—insurance from the risk factor found in trading apps—while extracting a few dollars in charges from customers. In the grand scheme of things, many of them do not operate as crypto exchanges, eliminating token listing fees as a possible revenue source.

Despite their dual nature, most so-called hybrid finance apps tilt more toward their traditional finance side than crypto, qualifying them more as fintechs than crypto startups. With this distinction, they are more bound by fintech rules than by the rules governing crypto startups in Nigeria’s evolving regulatory structure.

The broader trend has seen TradFi platforms integrate DeFi solutions into their products in attempts to find a balance. Uganda’s Eversend and Nigeria’s Grey, two traditional cross-border fintechs, have integrated stablecoin payments into their apps to appeal to Web3 freelancers who earn money in digital assets.

Hybrid finance apps are products of founders’ conviction that onboarding users into the utility side of crypto—as everyday money—is the future-forward way digital assets are developing. It also suggests that P2P, despite its faults, has no shortage of admirers who make crypto an insider affair. These apps are responses of founders for all those who feel left out.