The Rise of Vertical SaaS For years, African businesses relied on "Horizontal SaaS"—generic tools like Slack or QuickBooks. While useful, these tools often fail to account for local realities like informal supply chains, multi-currency accounting in hyper-inflationary environments, or logistics involving "last-mile" motorbike delivery. We are now seeing the rise of Vertical SaaS: software built specifically for one industry within the African context.
Infrastructure as a Catalyst The deployment of subsea cables and the opening of data centers in Johannesburg, Lagos, and Nairobi have slashed "ping times." This makes real-time collaborative software viable. In 2026, the biggest growth is in Agri-Tech SaaS (connecting smallholder farmers to global buyers) and Retail-Tech SaaS (digitizing the millions of informal "Spaza" or "Duka" shops). These platforms aren't just software; they are engines of formalization that allow previously "invisible" businesses to generate the data they need to secure loans and scale.
The Bottom Line: The most successful SaaS products in Africa today are those that solve a specific local "pain point" that global giants are too broad to notice.
