Launching Cross-Regional Innovation Series

After producing 100+ mapping and reports portraying Africa’s business, technology, and investment landscapes…

Briter is launching a brand new series which is set to pave the way to a new chapter in the company’s research which will include new regions and themes. This series aims at showcasing cross-regional innovation, i.e. the impact of all those businesses that have been developing organically across different underserved markets and which share core aspects such as revenue, pricing, and operating models, technology components, and user demographics.

This series is designed with the intention of identifying patterns and differences between regions that share similar macroeconomic and social characteristics by looking at the development of service provision and the way technology has been accompanying these processes.

The underlying assumption to this series is the ability of private enterprise to offer agile solutions for basic service and infrastructure provision and to function as a driver for innovation.

The first four chapters explore the rise of a set of specific business models and solutions:

🏦 Challenger and Neo-Banks: as of 2017, the World Bank’s Findex Data showed 1.7 billion people, equal to almost 30% of the global adult population, without a formal bank account. Among these, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Nigeria account for almost half of such population. The lack of a formal bank account is both a symptom and a cause of social and financial exclusion and, in recent years, technology has enabled the creation of solutions such as mobile money, P2P transfer platforms, and savings, which allow unbanked users to perform transactions and financial operations directly or via third parties. This chapter analyses the rise of the so-called challenger banks and neobanks.

📦 From Delivery to SuperApps: as Delivery Hero’s offspring and Uber-like companies proliferate across the world, a more recent trend has seen businesses initially born as on-demand delivery companies progressively integrate products ranging from food and parcel delivery to digital wallets and professional services. These companies have been leveraging their user pool to extend their offering by centralising services under umbrella applications, now known as ‘super apps’.

👨🏾‍🔧 Gig Economy and Blue Collar Work Platforms: as digital solutions have shown the ability to hold people accountable by guaranteeing safety, traceability, and quality standards, several companies have appeared who focus on creating marketplaces for talents and workers operating in the informal economy. From blue collar professionals and domestic workers to artists and freelancers, these digital platforms have been mushrooming across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, contributing to building a pathway to formalisation and emancipation for several workers.

🚜 Crowdfunding and Investment Platforms for Farmers: the Food and Agriculture Organisation counted over 475 small farm households across developing countries in 2015. Africa alone, with tens of millions of smallholder farmers contributing up to 80% of the continent’s food supply, still battle with nutrition and food-related health challenges. This, among other factors, boils down to increase the resources needed to improve output and capacity. As the agricultural sector remains largely underfunded, digital solutions able to provide crowdsourcing and direct investment opportunities for farming have emerged across developing economies. These allow farmers and small agri-businesses to enter the global radar and access otherwise unaccessible capital.

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Stay tuned for the upcoming series and reach out to our research team to learn more questions.

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