Startups in Africa have supposedly raised record-breaking funding in 2021, ranging between $4.3 billion to $5.2 billion, as per data-tracking publications – The Big Deal, Partech, and Briter Bridges.
The Big Deal has reported that African startups raised $4.33 billion in total last year, a 155% rise from $1.65 billion in 2020, while Briter Bridges reported $4.9 billion, out of which $300 million was undisclosed, seeing a rise of over 250% from $1.3 billion of 2020.
Partech, on the other hand, reported $5.2 billion from equity rounds, a 264% jump from 2020 at $1.4 billion.
However, all three publications reported fintech as the leading sector, with The Big Deal reporting that fintech startups accounted for 53% of the total venture capital funding, Briter Bridges reporting 31%, and Partech reporting 63%.
Other sectors included are logistics, education/edtech, health tech, energy, and retail.
The reports also showed that the Big Four countries were leading as investment destinations of the continent, with Nigeria retaining the top spot.
The Big Deal and Partech reported South Africa as the second, followed by Egypt and Kenya, with Senegal taking the fifth place, while Briter Bridges reported South Africa followed by Kenya, and then Egypt.
According to The Big Deal, female-founded startups had received 18% of VC funding in Africa, while Partech placed the percentage between 14% to 16%, and Briter Bridges reported that 15% of the funding went to startups that were either founded or co-founded by women, or had C-level female executives.
2021 also saw an influx of cash that was created due to mega-rounds, meaning that many of the deals were either equal to or exceeded $100 million, and were responsible for most of the investment raised in the continent.
Briter Bridges reported that 55% of total funding came from 13 such deals, while Partech reported that 48% of funding came from 14 mega deals. Both of these publications stated that OPay, Chipper Cash, ZepZ, Tala, TymeBank, JUMO, FlutterWave, Wave, MNT-Halan, Andela, and Zipline were among those who had raised such rounds.
Source credit: https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/08/reports-say-african-startups-raised-record-smashing-4-3b-to-5b-in-2021/