3 records for the price of one

OPay's $400m mega round (but not only) takes the ecosystem to new heights

Where do we begin?…

• Back in mid July, the ecosystem had already raised as much as it had in the whole of 2019 through $1m+ deals*. As of last Friday - and even before ‘The News’ that dropped yesterday (see below) -, the total amount raised by start-ups in Africa so far this year had just surpassed the total amount raised in 2020 overall ($1.6bn).

• And then on Monday, the rumours of an upcoming mega round by OPay - which had been going around since May - were confirmed to be true: the company just announced a $400m funding round. This is the largest round on record for the continent. And it means the ecosystem has now reached another milestone with over $2bn raised in 2021 so far.

• Finally, it goes without saying that with the very good level of activity the ecosystem had already seen this month, and this extra $400m top-up, August 2021 will be the most successful month on record, a title held until now by November 2019, with $475m raised, driven by Interswitch’s unicorn-making round, and… OPay’s $120m Series B.

As they say: Onward and Upward!

We’re still enjoying a bit of a break but we’ll be back very soon with our regular Monday morning posts. In the meanwhile, you can always go back to previous posts, make a bit of noise on social media, give us ideas for future analysis… or just sit back and enjoy a m/cocktail 🍹

* For comparability’s sake with 2019 and 2020, all the numbers used include only deals $1m & over. Deals between $100k and $1m represent at least an extra $42m in 2021 so far. For a full list of those, check out the database here.