🗺 2022 Map series 🗺 Northern Africa 🗺

Egypt continued to lead while Tunisia and Algeria recorded their first mega deal

Last ‘but not least’, we are publishing our fifth map in our series focused on start-up funding in Africa’s five regions in 2022, after Western, Eastern, Southern and Central Africa. We thank our Northern African readers for their patience!

In 2022, Northern Africa ranked third on the continent in terms of start-up funding raised ($1.1bn, 23%) and tied second with Eastern Africa in terms of number of 

(232 deals, 23%), in line with its 2021 ranking. With +62% YoY ($1.1bn vs. $685m in 2021), it is one of the two main African regions that grew in terms of funding in 2022, second only to Eastern Africa (+115% YoY) as far as growth rate is concerned. It recorded the highest growth in terms of number of $100k+ deals (+22% YoY).

With $822m, Egypt represents three quarters of all the funding raised by start-ups in the region in 2022, and two thirds of $100k+ deals (154 out of 232). With Kenya, it is the only other ‘Big Four’ to record positive YoY funding growth (+37% YoY). MNT-Halan’s $150m bond issuance was the sole 9-digit deal of the year and Paymob’s $50m Series B the largest equity deal.

Two other countries in the region - Algeria and Tunisia - claimed over $100m in funding, each driven by their first ‘mega deal’. Algeria recorded $151m, almost all of which Yassir’s $150m Series B announced in November; only two other $100k+ deals were disclosed. In Tunisia, the year started with a bang with Instadeep’s $100m Series B round; by the end of 2022, 37 start-ups had raised a $100k+ deal for a total of $119m. In both countries, funding grew 5x YoY. Morocco recorded a similar number of deals over $100k than Tunisia (38) yet in the absence of any large deal it ‘only’ attracted $18m in total and as such is the only market in the region to register a decline compared to 2021 (-36% YoY). No $100k+ deals were recorded in either Libya or Mauritania.

With 23% of the funding raised on the continent in 2022, Northern Africa did relatively better than its weight in the continent’s population (15%, +8pp) but not as well as its share of GDP (30%, -7pp). Egypt’s share of funding (17%) was equivalent to its share of African GDP (16%) and double its share of population (8%). Compared to the average amount of funding raised per person on the continent ($3.2pc), the region overall ($5.2pc, highest in Africa) - and Egypt ($7.7pc) and Tunisia ($9.9pc) in particular - compare really favourably.

Thanks again to each and every one of you for your continued support and words of encouragement. Last week’s post in particular has been our most popular to date and it’s been fantastic to see so many of you share it on Linkedin, on Twitter and beyond, and add your own commentary to it :) As usual, all the deals can be found in our database, which you can access here with a discount. Bye!