Sitemap - 2023 - The Realistic Optimist

Lebanese startups today

Where the Senegalese ecosystem is and should be going

African B2B e-commerce is a terrible business. But a fantastic Trojan Horse.

Pakistan’s ecosystem’s defining test

What emerging markets can learn from the West’s “unicorn factory”

LATAM has, can and will create global companies

Cashi: building Sudan's fintech OS against all odds

The first unicorn is the hardest

Africa’s super app needs to be African

On Palestinian startups

An editorial shift

Gogoro: electrifying Asia's scooters

Brainly: the Polish startup competing with edtech giants

Wasoko: digitizing Africa's corner shops

Frubana: Betting $270M on LATAM's small restaurants

Fawry: Egypt's first unicorn

CAAFiSOM: Somaliland's first VC-backed startup

Alan: the French unicorn sexifying health insurance

Zood: Building the Silk Road 2.0

Nowports: Building LATAM's logistics OS.

How an Iraqi VC thinks in 2023

Bolt: How a 19-year-old Estonian founder took on Uber

Ebanx: Why is a Brazilian fintech unicorn expanding to Africa?

Jamaican startups: Wah Gwan?

How a Ukrainian VC thinks in 2023

Uganda's startup ecosystem: behind the hype

Can a startup nation and a welfare state co-exist?

The Spanish startup scene's quiet ascent

Wave: the fascinating story of an American-led, Senegal-based unicorn

An untold story of the Tunisian startup ecosystem

Why France's largest VC is government-owned

Rappi's complicated balancing act

The Great Japanese Paradox

"The Filipino startup ecosystem was shielded from the 2022 funding drop"

The Brazilian stock market's battle to retain its startups

The story of Presto, Libya's most funded startup

A plunge into Zambia's unique startup scene

The story of the Italian startup ecosystem

"Our biggest advantage and our biggest disadvantage is being Pakistani"

Yassir and the pioneering of the Algerian startup ecosystem

What does Instadeep's exit actually mean for the African startup ecosystem?

On the need for critical startup journalism

How Singapore became a global VC powerhouse

mPharma: shifting Africa's healthcare paradigm

A peak into Cambodia's startup ecosystem

Is SoftBank LATAM's startup kingmaker?

The timid but ambitious Iraqi startup scene

Daba: The company building Africa's investment OS

How a French startup became the gold standard of crypto security

The state of the Bosnian startup ecosystem

Seedstars' masterplan to accelerate the first global generation of VCs

The diaspora dilemma: lessons from GrowHome

NotCo: the singular story of Chile's first unicorn

The Lebanese startup ecosystem hasn't failed. It's just not solely in Lebanon anymore.