A new study reveals that high-growth firms — tech and tech-enabled companies that scale to 50 or more employees — play an outsized role in tech jobs creation and ecosystem growth.
The study was conducted by Endeavor Insight in partnership with Endeavor Kenya. It examines the role of high-growth companies in unlocking Kenya’s economic growth, what is holding them back, and what decision makers can do to help more firms scale.
“Kenya already enjoys the recognition of being the ‘Silicon Savannah’, where technology, talent, and a dynamic entrepreneurial culture live. It’s time we push the narrative beyond startup success to include scale-up success by doubling down on high-growth firms,” says Ms Maryanne Ochola, Managing Director, Endeavor Kenya.
Key Findings
The findings below are based on more than 100 founder interviews conducted from April to May 2025, and data on over 730 companies and their founders.
- Treating high-growth companies like SMEs is limiting Kenya’s economic potential. Continuing to group high-growth companies with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in policies and support programs overlooks the distinctive benefits that scaling companies provide.
- High-growth companies are more productive and generate quality jobs. While high-growth companies make up only 15% of Kenya’s entrepreneurial tech sector, they have generated nearly 80% of the jobs.
- High-growth companies help grow Kenya’s economy by expanding into international markets. Nearly 82% of interviewed high-growth founders reported selling to customers outside of Kenya, compared to only 50% of founders who lead smaller companies.
- Founders supporting other founders creates a virtuous cycle of ecosystem development.
Founders of scaled companies are 1.5x times more likely than those of smaller companies to have received mentorship or angel investment from another founder in the ecosystem. They are also more likely to provide mentorship and angel investment than founders of smaller companies. - Policies that focus on company age exclude high-growth companies that often take more than a decade to scale. The proposed Startup Bill amendments define startups as companies in existence for no more than ten years, even though the average Kenyan company takes about a decade to scale.
- Support systems do not adequately address the most pressing challenges faced by founders. For most high-growth founders, access to capital and qualified talent are major challenges, but programs are misaligned — networking is widespread, while access to talent is rare.
- Supporting high-growth founders can accelerate the next generation of scaling companies. Decision makers should direct support to high-growth founders’ needs and encourage more of them to pay it forward through mentorship and angel investment, which can help next generations scale.
Additional Key Data
- Between 2014 and 2024, the number of tech companies in Kenya has nearly tripled.
- More than one-third of companies in Kenya are started by teams with at least one female cofounder — well above the African average of 17.3%.
- There are 46 serial founders in the ecosystem — experienced founders who are launching more than one company in Kenya. Collectively, they have established 80
- Over 80% of founders reported feeling positive about the future of the entrepreneurial community in Kenya.
- Over 85 percent of the interviewed founders have already met a policymaker regarding one or more of their business challenges. Going forward, more than two-thirds of the interviewed founders expressed openness to meeting with policymakers on how to support entrepreneurs as drivers of the Kenyan economy.
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