For the businesses that built emerging economies.
For the operators who will carry them forward.
Building Africa's Business Transfer Ecosystem
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Jogun — from the Yoruba word meaning to inherit — is a research and ecosystem initiative exploring Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, SME succession, diaspora investment, and enterprise continuity across emerging markets, beginning with Africa.
Why This Matters
Every year, thousands of small and medium businesses across the continent close their doors — not because they failed, but because their owners had no structured pathway to hand them on.
Founders retire. Entrepreneurs emigrate. Families dissolve partnerships. And businesses that took decades to build are liquidated for parts, their employees dispersed, their customers unserved, and their institutional knowledge lost.
This is not simply a failure of entrepreneurship. It is a failure of infrastructure.
The Gap
In more developed markets, Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition provides a structured pathway for new operators to step in. Businesses continue. Jobs are preserved. Capital finds a productive home.
Across many emerging markets, however, the ecosystem required to support business transfers at scale remains underdeveloped.
Jogun exists to help build that ecosystem.
"The central constraint is not necessarily the absence of viable businesses or interested operators. It is the absence of trusted transaction and transfer infrastructure."
— Jogun Research, 2026The Initiative
Jogun is a research-backed knowledge and ecosystem initiative exploring what it would take to build functional business transfer systems across emerging markets.
We convene investors, operators, legal practitioners, researchers, and diaspora professionals to examine the realities of SME succession and acquisition entrepreneurship — publishing insights, hosting conversations, and contributing to a growing body of knowledge in a space that remains significantly underexplored.
Our work focuses particularly on the structural conditions that shape business continuity in emerging markets: informality, trust deficits, fragmented documentation systems, financing constraints, and succession gaps.
What would it take for viable businesses in emerging economies to survive beyond their founders?
Knowledge
Original research, ecosystem mapping, and published insights into SME succession, ETA, and acquisition entrepreneurship across emerging markets.
Conversation
A structured dialogue series bringing together investors, operators, lawyers, researchers, and diaspora professionals shaping business transfer ecosystems across Africa and beyond.
Community
A growing network of practitioners, investors, diaspora professionals, and ecosystem builders committed to strengthening enterprise continuity across emerging markets.
Jogun Conversations
Jogun Conversations is a virtual webinar and dialogue series exploring ETA, SME succession, diaspora investment, and enterprise continuity across emerging markets.
As acquisition entrepreneurship expands globally, the conversation has remained concentrated in a handful of developed markets — despite some of the most acute succession and business continuity challenges existing elsewhere. Across Africa and other emerging economies, viable businesses often change hands informally, collapse during ownership transitions, or disappear entirely.
Sessions are recorded and repurposed into a podcast and digital knowledge series, creating a long-term public archive of conversations around acquisition entrepreneurship in emerging markets.
Panel Discussions
Structured conversations with practitioners across the ETA and SME ecosystem — from East to West, North to Southern Africa and the diaspora communities connected to them.
Fireside Conversations
One-on-one dialogues with operators, investors, and founders working at the intersection of business transfer and economic development in high-growth markets.
Ecosystem Dialogues
Open conversations exploring the infrastructure, trust systems, financing mechanisms, and institutional conditions required to support business continuity at scale.
Grounded in Research
Jogun is grounded in ongoing research into SME succession, diaspora investment behaviour, and the applicability of ETA models within emerging markets, with Nigeria serving as the founding case study.
Early research suggests significant untapped opportunity surrounding business continuity and acquisition entrepreneurship across African markets — particularly among diaspora professionals interested in returning capital, expertise, and operational capacity back into local economies.
"The central constraint is not necessarily the absence of viable businesses or interested operators. It is the absence of trusted transaction and transfer infrastructure."
Research findings and market-sizing methodology are part of an ongoing body of work and continue to evolve through primary research, ecosystem engagement, and practitioner dialogue.
Join the Network
Whether you are a business owner thinking about succession, a diaspora professional curious about acquisition opportunities back home, an investor exploring SME ecosystems across the continent, or a practitioner working in law, finance, operations, or advisory — this conversation is for you.