According to a new report released by Maxime Bayen, a Senior Venture Builder for Catalyst Fund at BFA Global, African startups have raised more in the first half of 2021 than they raised in the first half of 2019 and 2020 combined.
The report noted that startups on the continent had raised a whopping $1.19 billion in funding, with deals worth $1 million and above accounting for about 95% ($1.14 bn) of the total funding raised.
Further insights into the report showed that South Africa and Nigeria lead the pack of African countries with the highest startup funding in 2021, accounting for 28% and 27% of the total raised funds. Kenya, Egypt, and Ghana complete the Top 5 (13%, 11% & 10% respectively) list known as the ‘Big Five’ of Africa.
The rest of the funding (just over 10%) went to deals spread across 19 markets are:
- Nearly half (48%) of the funding went to fintech start-ups. It is worth noting that this share is higher than in previous years, where most of the fintech funding was raised in H2 (89% of it in 2019, and 76% in 2020).
- All-male founding teams are still getting the lion’s share of funding raised in Africa (77%). More encouragingly, however, 14% of the funding was raised by female CEOs; this is far from gender-balanced, yet a significant improvement compared to H1’20 (2%
- Of the 369 investors who have been involved in at least one $100k+ deal in Africa this year, 110 (30%) are headquartered on the continent.
- The US is home to more investors involved in a deal in Africa than Africa itself: 133. US-based investors are, however, significantly less active than Africa-based investors: 87% of them have so far only participated in one deal.
