Asili Africa

Where it all began.

Long-form origin documentaries on Africa’s most important companies.

The series

The definitive documentary series on how Africa’s greatest companies were built. Long-form (15–25 min), bi-weekly. Storytelling, cinematic, reverent — and honest.

Asili is Swahili for origin — the root of something. Every episode is a story with an arc: the founding moment, the build, the crisis the company almost didn’t survive, the turn, and where they are now.

Episodes

asili africa ep01 — equity bank

EP01 — Equity Bank

The Bank the Poor Built

In 1984, a tiny building society in Nairobi was on the verge of collapse. Today, Equity Bank serves over 19 million customers across 6 African countries.

Greenspoon

Greenspoon

The Greenspoon Story In a Nairobi kitchen, in two thousand and sixteen, a young mother named Juliet Kennedy was weaning...
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Quickmart

Quickmart

The Quickmart Story At the end of January, two thousand and twenty, a court-appointed administrator walked into a Nakumatt supermarket...
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Pan Paper

Pan Paper

The Pan Paper Story On the twenty seventh of January, two thousand and nine, an officer of Kenya Power and...
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Spiro

Spiro

A serial Indian-African entrepreneur set up an electric-motorcycle company in Togo in 2020 — picked one of the African countries...
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Paymentology

Paymentology

A quiet South African card-processing company built the boring infrastructure that lets African fintechs issue Visa and Mastercard cards in...
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Yellow Card

Yellow Card

Two twenty-somethings — a Louisiana-raised American (Chris Maurice) and a self-taught Texan engineer (Justin Poiroux) — launched a crypto exchange...
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