Every January, the temptation is to treat the year ahead like a straight line from the previous one. Document the headlines, assume a trend, and build around it.
But after covering Africa’s tech ecosystem for over a decade, we know that things don’t move in straight lines. Policy changes can create and destroy entire business models overnight. Capital can disappear, then return with new rules and new tastes. A single infrastructure shift in payments, identity, connectivity, or security can make yesterday’s “impossible” feel inevitable and a “sure thing” feel naïve.
So for TechCabal’s 2026 Predictions, we decided to do something that is both simple and unusually hard by asking the people closest to the work to state their thesis for what happens next and to show their workings. We reached out to over 50 executives, investors, and journalists across different sectors and countries, but we are publishing only 21 because some submissions did not meet our criteria, and others did not arrive in time.
Why we did it
We’re publishing this set of predictions because the ecosystem needs shared reference points, especially in a fast-moving market where everyone is often making decisions with incomplete information.
Founders want to know what investors are likely to back and what they will refuse to fund. Investors want to understand how founders see the next wave of opportunity and risk. Journalists and analysts want to document the shift as it happens. People who use technology also deserve visibility into what the leaders of this ecosystem believe is coming and what might change during the year.
We decided to provide those answers.
TechCabal is not only a publication that reports what happened. We are also, unavoidably, a place where the ecosystem argues with itself, where narratives form, where conversations start, and where ideas can become mainstream or collapse under scrutiny. Putting a stake in the ground publicly and in writing is one of the most useful ways to move a conversation forward.
And there’s a second reason. Accountability.
Vague predictions are easy. They let everyone feel right later. Specific predictions create a record. They allow us to return at the end of the year and ask: what did we misunderstand, what did we see early, and what did the market teach us?
How we did it
We reached out to over 50 tech executives, journalists, and investors across the different sectors of Africa’s technology ecosystem and asked them to submit a prediction for TechCabal’s 2026 Predictions. We specifically asked for three things:
1. The prediction itself (clearly stated)
2. Why they believe it will happen (the reasoning, data, or pattern behind it)
3. What could stop it from happening (the risk factors, constraints, and failure modes)
To ensure quality and uniformity, every respondent received the same prompt: what TechCabal means by “prediction”, what we need from them, and why we’re doing it.
What makes a TechCabal prediction worth publishing
A prediction, in our framing, is a thesis: a claim about the near future that can be argued with, tested, and revisited.
We do not publish gut feelings. For a prediction to make the cut for TechCabal’s 2026 Predictions, it has to do the work. Here’s what we looked for.
1) Anchored in data or reason
If someone predicts an outcome, they must explain why. Respondents were allowed to use market data (funding patterns, user growth, margins), behavioural cues (what regulators, founders, or investors are already doing), or historical parallels (what similar markets did at similar inflection points).
2) Nuanced, with failure modes
What could make this not happen? If a prediction has no constraints, it’s probably imaginary. We looked for respondents who could name the friction in their predictions. What policy reversals, infrastructure gaps, unit economics, geopolitical changes, consumer behaviour, competition, talent shortages, and second-order effects might stop the prediction from happening?
3) Insightful enough to be useful
A strong prediction should reveal something the reader wouldn’t easily see on their own: a second-order effect, an uncovered trend, or a shift. If a reader cannot act on the prediction, it does not belong in our Predictions.
4) Specific enough to be testable
We rejected vagueness because accountability requires specificity. “Things will improve” is not a prediction; it’s a mood. We pushed for predictions with concrete outcomes, actors, timelines, or measurable indicators so that by year-end, we can responsibly assess what held up and what didn’t.
How to read this package
Use these predictions to stress-test your assumptions. To pressure-check your strategy. To spot the questions you are not asking yet. To understand what different parts of the ecosystem are optimising for—and what they fear.
And then, argue with them. That’s the point.
The best prediction is the one that helps you make better decisions tomorrow.
At the end of 2026, we intend to return to these theses and see what held up. This is not to dunk on the misses but to learn in public. The ecosystem is still young in many places, and one of the fastest ways to mature is to become honest about what we can predict, what we can’t, and why.
