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