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In my post last week, I compared the past twelve-month period (July 2022 to June 2023, a.k.a the ‘funding winter’) to the previous period (the ‘funding heatwave’). In particular, I noted that the percentage of equity funding raised by start-ups in the Big Four had been stable between the two periods, in the low 80%. But remember: as the total amount of funding raised was almost divided by three, it means that there were some very serious YoY movements in dollar amounts. How much? Let’s find out…
But before we do, let’s have a look back at the funding heatwave itself: the Big Four jointly raised $4.6bn between July 2021 and June 2022 with Nigeria topping the charts (over $2bn) followed by Kenya (just short of $1bn), South Africa and Egypt. Four other countries (Senegal, Ghana, Tunisia, Tanzania) had crossed the $100m mark and another 7 claimed more than $10m.
Now fast forward a year: Where are we? Most countries took a serious beating, starting with the Big Four. In absolute and relative terms, funded contracted the most in Nigeria (-77% YoY i.e. ÷4.3), which means the giant lost its #1 spot to Egypt where the fall was the most moderate of the Big Four (-25% YoY). Egypt is the only ecosystem to maintain itself over the half-billion mark. In South Africa the amount was halved (-53%); in Kenya, divided by 3.2 (-69%). Beyond the Big Four, in all four markets where over $100m had been raised during the heatwave, the amount raised decreased dramatically during the ‘funding winter’: -68% YoY (÷3.1) in Tanzania, -81% YoY (÷5.4) in Ghana, ÷20 in Tunisia and ÷27 in Senegal (from $222m to $6m). Four of the 7 markets where $10m to $100m was raised during the heatwave also suffered very significant losses (DRC, Namibia, Zambia, and Uganda). In Morocco, the amount of funding raised was roughly flat YoY.
Against all odds, three markets managed to pull off growth in this unfavourable context. Funding grew in Côte d’Ivoire (+15% YoY), and in Cameroon (+34%) where it crossed the $10m mark. The biggest jump by far was recorded in Algeria (x5, from $30m to $150m), a prowess almost entirely attributable to a single deal: Yassir’s $150m Series B in November 2022.
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Would you like to know more about the deals behind these numbers? Say now more! We have all the data for you, and you can access it via this link, though if I were you, I would click this one, because it includes a little discount 😏... Oh, one last thing: I’ve decided to focus on equity and excluded debt (and other things) from this week’s analysis because a few large debt deals were skewing the numbers quite a bit, but I also because I have the feeling that debt was probably underreported in the past, and is now being announced and discussed a lot more, because of the relative dearth of equity deals, especially large ones. That's it for today!
