African Startups Funding Journey in 2021

A look back at the fund raising journey of African startups in 2021 indicates what 2022 might bring t the continent.

In 2021, African startups have secured funding 2.5 times than what was raised in 2020. With over 800 deals worth over $100k totalling $4.27 billion as of December 20.

Compared to the two previous years, 2019 ( +49% YoY ) and 2020 (+25% YoY), the number of secured deals has increased by a rate of +73% YoY.

Also from 3 in 2019 and 2 in 2020, $100m+ ‘mega deals’ have seen growth in 2021 as 12 deals was recorded with a total of $1.9 billion.

However, the case for African startups headed by female founders are still not getting the necessary funding.

In 2021, 18% of the fund raised ($738) was from a gender-diverse founding team, 1% was raised ($37m)  from female single founders ($27m, 0.7%) and a female-only founding team ($9m, 0.2%).

Whereas, 81% has been raised ($3.2b) by their male counterpart with $484m (12%) from male single founders and $2.9b (70%) from male-only founding teams.

While female single founders and female-only founding teams have raised less than 1% of Africa’s total funding for startups, the males have done more than 81%.

From this 81%, Egypt raked 98%, followed by South Africa (84%), Nigeria (76%) and Kenya (67%). As Fintech continues to close more of the investment funds, 96% of it has been secured by male single founders and male-only founding teams.

A quick look at gender-diverse founding teams indicates that close to half (46%) of those who secured funding in 2021 had a female CEO and they have only raised 34% by gender-diverse founding teams.

Female single founders and female-only founding teams have raised 5% and 1.4% of the deals respectively in 2021. These numbers, however, indicate that the females are not raising the big bucks.

Through 754 deals $100k in 2021 over $4bn was secured by African startups.

• Nigeria ($1.4b, 215 deals)
• South Africa ($838m, 118 deals)
• Egypt ($588m, 119 deals)
• Kenya ($375m, 119 deals)
• Senegal ($222m, 18 deals)
• Tanzania ($96m, 18 deals)
• Ghana ($48m, 39 deals)

The single largest deals in 2021 go to Senegal (90%), Nigeria (28%), Kenya (23%), Egypt (20%), and South Africa (14%).

Read the full report here.

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