We are excited to announce that Stears is now a data partner for SuperReturn Africa, the continent’s biggest and most senior private capital conference. As part of the partnership, we’re offering the Stears community 10% off tickets with the code FKR3577STEARS. Get your tickets here: tinyurl.com/2u4j3m3k

Africa's dairy market is worth $60bn+, yet Nigeria imports $1.5bn of dairy a year and ~85% of East African milk moves informally. The opportunity isn't more cows. It's processing, cold chain and import substitution. Report: stears.co/info/request-trial…

East & West Africa consume ~66bn litres of milk annually, but much of it still moves through informal channels. Kenya formally processes just 15% of production, while Nigeria produces ~700m litres against 1.5bn litres of demand. The opportunity? Build the infrastructure and processing capacity that turns this supply gap into an investable regional dairy value chain. Read the full report: stears.co/info/request-trial…

Nigeria’s pension funds are becoming a bigger source of private equity capital. Allocations to PE have tripled since 2022, reaching 1.06% of total pension AUM by August 2025, and new pension reforms could accelerate that shift, with a theoretical upside of ~$630 million in additional PE investment. Read the full report: stears.co/info/request-trial…

Gender-lens investing in Africa is gaining ground among GPs, and recent fundraises back this up. Adenia Capital Fund V closed at $300m with a mandate to integrate gender and ESG into governance and value creation. @AlitheiaIDF reached a $100m close as Africa’s first pan-regional gender-lens fund, while Jango Capital raised $78m in 2024 to become the continent’s largest gender-equal tech fund. The bigger shift is how LPs are thinking about gender: less as a compliance box, and more as a lens for finding overlooked sources of return. With women-owned businesses facing a $42bn credit gap across Africa, the opportunity is hard to ignore. Track the full list of gender-lens investment vehicles and what qualifies them: stears.co/info/request-trial…

Nigeria’s asset managers have spent the last few years scaling money market funds exceptionally well. They now account for 64.9% of mutual fund NAV, while equity funds hold just 2.02%—despite the NGX All-Share Index returning 37.65% in 2024. Private credit and infrastructure-linked products sit at the other end: harder to structure, harder to report on, and harder to build investor trust around. So where will the next phase of growth come from? We explore this and more in our latest report on Nigeria’s asset management industry. stears.co/info/request-trial…

Africa's AI infrastructure pipeline is filling up fast on paper. @Microsoft and @G42ai announced a $1 billion data centre package for Kenya in 2024, @MTNNG Group is building a $240 million facility in Lagos, and Casablanca has a $1.2 billion AI-native data project in motion, but announcements and operational sites are turning out to be two very different things. See how power infrastructure is becoming its own investable opportunity alongside AI data centres: stears.co/info/request-trial…

West Africa’s textile & garment industry is gaining momentum, with cotton production growing, industrial zones expanding and international financing flowing in. But investor risks are unevenly distributed. Our latest report breaks down why the strongest operators may be those with proven execution, productive factories and established buyer relationships. Explore the full risk and opportunity breakdown. stears.co/info/request-trial…

Healthcare spending tells two very different stories across North and Central Africa. Tunisia spends 7.0% of GDP on healthcare and Morocco 5.7%, compared with 4.7% in Egypt. Angola and Algeria are closer to 2.9% and 3.6%. Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt are actively reforming their healthcare systems in ways that can create clearer entry points for private capital. Central Africa, with lower public financing and greater reliance on donors, remains at an earlier stage. Investors are focused on where market infrastructure is developing enough for private capital to scale with it, and not just on growing demand for healthcare. Our latest research compares healthcare growth and investment readiness across the two regions. Read the full report: stears.co/info/request-trial…

81% of South African adults have a bank account. Only 8% have a credit card. That gap is creating room for alternative payment methods, but not all APMs solve the same problem. Pay by Bank and cash-linked options can help customers complete transactions they couldn't previously make. Digital wallets often make checkout easier for people who already have a card. The next challenge is to make @PayShapSA , Pay by Bank, and recurring payments accessible through a single integration. Read the full report: stears.co/info/request-trial…

German development finance is playing a bigger role in making African private markets investable. DEG committed €609M across Africa in 2025, while AfricaGrow has channelled $234M into pan-African PE and VC managers. The interesting part isn't the cheque size. It's where German capital sits: anchor investor, co-investor and sometimes first-loss capital that helps crowd in commercial money. For GPs, that makes German capital particularly relevant when structuring funds and deals where risk needs to be shared before private capital follows. Our latest report compares Germany's approach with Japan's and what it signals for the next wave of capital into Africa. Read more: stears.co/info/request-trial…

Nigeria's asset management industry grew 71.2% in 2024, reaching ₦10.1T in AUM. Naira depreciation from ₦900/$ to ₦1,536/$ also inflated the naira value of dollar-denominated portfolios. Meanwhile, fixed income and money market products drove much of the momentum, while equity funds remained just 2.02% of mutual fund assets despite the NGX All-Share Index returning 37.65%. As rates ease, managers may need a broader product shelf to keep clients engaged. Our latest research looks at where those product gaps are emerging: stears.co/info/request-trial…