With half of the year behind us, it is a good time to take stock of an ecosystem that’s growing faster than ever:
In 2021 so far, start-ups in Africa have raised a whopping $1.14bn+ through deals $1m & over ($1.19bn+ if we also include $100k-$1m deals). This is more than double the amount raised in H1 2020
80% of that funding was raised by start-ups HQ’ed in one of the ‘Big Four’, with Nigeria and South Africa neck and neck at 28% each
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). If 2021 follows the same pattern, the share of fintech could well keep growing…
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%)
And to celebrate this incredible semester, here is an updated version of the graph from our very first post three months ago:
We hope you keep enjoying the content, and you know the drill by now: a share goes a very long way, and the full database of 2019-2021 deals can be accessed here, with a discount :)
