“Do South African startups exit early?”

Roughly a week ago, I sat across Valentine (founder of Dotzedw) in a cafe and we were having what can be described as a semi-heated discussion... I say semi-heated because any onlooker in the cafe would have certainly thought we were arguing but things are not always as they seem. What may have looked like acrimony was in fact just a passionate discussion about Africa's startups and the opportunity available on the continent.

I'll admit with a tiny bit of shame that it was a bit early for us to be having drinks and perhaps that might have contributed to the passion on display but there we were - Valentine with his Gin and cranberry juice in hand and Amarula on ice in mine- intellectually sparring until a third party brought up a question that stopped both of us in our tracks...

It was as if this guy was tired of our high-sounding discussion because he asked a question we both didn't have an answer to. As he left the cafe he simply half-suggested and half-asked, "South African startups seem to exit early. Why is that so?" It was as if he knew we didn't have an answer because he didn't wait for one. He asked - continuing in his stride and left us rubbing on our chins as though we were pharisees who had been asked yet another trap question by Jesus.

A room and an elephant...

After leaving the cafe I set out to get to the bottom of this question but quickly realised this would be no easy feat. It's generally hard to define what constitutes an early stage exit and I initially wanted to use the 5-year mark as a cut off point but it will soon become apparent why that's problematic...