Africa as a continent has developed and produced some of the best innovators and entrepreneurs in the world. This has seen growth of startups that are solving many of previuosly existing problems in the continent.

The following are the 10 business opportunities in Africa that will make more millionaires in 2018:

1) FinTech

FinTech is one of the newest and fastest emerging industries in Africa.

As the name implies, FinTech involves the use of technology to support and enable banking and financial services, making it easier, faster and cheaper to meet Africa’s underserved demand for financial services.

In many countries on the continent, access to financial services is very poor. In most cases, just about one in five adults has a bank account, and most transactions are still done in cash.

But since the wild success of M-Pesa, the revolutionary mobile money solution that has transformed financial services in East Africa, several innovative fintech products and services have erupted across the continent.

Just a few months ago, Paystack, a Nigeria-based fintech business raised $1.3 million from local and international investors. Paystack provides an online payments platform that allows local merchants to accept payments from around the world, via credit card, debit card, and direct bank transfer on web and mobile.

Another fintech solution, TopCheck, helps users to compare prices of financial products such as various types of insurance and bank loans. It has attracted over €1 million in investments and was recently acquired by South Africa’s Silvertree Internet Holdings.

SnapScan, the South Africa-based fintech service, allows consumers to make payments with their mobile phones by simply taking a photo of a QR code and punching in the amount they want to pay.

These are only but a few examples. There are hundreds of entrepreneurs on the continent behind fast-growing fintech companies such as Paga, Zoona, Interswitch, Wealth Migrate, Riovic, BitPesa and several others.

Fintech is hot in Africa right now because financial services is a severely underserved market, and a multi-billion dollar opportunity for the continent.

In 2018, the business opportunities in Africa’s fast emerging fintech scene will be interesting to watch as more investors and entrepreneurs take their positions.

2) Film & Movies

Over the last three years, three different blockbuster movies from Nollywood, Africa’s leading film industry, have broken local box office records back to back.

Despite major economic difficulties and a tough recession, “The Wedding Party”, a romantic comedy drama, has become one of the highest grossing African movies of all time, raking in over 400 million Nigerian Naira (just over $1 million) in less than 60 days after release.

One million dollars in box office pickings may be pocket change by Hollywood standards, but it’s the scale and growth of business opportunities in Africa’s film industry that’s truly breathtaking.

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With a population of over 1 billion people, of which about 60 percent are young people below the age of 25, Africa presents a very fertile ground for its local film industry.

The four biggest business opportunities in this industry are in film financing, production, distribution and exhibition.

3) Sports Betting

Often regarded as a complicated and controversial industry, sports betting is making a windfall in Africa.

Africa’s young and fanatical sports fan base makes it a very promising market for the global sports betting industry.

I have noticed how a growing number of betting businesses in the US and Europe are expanding into Africa as they position themselves to tap into an explosive growth opportunity for sports betting on the continent.

Lax laws on betting, a widespread use of mobile phones and increasing access to the internet have reduced the barriers to enter a 350-million strong African market, where nearly 50 percent of male adults in Nigeria, South Africa and several other countries are involved in active sports betting.

In July 2016, SportPesa, the biggest sports betting business in East Africa, became the first organisation in Kenya to sponsor an English Premier League football club after it signed a three-year deal with Hull City FC.

Why would a sports betting company in Kenya spend over a million British Pounds on a sponsorship deal in the most-watched football league in Africa? Your guess is as good as mine: “expected high returns on investment.”

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