The Three Gains
Phin Mpofu-Masamba II
Venture & Ecosystem Builder
The Three Gains
Why Africa's Innovation Story Is One of Intelligence, Intent, and International Connection And All of Them Lead to The Commercial Gain.
I had originally planned to write about The Three Drains. The essay had been sitting in my drafts, half written, for three weeks. Each time I went to re-read and make edits, I felt the negative energy. And I knew I had to reframe it.
The Three Drains was a piece about brain drain, resource drain, and structural drain. The problems that hollow out Africa's innovation potential. They are real. They are documented. They are important. But every time I sat down to finish the essay, I felt heavier. Not because the argument was wrong, but because it was asking me to write from a place of frustration and deficit. And that is not my voice. I am a builder, not a critic. I am an optimist, not a pessimist.
More importantly, the market already knows what is broken. What’s needed is to highlight and showcase what is working.
And then there is what I have seen in the past three weeks. That has in many ways left me feeling so inspired that what we are building has a deep sense of purpose and comes with an enormous responsibility.
So here is the reframe. Instead of The Three Drains, I want to talk about The Three Gains. Three forces I have witnessed first-hand since publicly launching MARATTO™, Africa's outsourced Technology Transfer Office, just three weeks ago. Forces that have genuinely surprised me in their speed, their depth, and their sincerity.
Gain 1: The Intelligence
Let me start with something that will surprise a few people. I do not have a PhD. I do not have an MBA. I do not even have a Bachelor's degree. Yet in my 25 year professional career, 12 years of which were spent building startup ecosystems around the world, I have never engaged with so many doctoral-level professionals in such a concentrated period. In three weeks, I have sat across the screen or exchanged email messages with PhDs leading research strategy at continental bodies like the African Research Universities Alliance, directors of national innovation agencies, vice-chancellors of African universities, and faculty members creating accounts on our platform from over 20 countries. 34 faculty members have signed up organically. The conversations with the Association of African Universities (AAU), the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), the Africa-Europe Innovation Platform (AEIP), the Kenya National Innovation Agency (KeNIA), and the Network for Entrepreneurial and Institution Leaders (NEIL) alone have put me in (virtual) rooms with more PhDs than most people encounter in a decade. The pure human intelligence on this continent is phenomenal. We must harness it correctly.
The MARATTO™ platform now tracks over 650 African universities and more than 3.3 million indexed research publications. These are not theoretical numbers. They represent real people doing real work. Groundbreaking agricultural science in East Africa. Health systems innovation in Southern Africa. Engineering research across West Africa, nanotechnology out of North Africa, and tropical medicine and biodiversity research from Central Africa that rivals output from institutions anywhere in the world.
Africa does not have an intelligence problem. I need to say that again as the usual line after a statement like that is the whole “it has a … problem”. Africa does not have an intelligence problem. The intelligence is there. The research is there. The knowledge class is world-class. What is missing, however, is the commercial infrastructure to convert that intelligence into patents, licences, spin-outs, and revenue. That is the gap MARATTO™ was built to close.
Gain 2: The Intent
The second gain is the one that has moved me the most. Intent.
Since publicly launching on the 17th March, we have been in conversation with the AAU, which represents over 400 member institutions across the continent. We have engaged with ARUA, whose mission is to strengthen research capacity at Africa's leading universities. I have participated in the Community of Practice hosted by AEIP and spoken at a recent event they hosted. We have discussions lined up with NEIL, spun out of KeNIA, to explore collaboratively supporting universities moving from research to commercialisation.
The outreach started cold, and in one instance was entirely inbound. But in every single instance, the response carried intentionality. People did not just reply. They pulled others into the conversation. Key decision makers. Key stakeholders. Key champions. There has been no gate-keeping.
Over 100 users have signed up to the maratto.africa platform organically. 98 new users in the last 30 days alone. Students. Faculty. Domain experts. Alumni. Partners. People are not just curious. They are creating accounts, exploring universities, and asking how they can contribute. The intent is everywhere. The continent is not lacking ambition, desire or intent. The orchestration layer to convert this intent into outcomes is being created in realtime through MARATTO™.
Gain 3: The Internationals aka The Diaspora
The third gain is very personal to me.
