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Kilwa Research · Series

Liquidity Signal

How capital actually leaves an African position: the four exit routes and the proceeds gate, scored market by market on the Exit Liquidity Index.

Cover of Exit and Liquidity 2026

Liquidity Signal · No. 1 · 17 September 2026

Exit and Liquidity 2026

African private equity recorded 81 exits in 2025, the second-highest count on record, and 27% of limited partners still told AVCA they would slow commitments in 2026. Both facts are true, because an exit count is not a distribution. This edition scores the four things that stand between a signed African sale and money in an investor's account: who the buyer is, whether a listing is a real alternative, whether another sponsor will take the position, and whether the proceeds can leave the country.

1 of 12scored markets where every exit route and the proceeds gate clear 70, the Deep threshold: South Africa, at 78.2 on the Exit Liquidity Index
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Africa Signal Check

The continent, every two or three days.

A dated executive briefing. Each story carries the Kilwa read, the condition that would prove it wrong, and the next dated catalyst — and every pre-registered call is graded in public.

All editions

24 August 2026

Local equity is the new entry fee. Lusaka shows the other way to set terms.

21 August 2026

The verdicts held. Now the campaigns bid for the reforms.

19 August 2026

The count certified. Capital picks its doors.

17 August 2026

The count held. The court closed the door.

Curated collections

The best thinking, and the proof it works.

Two collections Kilwa maintains alongside its own research: a synthesis of the most-cited AI strategy playbooks, and the deployments that delivered measured outcomes in markets like ours.

Knowledge bank

Latest “Best” AI Strategies

Nine of the most-cited AI strategy playbooks, read and distilled, then reconciled into one view of what the best sources agree on. Every source cited in full.

playbooks
9
playbooks
recurring themes
8
recurring themes
of publication
8 years
of publication
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Use cases

AI that paid off in markets like ours.

Eight deployments with measured outcomes, from MYbank to Zipline, told outcome-first in one framework, then two opportunities in South Africa and Nigeria modelled by Kilwa with the arithmetic shown.

measured cases
8
measured cases
countries and regions
6
countries and regions
Kilwa estimates
2
Kilwa estimates
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Viewpoints

Arguments, clearly labelled as arguments.

Positions our founder and advisers take on where the AI economy is heading, and what frontier markets should demand from it. Opinion, published as opinion.

All viewpoints

Global AI · Emerging markets

America built the AI frontier. China is building the on-ramp.

Hinsley Njila

AI, sovereignty and the cost of being misread

AI put Nigeria in the Sahara. The bigger error is how the world prices Africa.

Hinsley Njila

AI, energy and the terms of the build-out

Every AI megawatt should pay a public dividend.

Innocent B. Muhizi and Hinsley Njila

The Kilwa Signal

Get the research as it publishes.

Research releases, scored market movements and the thinking behind them — sent when the signal warrants it.

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