Africa’s deep tech ambitions are running into problems

Terra Industries, the Nigerian defence technology startup, has become one of the most recognisable names in the African deep tech sector.

Terra has earned the visibility. Founded in 2024 by Nathan Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka, the company designs and manufactures autonomous drones, sentry towers and crewless ground vehicles, all connected through its proprietary ArtemisOS platform. In August, it closed a $52 million seed round, the largest in Africa. Terra offers a glimpse of what is possible if an ecosystem can support more companies to that stage.

The United Nations Development Programme defines deep tech as technology built on scientific discoveries, engineering innovations and advances in research, with intensive research and development at its core. It includes companies developing drones and robotics, semiconductor and computing technologies, biotechnology, medical devices and some forms of artificial intelligence.

Businesses in Africa’s tech ecosystem are mostly built around using technology rather than developing it. A fintech company can build a payments product without manufacturing the smartphone its customers use, just as a logistics startup can build software on top of cloud infrastructure or networks developed and operated by other companies. The underlying hardware and foundational systems already exist; these startups simply apply them to market problems.

Deep tech brings that technology into the company. To turn engineering breakthroughs into commercially viable products, such companies may need to design and repeatedly test prototypes, source specialised components, work with researchers and engineers, and access laboratories or manufacturing facilities.

Chukwuemeka Afigbo, convener of Africa Deep Tech Foundation. Image source: Africa Deep Tech Foundation

Building deep tech is an uphill climb

For Chukwuemeka Afigbo, who convenes the Africa Deep Tech Foundation, a community focused on supporting deep tech builders and developing the ecosystem around them, hardware companies in the community have raised concerns about the cost of bringing components into the country.

“The hardware folks would tell you there’s a lot of support they need that they haven’t necessarily seen. For example, like policies around the amount of money they pay to bring in components to build stuff in the country,” he said in a conversation with TechCabal in October.

A 2021 baseline study commissioned by the Nigerian Communications Commission found that 84% of the hardware components used in Nigeria’s telecommunications sector are imported. Those components include printed circuit boards, semiconductors, connectors, antennas, and other electronic parts. For hardware companies building and testing products locally, components that cannot be sourced locally must be imported, exposing them to shipping costs, foreign exchange movements, customs procedures, and import duties.

Africa’s capacity to produce some of the technologies underpinning the global economy remains limited. The continent accounts for less than 1% of global semiconductor economic output, according to the African Academy of Sciences. Its position in the semiconductor industry is concentrated on design or testing.

The same constraints are becoming visible in artificial intelligence. AI is now one of the biggest technology conversations in Africa, but many of the products available are built on infrastructure developed elsewhere. Building the underlying systems requires specialised chips, data centres, engineering talent and research capacity, and Africa currently accounts for 0.6% of global data-centre capacity.

Funding is also a constraint. In 2025, African startups raised $3.42 billion, with fintech accounting for $1.37 billion, or about 40% of the total, according to TechCabal Insights’ State of Tech in Africa report. A Briter Intelligence mapping of the sector found that African deep tech startups raised about $3 billion across 360 deals between 2013 and the first half of 2023.

The economics of building deep tech could help explain this disparity. Import costs and a thin research base can make a hardware company’s path to revenue longer and its failures more expensive than those of a software company. Capital tends to follow businesses where there is a clear route to generating returns on investments.

Governments across Africa are paying attention to advanced technology, but AI has received a disproportionate share of that attention. Nigeria’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy was published in September 2025; Kenya adopted a national AI strategy in 2025; Egypt updated its AI strategy; and South Africa has been developing an AI policy framework to guide the country’s approach to AI governance, development, and adoption.

The attention is understandable. AI is growing and attracting capital, but an AI-heavy policy agenda risks overshadowing the distinct, physical demands of the broader deep tech sector. As Afigbo notes, government awareness remains in its early stages. At the same time, interest and scattered initiatives exist; public policy has yet to match the capital intensity and supply-chain requirements of building hard tech on the continent.

“Yes, there is government awareness and interest, but still relatively nascent,” he said. “A lot of good things are happening, but we need10 times more than that to happen. It’s a journey.”

Building the conditions for deep tech

The Africa Deep Tech Foundation has grown from a small online community into a network of more than 5,000 people, with a core group of about 200 deep tech practitioners across Africa and the diaspora, according to Afigbo. He said it has organised incubation programmes and rallied support for early-stage founders. Other companies are also working on pieces of the ecosystem.

ChipMango, a semiconductor design and engineering talent development company, is training students and technical professionals in modern chip design across Africa. Signvrse uses AI-powered 3D avatars to translate speech into sign language in real time. NovFeed converts organic waste into high-protein fish feed to tackle food insecurity. Envisionit Deep AI automates radiology diagnostics in rural clinics. BasiGo and Spiro now manage large fleets of electric buses and motorcycles supported by battery-swapping networks.

For the ecosystem to support more companies on that journey, it needs to create conditions that make building deep tech easier. This could include capital, better access to manufacturing and specialised infrastructure, a deeper pool of engineering and research talent, and treating deep tech as a broader field than AI by developing policies and infrastructure that support the technologies underpinning the sector.

Terra’s success makes the possibility of a thriving deep tech sector easier to see. It shows that global investors are willing to back an African company building sophisticated physical technology. Ultimately, whether Terra remains an extraordinary outlier or becomes the vanguard of a broader movement depends on whether Africa’s tech ecosystem can evolve fast enough to meet the heavy demands of deep tech.

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