In a Crunchbase guest essay, Nnamdi Okike of 645 Ventures argues that the next generation of super apps will be built in emerging markets, not the US. He points to Moniepoint, a Nigerian fintech that has become the operating system for more than 6 million businesses, processing over $300 billion a year — roughly 39% of Nigeria's digital payments volume. Okike notes that most Americans have never heard of such companies, even though firms like Nubank, Kaspi, and Sea Limited are worth tens or hundreds of billions.
Okike's central claim is that super apps thrive where trust in the financial system has been destroyed. He lists four preconditions: high mobile penetration, weak incumbent competition, poor existing financial services, and a crisis severe enough to strip incumbents of legitimacy. Brazil's 1990 deposit freeze, Kazakhstan's repeated banking collapses, and Southeast Asia's 1997 crisis all created voids that Nubank, Kaspi, and Sea later filled. In the US, by contrast, 96% of households are banked, so specialist apps inherit credibility without needing to become super apps.
The essay also argues that population size is less important than depth of engagement. Kaspi, for example, serves roughly 70% of Kazakhstan's 20 million people, with users transacting about 77 times a month. Okike identifies Bangladesh, Egypt, Vietnam, and Pakistan as potential next markets, and predicts the third generation of super apps will be built on stablecoins and AI. He discloses that he owns shares in Kaspi, Sea Limited, and Nubank; none are portfolio companies of his firm.