Beyond Borders: How Kasi Insight Is Helping Canada Understand Africa's Growing Markets

One of Canada's most distinctive market intelligence companies isn't focused on Canada.

From its headquarters here, Kasi Insight helps organizations understand consumers, markets, and public opinion across Africa, providing research that informs decisions for businesses, governments, and international organizations. For founder and CEO Yannick Lefang, the goal has never simply been to collect data. It is to help build stronger connections between Canada and one of the world's fastest-growing regions.

Building a Canadian Company with a Global Reach

When Lefang founded Kasi Insight in 2016, he wasn't following an established business model.

An engineer by training who later built a career in Canada's banking sector, he recognized a gap that few others seemed to notice. Companies around the world wanted better information about African markets, but reliable, consistent, continent-wide data was difficult to find. Rather than viewing that as a limitation, he saw an opportunity.

Kasi Insight began as a side project while Lefang continued his career in banking. After several years building the company, he made the decision to pursue the business full-time in 2019, allowing it to expand its research network and establish a growing presence across Africa.

"We really believe that access to data and intelligence is going to allow companies to better understand the African continent and better tap into the opportunities that exist there," he says.

Today, Kasi Insight operates from Canada with subsidiaries and staff across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and South Africa. While its core team numbers about ten people, the company's research network is far larger. Every month, more than 1,000 people contribute to surveys conducted across 20 African markets, allowing Kasi Insight to collect approximately 12,000 interviews every month. The company is also featured on the Black Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Map (BEEM), a national directory connecting Black-owned businesses, organizations, and entrepreneurs across Canada.

Over nearly a decade, Kasi Insight has quietly built one of its greatest competitive advantages.

"We sit on an amazing asset," Lefang says. "One hundred million data points. Twenty countries. Nine years of historical data."

Those insights are now used by organizations ranging from Bloomberg to banks, telecommunications companies, and consumer brands operating across the continent. For Lefang, the goal has always been to equip businesses with the information they need to make better decisions about African markets. As Canada's conversations around trade diversification continue to evolve, he believes reliable market intelligence will become increasingly important for organizations looking to engage with the continent.

Seeing Africa Differently

Although Kasi Insight is headquartered in Canada, its work has taken Lefang across roughly 20 African countries.

Those experiences have challenged many of the assumptions he once held himself.

"When I started this journey, I thought I understood Africa because I was African," he says. "I realized very quickly that I only knew my country."

Years of travelling, conducting research, and working alongside local partners broadened that perspective. He discovered markets that were far more dynamic than many outsiders realize, entrepreneurs solving problems with remarkable creativity, but also learned that success in Africa is built on relationships before transactions.

"Doing business in Africa is a human experience," he explains. "People don't do business with you if they don't know you."

That understanding continues to shape how Kasi Insight approaches its work across the continent, helping clients interpret not only the data, but also the people, cultures, and markets behind it.

Looking Ahead

"I want this company to become a darling of Canada," Lefang says.

Despite serving global clients and building one of Canada's most distinctive research companies, Lefang believes Kasi Insight is only beginning to realize its potential. For him, success means building a Canadian company that helps organizations better understand one of the world's fastest-growing regions while strengthening economic ties between Canada and Africa. He believes African markets should no longer be viewed as a niche opportunity, but as part of Canada's long-term economic future. Nearly a decade after founding Kasi Insight, Lefang believes the company's greatest opportunity still lies ahead. Not only for the business itself, but for the Canadian organizations it hopes to serve.

"Whether you're a Black entrepreneur or a Canadian entrepreneur," he says, "Africa has to be on your roadmap."

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