Innovate Africa: Zazu makes banking simple for Africa's SMMEs
Zazu is a new digital bank launching in South Africa with one clear goal: to make life easier for small businesses in Africa.
Built by former Solaris executives Germain Bahri and Rinse Jacobs, Zazu offers more than just a bank account. It gives SMMEs access to tools such as digital company registration, invoicing, expense tracking and real-time cash flow insights — all in one place.
I sat down with co-founder Germain Bahri to find out what this means for you.
'We're building a bank around the real needs of African businesses — simple, transparent and easy to use,' he told me.
With more than 300 businesses already signed up during its soft launch, Zazu is positioning itself as a practical, no-nonsense alternative to traditional banking. It's a big step forward for entrepreneurs tired of red tape and outdated systems.
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Across these pieces, a founder wrestles with structure versus intuition, received wisdom against lived reality. Image: Photo by Kevin Turcios on Unsplash. I've had a front-row seat to Sona Mahendra's latest entrepreneurial chapter, watching her transition from backing founders at 54 Collective to building her own startup. The transformation has been fascinating: seeing how lessons learnt while supporting other people's ventures now play out in her own. After her initial TechTides Africa column hijack, African Tech's Next Big Challenge: Matching Venture Capital to Realistic Outcomes, I've been tracking how she navigates the founder's chair with fresh perspective from the other side. Her four-part Sona's Field Notes email capsule series offers a window into this evolution, both psychological and practical. The first instalment tackled that haunting question keeping African founders awake: "But is it VC-backable, though?" Mahendra pushed back. 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Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ Freedom from market-size obsession, she argued, actually speeds up learning. March brought The Market Size Misconception, challenging founders who abandon promising ideas over perceived total addressable market limitations. 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While archetypes are inherently limiting (venture capital, after all, is about spotting outliers before they're obvious), they're still a helpful lens for understanding founder-market-model alignment, and for reflecting on your own strengths, values, and context. Here's what I discovered: Different business models demand different people The type of business you want to build determines the kind of person it needs to build it. For example: If you want to build a hyper-scale technology startup, the dominant type that succeeds is a hybrid of the Visionary/Sales and Product builder. These people understand or can build the product but lead with strong vision and optimism about the future. They're great at pitching, which is crucial for raising capital, recruiting early teams, and driving initial traction. However, they might struggle to operationalise as the business scales. On the other hand, execution-heavy ventures (like franchises or infrastructure plays) thrive under Operator types. These are people who are process-driven, detail-oriented, and consistent. They build strong companies based on fundamentals that are ready for scale, but they don't naturally gravitate to startup ideas that align with venture capital's high-growth demands. Different markets reward different people We often look at founder-market fit through the lens of whether the person suits the market. But we should also ask: does the market suit the person? Different industries reward different skill sets: Healthcare rewards operators and domain experts who bring trust and credibility. Deep tech favours highly technical people who can navigate complexity and build deeply technical products. Consumer and innovation-led sectors often reward visionary sellers who can successfully fundraise. People who can tell compelling stories are able to rally teams and attract capital, all of which is needed to get customers to move away from the status quo. 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