South Africa has the most developed startup ecosystems in Africa, ahead of Kenya, Nigeria, and Rwanda.
This is according to the recently released StartupBlink Ecosystem Index Report 2021, a global startup ecosystem map with tens of thousands of registered startups, co-working spaces, and accelerators.
By evaluating innovation ecosystems in 100 countries and 1,000 cities globally, StartupBlink ranks locations according to the quantity and quality of start-ups and supporting organisations and factors related to their business environment, including ease of doing business and investment.
The report ranked United States, United Kingdom, and Isreal as the top three countries globally with the best startup ecosystems. San Francisco Bay, New York, and London were ranked as the top three cities with the best startup ecosystems.
Within Africa, the report showed that Central Africa had no representation in the rankings, while Eastern Africa grew from 4 to 6 countries in the global top 100.
Northern Africa kept its three representatives in the global top 100, yet two of the three nations (Tunisia and Morocco) declined in rank.
Southern Africa had a good year; not only did South Africa join the global top 50 this year, but a second Southern African country (Namibia) joined the rankings.
Finally, Western Africa had a good year, where all ranked countries (Nigeria, Ghana, and Cape Verde) improved their rankings. To sum up, results are quite diverse across the sub-regions of the African continent.
African country ranking highlights
