Mambo, Eastern Africa?

Eastern Africa attracted 23% of the funding raised by start-ups in Africa since 2019, 84% of which have gone to Kenya alone

As I was preparing for my trip to Kenya and Rwanda this week and looking at the data in more detail, I just thought 💡: Why not make it the topic of my next post? So this week we’re looking at Eastern Africa (as defined by the African Union). With over $2.3bn, the region represents just under a quarter of all the funding raised by start-ups in Africa since 2019. After a small dip in 2021 (-12% YoY), it is having a very strong beginning of 2022: start-ups in the region have already raised nearly $850m (as of May 31st), which is already more (50% more actually) than they had raised in the whole of 2021. The vast majority of the funding raised in Eastern Africa goes to Kenya: with $1.9bn+ raised since 2019, it has attracted 84% of the regional funding during the period. With a particularly strong start of 2022 ($780m+ raised between Jan and May, a +436% increase YoY), it is dominating the region even more than in previous years (93% of all funding in 2022 so far). Of the 10 $50m+ deals recorded in Eastern Africa since 2019, 9 were in Kenya (the only outlier is Tanzania’s Zola Electric’s $90m round of September 2021). Actually, Tanzania along with Uganda are the only other two markets to have attracted more than $100m in total funding since 2019. Combined, the three countries leave very little room to their neighbours, with 96% of all the funding raised in the region since 2019 (99% in 2022 so far). Overall, the region is set to break a new record in terms of yearly funding raised in 2022 (in fact, it already has), but two areas to monitor are whether it will manage to keep growing its share of the African fundraising pie (so far so good), and whether there can be room for more ecosystems to bloom in Kenya’s shadow…

If you have an opinion in terms of which region to cover next, let me know! And if you want to go deeper into the data, feel free to check out our underlying database of deals (discount here). On a more personal note, being back in Kenya is at the same time very exciting, a little unnerving (this is my first time outside of Europe since you-know-what), and quite frustrating as I will only have time to meet a fraction of the people I’d want to see. But I’ll be back soon :)