Mention Africa and few would ever think of the continent as being a suitable location for technology investment. Yet you only have to look at the success of the mobile telecommunications revolution in Africa to see how the adoption of technology, when it is appropriately adapted to the needs of the continent’s people, can bring about economic development, and with it, investment opportunities for private equity.

The mobile revolution in Africa took place at surprising speed. Between 1999 and 2006, the share of the African population living within the range of a mobile signal mushroomed from barely 5% to around 60%, according to a recent World Bank study. This is important because, as the study points out, about half of Africa’s improved growth performance in the early 2000s was attributable to the spread of mobile phones. It estimates that this was responsible for one extra percentage point of growth per person per year.

In such a vast continent that lacks comprehensive basic infrastructure, and in particular fxed line telecommunications, giving populations the ability to communicate within and beyond national borders was bound to have a dramatic effect on the ability of businesses to grow. But one of the most important points about the adoption of mobile phones was that there had to be the technology to adapt their use to the African market – something that came from the continent itself. “South Africa is very interesting because it has a good feel for developing technology that works in the...

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