✅2024✅ One last look in the rearview mirror...
Let's wrap it up, Shall we?
Because we know you’re all busy, and it can sometimes be tricky to keep track of all the content we put out, we’re doing this one last 2024 post (we promise!) so you can have it all in one place to bookmark and/or share. With 80k+ unique post views this month, 500+ downloads of the deck & 1,000+ unique viewers of the live/replay, we certainly felt your support and encouragement this month!
So here you go:
📺 The presentation: 50 mins of voice-over on the 2024 trends;
📒 The full deck: 50+ slides for your presentations and your socials;
🧾 The database: 3.5k deals since 2019, worth $19b+ over the past 6 years). And remember, if you're a female founder or CEO, you can get a 75% discount.
And the seven posts going into the trends in more details: by geography, by sector, by gender, a focus on investors, top raisers etc…:
💸2024💸 (Just) $2.2 billion in the bank
Start-ups in Africa raised $2.2b in 2024 in equity, debt and grants (exc. exits). While this is a good amount in absolute terms, it represents a -25% drop compared to the $2.9b that were raised on the continent in 2023. A total of 188 ventures raised $1m or more in 2024 (exc. exits), which is just 10% less than in 2023 though. On the exit front, there were 22 exits made public last year, versus 20 in 2023. And it’s not all doom and gloom…
🔢2024🔢 Kenya claims the top spot, again
East Africa attracted the most funding for the second year in a row: $725m in total (-18% YoY), i.e. 1 in 3 dollars raised on the continent in 2024. Kenya alone ($638m) made up 88% of the total raised in the region, and 29% of all the money raised on the continent. It is by far the market that attracted the most funding in Africa in 2024. Large deals in the climate tech space in particular (think d.light, SunCulture, or Basigo) boosted the numbers...
🐘2024🐘 All hail the big guys!
The Top 10 raisers in 2024 attracted 51% of the funding. This is the highest proportion since 2019, and pretty much in line with 2023 dynamics. Who were they? Moniepoint and Tyme of course, but also two other fintechs (MNT-Halan & M-Kopa) and four ‘climate tech’ ventures (either solar: d.light, Sun King; or EV: Basigo and Spiro); plus moove and nuitée. Unsurprisingly, eight were located in a ‘Big Four’ country...
🔋2024🔋 Fintech & Climate Tech, in short.
Fintech is the sector that attracted most of the start-up funding in Africa in 2024 (over $1b). What’s interesting though is that the sector’s share even grew YoY from 42% in 2023 to 47% in 2024 and is at its highest since 2021. Four of the ten biggest raisers in 2024 were fintech players: ‘newnicorns’ Moniepoint and Tyme of course, but also MNT-Halan and M-Kopa. If you remember though, it wasn’t always so obvious...
🤦♂️2024🤦♀️ It's a Man's Man's Man's World.
2024 has been abysmal when it comes to the representation of female-led and female-founded ventures in start-up funding (exc. exits) on the continent, as both reached an all-time low since we’ve started collecting the data in 2019. Female CEOs attracted only $48m in funding in 2024 (exc. exits). This is more than 4x times less than in 2023. Comparatively, nearly $2.2b went to their male counterparts in 2024...
🕴️2024🕴️ The Top Investors of the Year
Last year, we found 520+ investors involved in at least one $100k+ deal on the continent. This is a large community of investors supporting the ecosystem, but not as large as it used to be compared to 2023 (610+), or to 2022 when 1,000+ investors had participated in at least one deal, twice as much as in 2024. And investors are also less active: the share of investors who have only participated in one $100k+ deal (69%) is at its highest...
🌍2024🌍 Africa in the World
With $1.5b in equity raised in 2024, Africa represented 0.6% of the total globally ($275b). This is modest, and it doesn’t come anywhere near Africa’s contribution to global GDP (PPP) (~5%), let alone Africa’s share of global population (~18%). Talent is equally distributed, Opportunity is not; and many investors continue to fail to realise the potential of Africa’s entrepreneurs and markets, missing great deals in the process...
That’s it. The next time you’ll hear from us we’ll be looking at January 2025 numbers. 2024 might not have been the best year on record, but we remain optimistic, and ready to celebrate the next wins in the ecosystem! Spoiler alert: It’s not even over yet, but January 2025 already beat January 2024, by quite a margin :)… Max
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