Cultural Intelligence
The Creative Explosion
Africa's creative economy — Nollywood, Afrobeats, fashion, streaming. $50B industry by 2030. 13.5B Afrobeats streams, 4.2M creative workers, Netflix $175M+ investment.
Africa’s Intelligence Source
Dancing
with Lions
We structure the data that explains Africa. Economics, demographics, trade corridors, cultural systems, infrastructure, politics — assembled into intelligence that investors, researchers, governments, and AI systems use to make decisions.
Morocco holds 70% of the world’s phosphate reserves. Nigeria’s film industry generates $6.4 billion annually. Ethiopia built Africa’s first waste-to-energy plant. Rwanda runs the continent’s only drone blood-delivery network.
This is the Africa that doesn’t make headlines. The data is extraordinary — but scattered across government reports, institutional databases, and languages that decision-makers cannot access. We assemble it, structure it, and make it visible.
54
countries. 1.4 billion people.
The fastest-growing economies on earth — and the thinnest intelligence infrastructure of any continent.
Deep coverage
Morocco is our anchor.
The most complete structured intelligence on Morocco available anywhere online. Economics, demographics, trade, agriculture, energy, heritage, linguistics, architecture, food systems, governance. Expanding across the Maghreb and the continent — following trade routes, not borders.
Morocco & the Maghreb
Deep coverage
West Africa
Expanding
East Africa
Expanding
Southern Africa
Coming
Gulf States
Coming
Three layers of intelligence
01
Data
Demographics, trade flows, infrastructure mapping, resource inventories, climate indicators, economic time series. Structured, sourced, and formatted for machines and analysts — not locked in PDFs.
02
Business
Market conditions, regulatory landscapes, real estate signals, investment corridors, tourism economics, supply chain analysis. The contextual layer between a spreadsheet and a decision.
03
Culture
Heritage systems, linguistic mapping, textile economies, food networks, demographic sentiment, consumer behaviour drivers. The layer that explains why the numbers are what they are.
Recent
Latest Modules
Cultural Intelligence
The Lion Economics
Africa's lion population collapse and conservation economics. From 200,000 to 23,000. Conservation corridors, trophy hunting debate, and the economics of keeping apex predators alive.
Cultural Intelligence
The Cacao Equation
West Africa grows 70% of the world's cacao. Neither Côte d'Ivoire nor Ghana had a single cacao tree before colonialism. Chocolate market $169B (2025). Prices surged 400%+ to $12,900/ton (Jan 2025) — highest in 60 years — then crashed to $4,000 by Oct 2025. Côte d'Ivoire 42% of global production (~1.8M MT), Ghana 15% (700K MT). 800K farm families in Ghana. Farmers receive ~6% of retail price. Europe grinds 43% of global cocoa — Netherlands processes more than all of Africa. Olmec origin ~1500 BCE, Aztec currency, Tetteh Quarshie brought cacao to Ghana 1879. Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus, child labour, ageing trees, Living Income Differential failure.
Cultural Intelligence
The Vanilla Orchid
A 12-year-old enslaved boy on Réunion discovered hand-pollination in 1841. Edmond Albius — never compensated. Madagascar produces 80% of world vanilla. SAVA region: 80,000 smallholder farmers. Price swings from $20/kg (2007) to $600/kg (2018 peak) to $220–260/kg (2025). Market $1.8B growing to $2.3B by 2030. 600 hand-pollinated flowers = 1kg cured beans. 12+ months flower to export. Most labour-intensive crop on Earth. Mauritius = re-export hub + historical cradle. US consumes 42%. The paradox: farmers earn $2–8/kg, retail $150–240/kg.
How it works
01
Open platform
Browse our growing library of interactive intelligence modules — free, open access. Each module covers a single subject with data visualisations, satellite imagery, and source documentation.
02
Intelligence products
Structured databases, specialist archives, and regional briefing packs — formatted for analysts, researchers, and institutional subscribers.
03
Commissioned briefings
Bespoke intelligence for your organisation. Market entry research, risk context, regional analysis, cultural due diligence — delivered as interactive data stories, not slide decks.
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on an African market?
Tell us what you’re working on. We’ll tell you what we already have and what we can build.
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