For years, African tech founders had been told the same story: grow fast, raise big rounds, chase unicorn valuations, and worry about profits later. The IPO would come eventually—somewhere, somehow, when the market was ready.
Then the market stopped being ready.
From 2022 onwards, global tech IPO windows slammed shut. Companies that had raised hundreds of millions at sky-high valuations found themselves trapped—too big for acquisition, too unprofitable for public markets, stuck in a valuation limbo that felt increasingly permanent.
In Africa, where exit options were already scarce, the situation grew desperate. Founders who had built for years watched venture funding dry up while the promised exit—that mythical IPO that would reward early believers and create generational wealth—receded further into an uncertain future.
Until November 4, 2024, when everything changed.
The Morning That Rewrote the Rules
On that Tuesday morning, traders on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) floor watched something that had become almost mythical: a major tech company going public and actually succeeding.
Optasia, a Dubai-based, AI-driven fintech focused on emerging markets, achieved a market capitalization of R23.5 billion (approximately $1.3 billion) on its debut. More remarkable than the size was the reception—the IPO was multiple times oversubscribed, meaning far more investors wanted shares than were available.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not in this market. Not after years of cancelled IPOs, down rounds, and whispered warnings that public markets had permanently closed to tech companies without decades of profit history.
But Optasia didn’t just go public. It thrived.
The Numbers That Told a Different Story
When investment bankers first saw Optasia’s financials, they must have done a double-take. In an ecosystem where “path to profitability” had become a euphemism for “we’ll figure it out eventually,” Optasia’s numbers read like they belonged to a different era:
$150 million in revenue for 2024.
$36 million in net profit.
Not EBITDA with adjustments. Not “unit economics at scale.” Not projections based on optimistic assumptions.
Actual profit. Real money flowing to the bottom line.
For context, many African unicorns—companies valued above $1 billion in private markets—have never posted annual profit anywhere near $36 million. Some have never posted profit at all.
Optasia’s path to public markets wasn’t paved with hypergrowth and cash burn. It was built on something that had gone deeply out of fashion: sustainable unit economics and disciplined financial management.
What Optasia Actually Does
Understanding Optasia’s success requires understanding its business model, which targets a massive but often overlooked opportunity: financial services for emerging market consumers.
The company leverages artificial intelligence and data analytics to provide credit scoring, lending decisions, and financial products to populations traditionally excluded from formal banking systems. Operating across emerging markets, Optasia has built systems that assess creditworthiness using alternative data—mobile phone usage, transaction patterns, social connections—in places where traditional credit bureaus barely exist.
This isn’t charity work. These are profitable customers whom traditional banks systematically ignore because legacy systems can’t profitably serve them at scale. Optasia’s AI-driven approach changes the economics, enabling profitable lending to segments others overlook.
The emerging markets focus proved prescient. While developed market fintech companies struggled with saturation and regulatory pressure, Optasia found blue ocean territory—massive underserved populations eager for financial access and willing to pay for it.
The AI component isn’t just buzzword compliance. The company’s machine learning models actually solve the core problem in emerging market lending: determining who will repay when traditional credit data doesn’t exist. Get this right, and you print money. Get it wrong, and defaults destroy you.
Optasia clearly got it right.
The Startup Graveyard They Walked Past
To appreciate Optasia’s achievement, consider the carnage they navigated successfully.
2021-2022 was peak startup exuberance. Companies raised massive rounds at valuations justified primarily by momentum and market enthusiasm. “Growth at all costs” wasn’t just accepted—it was celebrated. Profitability was for boring companies without vision.
Then came 2022. Interest rates rose. Public market tech stocks crashed. The easy money disappeared virtually overnight.
Suddenly, investors wanted to see paths to profitability. Not eventually. Now. Companies that had optimized entirely for growth discovered their unit economics didn’t work at higher customer acquisition costs. Burn rates that seemed manageable with cheap capital became existential threats.
The IPO window—which had briefly opened for African tech with Jumia’s 2019 NYSE listing—slammed shut. Companies that had been “preparing for IPO” indefinitely postponed plans. Some quietly pursued acquisitions at disappointing valuations. Others simply limped along, cutting costs and hoping for better conditions.
By 2024, the African tech ecosystem was experiencing an exit crisis. Early investors who had backed companies years earlier had no liquidity. Founders who had forfeited salaries and worked for equity had no clear path to realizing that value. The virtuous cycle—where successful exits fund the next generation of startups—had broken.
Why Optasia Succeeded When Others Couldn’t
So how did Optasia crack the code? Several factors converged:
Real Profitability
The $36 million profit wasn’t financial engineering. It demonstrated that Optasia’s business model worked sustainably at scale. Public market investors, burned by growth stocks that never reached profitability, rewarded this rare combination of growth and profit.
Geographic Arbitrage
By building in emerging markets while listing in South Africa, Optasia accessed growth opportunities that developed market fintechs had largely exhausted while tapping public market capital in Africa’s most sophisticated financial market.
