How Silicon Valley Inspired Tech in Africa

Silicon Valley houses some of the world’s biggest tech powerhouses, and we can safely say it’s the world’s tech capital. The area got its name from the primary material found in smartphone microprocessors, and the name has stuck, being a perfect one for what the place eventually became known for.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a growing interest in African startups by Silicon Valley technology firms. Note that Silicon Valley firms aren’t small companies to start with, the preceding paragraph already clarified that it’s home to the world’s biggest tech companies.

Thanks to the attention, there has been a massive upsurge in the emergence of new and innovative startups on the African continent; but what role did Silicon Valley have to play in that development. In this article, you’ll learn how Silicon Valley inspired tech in Africa, why it developed an interest in African startups, and why it matters.

What is Silicon Valley: Silicon Valley Meaning

The meaning of Silicon Valley can vary greatly, depending on the context in which it’s being used. To the vast majority of people, Silicon Valley is another area with around 3 million inhabitants, which also happens to house the headquarters of Apple, Meta (Facebook), and Alphabet (Google), among others.

To techies, however, Silicon Valley represents a lot more than just a random physical location. It’s a general phrase used to refer to the big name companies collectively, particularly those that reside in Silicon Valley, and sometimes, those that don’t.

With 38 Fortune 500 companies in the area alone, Silicon Valley is capable of singlehandedly changing the tech landscape of an entire country, or as we’ll see in this article, even an entire continent. While some tech companies are moving away from the valley, it still has enough tenants to keep its place as the world’s tech capital.

The name was believed to be coined by Journalist Don Hoefler when he published a report detailing the rise of technology firms in the area. To be clear, that was even before Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Netflix were found, showing that the area has dominated the tech landscape for a very long period.

Silicon Valley consists of many different cities in the Bay region of California. While San Jose takes credit for being the largest city in the area, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard about Mountain View, Cupertino, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park a lot more. Other cities in the region include Santa Clara, Redwood City, and Sunnyvale.

What Companies are in Silicon Valley?

Even while Silicon Valley is often used figuratively to refer to a collection of big-name tech companies in California, it’s crucial to note that it’s still the name of a physical location. Another question that pops up a bit too often is about the companies that are in Silicon Valley.

Before I jump into the list, it’s important to acknowledge that Silicon Valley is a huge city with around 3 million inhabitants. Since there are that many people living there, you should expect it to house a lot of companies spanning almost every industry.

However, since you’re reading an article on a tech website about how Silicon Valley inspired tech; you’ll naturally expect to see a list of tech companies. With that in mind, here is a list of the companies in Silicon Valley.

1. Alphabet (Google)

You can probably tell why Google is in brackets: no one knows Alphabet, but Google is a household name. The company needs no introduction; you almost certainly clicked through its search engine to arrive at this article. Alphabet is based out of Mountain View in California, Silicon Valley.

2. Apple

Apple is headquartered in Cupertino, Santa Clara, and it has grown in leaps and bounds over the years. Undoubtedly the most successful Silicon Valley company, the $2.81 trillion worth company is only growing bigger and stronger with age.

3. Adobe

Adobe is one of the tech grandfathers, and the company is based out of San Jose in California, right in the heart of Silicon Valley. With the company still the brain behind Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, and loads of other productivity software, it’s certainly still a top tech company.

4. Microsoft

Everyone knows Microsoft; if not because it’s currently the most valuable company out there, then because of its highly popular Windows operating system. What many people don’t know about the company is that it owns GitHub, Xbox, and LinkedIn, and it has a huge campus in Silicon Valley.

Where Is the Silicon Valley Located?

If you’re looking to work in some of the most valuable companies in the tech world, you may want to consider moving to Silicon Valley. As I explained earlier, it’s a physical location in the United States that you can visit, but where is Silicon Valley located in the United States?

Silicon Valley is located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, which is an area spanning multiple counties. The geographical areas that are part of Silicon Valley include San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, and Alameda County.

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How Silicon Valley Inspired Tech in Africa

After all that has been said about the magical tech paradise, it makes sense to get back to another crucial topic: how Silicon Valley inspired tech in Africa, and how it’s currently driving the African tech revolution. To begin, is Silicon Valley inspiring tech in Africa?

When we take a look at most of the tech firms in Africa, we see significant similarities between their structures and functions. We also discover a certain city in Africa assuming the position of a Silicon Valley within the continent. As if that’s not enough, Silicon Valley itself makes huge contributions to the development of tech in Africa.

A particular Californian company of interest when you talk about this topic is Y Combinator. Y Combinator is a venture capital firm that focuses on helping to create and develop new startups. While it launched in 2005, it limited its operations to the US and the UK for most of its early life.

However, Y Combinator recently expanded its operations outside the western world, developing a particular interest in Africa. The result? By March 2022, Y Combinator has backed 95 African startups, largely contributing to the tech wave in the continent.

In addition to Y Combinator’s giant strides on the continent, we’ve seen Silicon Valley firms acquire many African startups, growing them massively. Talking about acquisitions, Stripe’s takeover of Paystack for a massive $200 million immediately comes to mind.

While the acquisitions and investments are the most obvious impacts of Silicon Valley on Africa’s tech revolution, the mere existence of the place is another underrated impact. If there was nothing like a Silicon Valley, African firms will have nothing to look up to, and we probably won’t have some of the most valuable companies on the African continent today.

If you’ve been following carefully, you’ll notice I mentioned something about the Silicon Valley of Africa. The following section will expand more on that, unveiling that city and why it deserves the title.

What is the Silicon Valley of Africa?

I doubt if there’s any city in Africa named Silicon Valley, but that’s not the point. After all, Silicon Valley never earned the name until it became a hub for technological innovations. If Africa had a Silicon Valley, what city would it be?

The answer is Lagos, and it’s not even close. I mean, it’s somewhat close, as Cape Town (South Africa) is a competitor, but I doubt Cape Town has half the number of tech unicorns that sprung out of Lagos over the past decade. Interestingly, the tech bubble in Lagos is only growing.

Take my article on the top tech companies in Africa for example. While I tried to represent the entirety of Africa fairly, the list ended up with at least 9 companies founded or headquartered in Lagos; the list only has 13 companies in its entirety!

When you look at that, you’ll start to understand why Lagos is the indisputable capital of tech in Africa. At this point, it’s fine not to agree with me. After all, I’m a Nigerian who has lived in Lagos, and I have a natural bias towards anything Lagos; why should you trust me?

To settle the score, we can turn back to the champ of venture capital investment from Silicon Valley: Y Combinator. If you paid attention to the preceding section, you’ll note that I explained how the firm picked interest in African firms, and so far, it has 95 Africa-based companies in its portfolio.

Zooming further into that portfolio, you’ll notice that 51 of the 95 startups backed by Y Combinator are from Nigeria. That is around 53% of the entire cake for Nigerian companies alone. While I can’t say authoritatively that all of these companies are based in Lagos, the fact that 65% of Nigerian businesses are in Lagos says a lot.

With that said, it’s crucial to note that Lagos still has a very long way to go to be anywhere near where Silicon Valley is at this point. While I doubt that the tiny state can eventually go head to head with the top guns in Silicon Valley, we’ll wait to see how it goes.

Conclusion

Silicon Valley is an established destination for tech around the world, earning an unofficial title of the tech capital of the world. With tech suddenly blooming in Africa, one may ask how Silicon Valley inspired tech in Africa.

This article has gone into extensive detail on that topic. In addition to that, I’ve explained how Lagos is slowly growing to become an African Silicon Valley.

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