Africa Has No Shortage of Talent, Only of Structures, Richard Simanga Ngwenya, Nisela Capital

What we talked about.

In this episode, Sunny Ray talks with Richard Simanga Ngwenya, founder of Nisela Capital, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Richard explains that Africa is not short on talent or opportunity, only on the structures, funding, and support systems that let entrepreneurs commercialize their ideas. Drawing on years at Deloitte, Barclays Africa, and Investec, he describes how those institutions taught him the governance and structure most entrepreneurs never learn. He shares the personal moment that pushed him from advisor to founder, comparing his own late adoption of AI this year to his father missing the early internet boom as a mining engineer. Richard details Honeybadger, the resilient family office he built to fund and scale African fintech ideas, and WinkPay, a payments platform aimed at underbanked merchants and consumers who still rely heavily on cash and hardware based point of sale systems. He also discusses where AI is genuinely useful in African financial services today, the role of stablecoins like USDT versus Bitcoin, and why Southern and West Africa are the proving grounds for globally competitive African fintech.

Nisela Capital's Richard Simanga Ngwenya on why Africa's real gap is structure and funding, not talent.

The questions, and the answers.

What problem is Nisela Capital solving and what is your worldview?

We are solving financial inclusion. Having a bank account and access to financial services feels normal in Western Europe, but in an African and especially South African context, financial services are restricted for large parts of the population simply because of cost and accessibility. That gap is what we are built to close.

What did working at Deloitte, Barclays Africa, and Investec teach you about how capital gets allocated?

Working inside institutionalized companies teaches you structure, governance, and application. A lot of entrepreneurs have amazing ideas but lack the ability to package them from a context point of view or understand what an investor on the other side is actually looking for. That has been extremely invaluable along the way.

What do big banks consistently get wrong about entrepreneurs building across Africa?

They typically lack sympathy and understanding for what it actually takes to build as an entrepreneur. Access to funding from traditional banks is near impossible, and the banks simply are not geared for it at all, and definitely not geared for the underbanked or the masses who are out there.

What was the slow realization that pushed you from advising into taking the risk yourself?

I call it my 1994. My dad, a mining engineer, was slow to adopt technology and missed the internet boom by about a decade. My son asked what I was actually using AI for, so I took an AI course, and by the end of March I was a different person, building five fintech ecosystems we are now scaling.

You say Africa has no shortage of talent, only of structures. What does a missing structure look like on the ground?

The biggest missing structure, especially for entrepreneurs, is access to funding, particularly VC funding, for an idea to fall on fertile ground. That is why I built the family office Honeybadger, combining my own private capital with two large institutions to give entrepreneurs both scale and practical help commercializing what they build.

What did merchants show you about payments that a product team in a boardroom would miss?

Payments here are still very dependent on old hardware and point of sale devices, serving people like taxi drivers or a hair salon owner in a remote area. With NFC technology, the payment device is actually already in your hands. We also see people withdrawing their full salary as cash because using a bank account is expensive.

Where is AI in African financial services actually working today, and where is it still just a slide in a deck?

It is mostly working in risk management, fraud, anti money laundering, and identity. It has not really evolved into things that matter to consumers yet. But banks now often have a head of AI who sits across business development, ops, and risk rather than just technology, which shows real change is coming over the next two years.

Why Southern and West Africa first, and what would make you move faster?

Southern Africa is where I am geographically based, and it is a far more advanced market to prove the technology on. But you cannot build a scalable business on the continent without West Africa, especially Nigeria and Ghana, and East Africa with Kenya and Rwanda are also early adopters we are watching closely.