AI Credibility
Unlike companies that retroactively added “AI” to their pitch decks, Optasia built genuine machine learning capabilities solving real problems. The technology wasn’t a feature—it was the core competitive advantage enabling profitable operations.
Market Timing
By November 2024, interest rates had stabilized. Public markets had recovered from 2022 lows. Investors who had been burned by unprofitable tech stocks had processed their trauma and were ready to consider tech IPOs again—if the fundamentals were strong.
Conservative Valuation
At $1.3 billion market cap against $150 million revenue, Optasia’s valuation multiple was reasonable by historical standards—neither the inflated multiples of 2021 nor the depressed valuations of 2023. This Goldilocks positioning attracted both growth and value investors.
The Oversubscription That Proved the Point
When an IPO is “oversubscribed,” it means investors wanted to buy more shares than were available. Being “multiple times oversubscribed” suggests demand exceeded supply by 3x, 5x, perhaps even 10x or more.
This wasn’t investors doing founders a favor. It was investors competing for access to a scarce asset: a tech company with both growth prospects and proven profitability.
The oversubscription delivered a clear message: Public markets aren’t closed to African tech. They’re closed to unprofitable African tech.
Companies that can demonstrate sustainable unit economics, real revenue growth, and actual profits can access public capital—even in challenging market conditions.
What This Means for African Tech
Optasia’s successful listing fundamentally changes the conversation around exits in African tech.
For Founders
The “growth at all costs” playbook that dominated 2018-2021 is definitively dead. The new playbook requires demonstrating profitability—or at minimum, a credible near-term path to it—far earlier than founders hoped.
This isn’t necessarily bad news. While the old model allowed rapid scaling, it also encouraged unsustainable practices, mission creep, and businesses that worked on paper but not in reality.
The new discipline forces focus on unit economics, customer retention, and operational efficiency from early stages. Companies that emerge from this crucible will be stronger.
For Investors
Early-stage investors have a clearer picture of what successful exits look like. Instead of hoping for acquisition by foreign tech giants or IPOs based on growth narratives, they can underwrite investments to businesses capable of reaching profitability at reasonable scale.
This should improve capital efficiency across the ecosystem as investors stop funding businesses with questionable paths to sustainability.
For the Ecosystem
Perhaps most importantly, Optasia proves that the JSE—and by extension, African public markets—can successfully host tech company listings. This matters enormously.
For years, African tech companies have looked abroad for exits, listing on NYSE, NASDAQ, or London exchanges. While this brings international attention, it means wealth creation from African innovation flows offshore.
Optasia’s JSE listing keeps value within the continent. South African retail investors who bought shares will benefit from future growth. Local institutional investors gain exposure to tech innovation. The tax revenue from future profits stays in Africa.
If Optasia’s success encourages other African tech companies to consider local listings, it could catalyze development of deeper, more sophisticated African public markets capable of funding the continent’s digital future.
The Hard Questions Nobody Wants to Ask
Optasia’s success story is inspiring, but it also raises uncomfortable questions for the broader African tech ecosystem:
How many current “unicorns” could actually go public at their private valuations? If profitability is now required, valuations based purely on growth and total addressable market may not hold in public markets.
Did the venture capital model break African tech? By pushing companies to prioritize growth over sustainability, did VCs inadvertently create businesses unsuited for eventual public listing?
Who gets left behind? Not every impactful business can reach $150 million revenue and $36 million profit. Does the new exit paradigm work only for the largest players?
Is patient capital the answer? If reaching IPO-readiness requires demonstrated profitability, do African startups need longer runways and more patient investors than the typical VC fund structure provides?
These questions don’t have easy answers, but Optasia’s listing forces the ecosystem to confront them honestly.
The Window Opens—But Only Part Way
As champagne flowed and traders celebrated Optasia’s successful debut, the mood across African tech was complex.
Yes, the IPO window had reopened—but only for companies meeting far more stringent criteria than anyone hoped. The rules had changed fundamentally. The era of profitless growth companies accessing public markets was over, perhaps permanently.
For founders who built assuming eventual IPO at high multiples regardless of profitability, Optasia’s success might actually be devastating—proof that exits exist, but their companies don’t qualify.
For founders who prioritized unit economics, managed burn carefully, and built sustainable businesses even when that approach seemed hopelessly unfashionable, Optasia’s listing was vindication. The harder path they chose is now the only path that works.
What Comes Next
Optasia’s successful listing likely won’t trigger an immediate flood of African tech IPOs. The companies ready to follow this path are rare. Most will need months or years of financial discipline before public markets will welcome them.
But the possibility now exists. The template has been demonstrated. And for African tech founders contemplating their futures, that changes everything.
The question is no longer whether African tech companies can go public. It’s whether they’re building businesses worthy of public markets.
Optasia showed the way. Whether others can follow remains the story that will define African tech’s next chapter.