I am Zimbabwean. I have lived in England for more than half my life. I have not been on the African continent since 2011. That changes this year. For a long time, I wrestled with whether that disqualified me from building for Africa. Whether the diaspora perspective was a limitation rather than a strength.
MARATTO™ answered that question in its first three weeks.
I set out to recruit 10 Fractional Domain Experts by 31 March. We onboarded 24. From 9 countries by that date. Professionals in IP law, biomedical engineering, agricultural science, fintech, venture capital, ESG, operational excellence and transaction advisory. Many of them are diaspora professionals bringing global experience and exposure back to African institutions. Some are on-continent experts who have built careers at the coalface of research and innovation. Together, they form what we call MARATTO™'s Fractional Domain Experts (FDEs): a distributed on-demand knowledge-force of specialists who can be deployed into university engagements without any single institution needing to hire them full-time.
On-continent and diaspora, we are one. That is not just a slogan. It is our third core value. And the FDE network is the living proof that it works.
And All of Them Lead to The Commercial Gain
I am not naïve. The drains are real. According to the African Union, an estimated 70,000 skilled professionals leave the continent every year. Universities are chronically underfunded. Most of Africa's 1,500-plus universities have no established Technology Transfer Office to speak of, no IP expertise, and no commercialisation pathway. These problems are not going anywhere.
But here is what I have learned in the 7 weeks of building in this space at a rapid pace: if we always focus on the problems, they will drain us. If we focus on the gains, they will energise us.
The intelligence is there. The intent is there. The international connection is there. And when those three forces converge, they unlock something bigger: the commercial gain.
Every major research university in the world now treats equity in student and faculty ventures as a strategic institutional asset. MIT's alumni-founded companies employ 4.6 million people and generate approximately $1.9 trillion in annual revenue, equivalent to the tenth-largest economy in the world. Stanford's spinout portfolio includes Google, Hewlett-Packard, and Cisco. Cambridge has built an ecosystem of over 5,000 knowledge-intensive businesses generating in excess of £24 billion per annum, with spinout investment growing from £46 million in 2015 to £879 million in 2024. These results did not happen by accident. They happened because universities made the deliberate decision to retain an equity stake in the ventures they helped create, and then built the infrastructure to support those ventures beyond graduation.
African universities have the intelligence to produce the same calibre of research. They have the intent to commercialise it. And through the diaspora and international networks, they now have access to the on-continent and global expertise to make it happen. What they have not yet built is the institutional infrastructure to capture the commercial value of their own work. In 2024, 3.7 million patent applications were filed worldwide. South Africa, the continent's largest filer, accounted for fewer than 9,000. The gap is not talent or ideas. It is infrastructure and intentionality.
This is the opportunity. When a university holds a founding equity stake in the ventures born from its research, it is not paying a fee. It is building an institutional portfolio that, over time, generates returns far exceeding the cost of any programme. Cambridge, Stanford, and MIT have proven the model over decades. There is no reason African universities cannot build the same, starting now, starting with the intelligence, intent, and international connection that already exists.
That is what MARATTO™ was built to orchestrate. That is what The Three Gains make possible. And that is why the commercial gain is not a distant aspiration. It is the natural consequence of what is already happening.
We CAN because we are AfriCAN. That is MARATTO™'s fifth core value. And after seven weeks, I do not just believe it. I have seen it. I am experiencing it.
About the author
Venture & Ecosystem Builder
Phin Mpofu-Masamba II is the Founding Curator of Dazzle Africa, the trust and intelligence layer facilitating trade and growth across Africa's startup-to-scaleup ecosystem. Dazzle Africa's flagship product is MARATTO, Africa's outsourced Technology Transfer Office, giving universities the infrastructure to identify, protect, and commercialise their research without the cost of building it internally. Dazzle Africa sits within V.ONE, his boutique Venture Studio that builds digital platforms solving real problems across commerce, community, and comparison. With 25+ years of experience building global startup ecosystems, Phin previously served as Director of Global Community at Startup Grind, where he helped scale the community to over 600 chapters across 120 countries. He has a deep passion for building infrastructure that keeps African innovation on the continent, addressing the brain drain, resource drain, and structural drain that hold back commercialisation of world-class research. His work has earned recognition including being named to the Maserati 100 and winning the CMX Professional of the Year award. Phin currently resides in Cheshire, England with his wife and three children.