Carrol, Cikü, Anu, Belinda... and the 96 male CEOs

Out of the 100 most-funded start-ups in Africa since 2019, only four currently have a female CEO

27 start-ups in Africa have raised more than $100m+ in equity, debt or grant funding since 2019. MTN-Halan is leading the pack by a comfortable margin with close to $1 billion raised in the past 5.5 years, followed by Sun King and OPay. If you push the cursor down to $50m+ of funding raised, you find a total of 56 ventures. To make it into the Top 100, a venture would need to have raised more than $32m over the period.

What is hard to find in this group though, is a start-up with a female CEO. As a matter of fact, none of the start-ups having raised $100m+ since 2019 was female-led anymore since February 2024 when Sara Menker of Gro Intelligence was replaced, as the organisation is now rumoured to be closing down. Back in January 2021, the deeptech - co-founded and then-headed by Menker - had made a big splash when it raised a $85m Series B round, which still remains by far the largest round ever raised but a female-led start-up on the continent.

However, the situation changed on September 17, which was the start date of Andela’s new CEO Carrol Chang - previously of Uber -, therefore making the organisation the only start-up in Africa in the Top 30 in terms of funding raised since 2019 currently led by a female CEO. While Chang isn’t one of the co-founders of Andela, it is worth noting that the start-up is currently the only one in the Top 20 to have had a female co-founder (Christina Sass, now President and CEO of the International Youth Foundation). In other words, 19 of the 20 most-funded start-ups in Africa either have a single male founder or an all-male founding team.

To find the only other three ventures that currently have a female CEO, we need to look a little further down, in the $50m+ club:

• At #33, Nigerian logistics start-up Kobo360 is led by Cikü Mugambi who had joined as Chief of Staff and Investors Relations in 2021, before replacing co-founder and CEO Obi Ozor in August 2023.

• At #40, Nigerian e-commerce start-up sabi was co-founded in 2021 by Anu Adasolum - previously of Rensource - who also acts as its CEO. In May 2023 sabi raised a $38 million Series B, with a valuation rumoured to be over $300m.

• Close behind at #44 is Cape Bio Pharms led by CEO Belinda Shaw, a spin-off of the University of Cape Town set up to help commercialise the innovations of its biopharming lab. The venture secured a substantial $50m+ grant back in 2020, with no public record of fundraising since.

There are no other female-led ventures in the Top 100. Lori systems deserves a mention though, as the company was headed by Uche Ogboi from mid 2021 to early 2023, after she was promoted from COO to CEO, replacing the organisation’s co-founder and then-CEO Josh Sandler. In May 2023 she was replaced by another one of the co-founders, Jean-Claude Homawoo.

Not the most uplifting data unfortunately, but as is often said: measuring the size of the gap - or gaps, rather - is one of the necessary steps to eventually manage to move the needle and see change happen. As women-led ventures continue to grow - and investors commit to supporting them -, we can hope these stats will start looking better… 🤞Max

[The original post dated 23 September was updated on 30 September]