Africa has produced a number of insanely successful start-ups, though mostly not in the tech area. e.g. De Beers is dominating the diamond market worldwide & was founded in South Africa. Same for Anglo American PLC.
On the tech side there is Dimension data. They are in talks regarding a take-over for 2bn pounds. MTN Group is operating in 21 countries. Then there is Mark Shuttleworth's startup Thawte consulting. Sure, none of those are on the scale of Google, but given the circumstances its not bad.
I'd also like to point out that this part is deceptive "110 million connected online (growing in triple digits)". Being connected in Africa does not mean that the connection is really usable. Its expensive & slow and has only been really improving in the last year or so.
I think Mark Shuttleworth's Thawte (bought by Verisign) is the only real example of a startup in the sense most on HN would think about it, at least at scale.
It's also worth noting he started Canonical which gave us Ubuntu.
But in South Africa at least, there are plenty of startups - again a much smaller scale than US or Europe - in software and Internet. Few people even in SA know about them, so I wouldn't expect pg to leap in to fund a bunch. Africa needs to develop it's own pg's. I actually think the approach of "micro-angel-seed-VC" is a good fit for the funding problem.
I think a company named after "De Beers" or called "Anglo American" is not what people think of when they think of an African startup. It wouldn't be seen as a triumph of African startups if all the big companies were started and run by non-Africans.
But MTN is a good example. There's also Naspers, which is not quite a startup, but which is starting to act like one. (They took a big stake in DST a couple months ago.)
The business practices of De Beers have been less than stellar, however De Beers was founded in South Africa, has been headquartered in South Africa and is 15% owned by the Government of Botswana. I agree that they are a poor example though as considering them a start up though would be a bit like calling Ford a startup, both companies are a bit beyond that stage of their lives.
It may have been founded there, but only because that's where the rocks are and they can get away with running a cartel. It was founded by a Englishman and even then it was 120 years ago. Terrible example of an African startup.
On the tech side there is Dimension data. They are in talks regarding a take-over for 2bn pounds. MTN Group is operating in 21 countries. Then there is Mark Shuttleworth's startup Thawte consulting. Sure, none of those are on the scale of Google, but given the circumstances its not bad.
I'd also like to point out that this part is deceptive "110 million connected online (growing in triple digits)". Being connected in Africa does not mean that the connection is really usable. Its expensive & slow and has only been really improving in the last year or so.