About Navon

We are not a
data centre company.
We are a full-stack
sovereign compute
platform.

Navon exists to ensure that regions everywhere can access, govern, and use advanced technology — sovereign over their data, sustainable in their energy, and accessible to the institutions and people who need it.

The problem

Ownership of technology
is concentrated in
very few countries.

Technology is becoming the foundation of economies, security and innovation. Yet access and control are increasingly concentrated — creating structural dependency risk for the rest of the world.

01 / SOVEREIGNTY RISK
Specialised AI data centres
~32countries

Operating outside domestic jurisdiction.

National data, regulation, and digital services depend on infrastructure built and governed by external powers.

02 / ECONOMIC RISK
Specialised AI infrastructure
90%+US & China

Value captured elsewhere.

The economic upside of AI, data, and digital industries flows to the regions that own the underlying compute — not the ones that use it.

03 / SECURITY RISK
Global data centres located in the US
~45%global share

Critical infra exposed.

Digital infrastructure becomes a vector for geopolitical pressure, regulatory friction, and systemic disruption far from home.

Why now

Africa has gone through
two phases of compute.
The third is unbuilt.

Using Kenya as a proxy, the continent's digital infrastructure has evolved in clear stages. The next phase — advanced sovereign compute — has no incumbent. Navon is purpose-built for it.

2000 – 2015
01

Telecom & enterprise.

Submarine cables arrive. Telcos and banks build internal facilities. Internet exchanges and cable landing stations form the early connectivity foundation.

5+submarine cables
M-Pesafintech wave
2016 – Present
02

Colocation & cloud.

Commercial data centres emerge. ADC, iColo, PAIX Nairobi serve telcos, enterprises and early cloud nodes. The traditional colo model dominates.

6+colo facilities
~20 MWexisting Kenya
Now emerging
03

Advanced sovereign compute.

AI, HPC and government digital systems demand GPU clusters, orchestration layers and sovereign data governance. Traditional colo cannot serve these workloads.

200 MW+needed by 2030
0modular sovereign
Three core drivers

The case for advanced
computing rests on
three truths.

Greater energy requirements, higher infrastructure sophistication, and a rebuilt value chain make a different deployment model essential. Navon is architected around all three.

01 / COMPUTE ARCHITECTURE
Workloads are diverging

Right-fit hardware

AI inference, autonomous agents, quantum simulation and HPC each demand different hardware. Price-performance is workload-specific — and changes with every generation. Lock in the wrong architecture and you lock in inefficiency. Routing inference through external API gateways adds a margin tax, latency variance, and residency risk that co-located serving on owned silicon eliminates.

10×
Performance delta:
optimised vs. generic
02 / GEOGRAPHY & ENERGY
Location is strategy

Sovereign-by-design

Where compute lives determines who governs it. Sovereignty and compliance are inseparable from physical location. As workloads intensify, energy cost becomes compute cost — and political control requires physical proximity.

40–60%
Energy cost reduction
vs. diesel-backed
03 / VALUE CREATION
The stack is being rebuilt

Vertical stack + ecosystem

Consultancy is being automated. Vertical SaaS is commoditising. The new value chain runs from infrastructure ownership upward — through platforms, ecosystems and education. The stronghold is at the bottom.

$20M / MW
Cloud revenue
vs. $4M / MW colo
The competitive position

The only company doing
all of this in Africa.

Hyperscalers serve Africa remotely. Traditional DCs offer space, not compute. Modular players focus on the US and Europe. Navon is the only vertically integrated, sovereign-ready modular DC platform built for growth markets.

Africa-critical capability HyperscalersAWS · Azure · GCP Traditional DCsEquinix · Teraco · Raxio Modular DCsCrusoe · Cloud&Heat Navonvertically integrated
Physical presence in AfricaLocal facility, not remote AZ
Geothermal / renewable poweredOn-site clean energy, not offsets
Sovereign data residencyIn-country, local jurisdiction ~
Modular & right-sizedScales with demand, not hyperscale
Integrated sovereign cloudFull stack, not just rack space ~
Quantum-safe cybersecurityPQC and QKD from ground up
Sector-specific applicationsHealth, agri, finance, gov ~
Affordable for growth marketsPricing for African enterprises
Read this row by row. Hyperscalers are remote. Traditional DCs sell rack space. Modular players are aimed at the West. Navon is the only platform built end-to-end for the sovereign, sustainable, growth-market context.
The vision

Three principles
we won't compromise on.

Every Navon site, layer and partnership is measured against the same three principles. If a deployment isn't all three, it isn't Navon.

Sovereign.

Regions retain control over their data, infrastructure, and digital future — rather than depending on external powers. Residency by physical fact, not policy promise.

Sustainable.

Built on energy-efficient, clean, resilient infrastructure that can scale within real environmental limits. Geothermal, hydro, solar — chosen to source, not offset.

Accessible.

Locally available, usable, affordable — through open platforms, partnership programmes, and a price point that growth-market institutions can actually clear.

The team

Built by people who've
operated in these markets.

We're a small founding team with deep roots in deep tech, infrastructure, and East Africa. We believe the next wave of AI will be built on infrastructure that regions own — not infrastructure they rent.

Founder & CEO

Karan Pinto

Building Navon from the ground up — from securing land at the Naivasha SEZ to signing LOIs with six delivery partners. Previously in deep tech and infrastructure across emerging markets.

Co-founder · joining soon

Open role

We're looking for a technical co-founder with deep infrastructure experience — someone who has built and operated at the edge of the network in emerging markets.

Head of Business Development

Open role

Closing our first enterprise and government accounts — working across Kenya, East Africa, and the broader continent to define who Navon serves first.

Sector links
Work with Navon

Sovereign compute
shouldn't be
something you import.

Whether you're an enterprise moving workloads onto sovereign infrastructure, a university joining the partnership programme, or a partner looking to co-build the next Navon site — we'd like to hear from you.