Not bad at all, 2022 🚀
2022 broke the record in terms of amount of funding raised, number of deals and number of investors.
What a year it’s been! While in H1 the African rocket seemed to be absolutely unstoppable, many held their breath in H2 as it lost steam. It never crashed though, and as a whole, the ecosystem had a pretty solid year. The fact that start-ups on the continent raised more in 2022 than in 2021 is unique in itself, as all other continents are set to record a YoY decline (watch out for a post on this when the 2022 CB Insights data is out later this month).
There is a lot to say about 2022 of course, and you can count on us to dissect the data in the coming weeks, but if you have to remember 3 key numbers about 2022, these are the ones:
While our data currently adds up to $4,849m, we’re almost certain 2022 funding will eventually exceed $5bn. Indeed, December 31st round-ups are always underestimated. On December 31st, 2021 for instance, we had gathered deals worth $4,326m for the year; our latest tally is some $300m higher, at $4,626m. This is due to a delay in investors sharing deals confidentially with us, and to deals becoming known later (for instance, a start-up sometimes only releases data on their seed round when they announce their Series A round a year or two later). For this reason, we’re confident the $151m missing to reach the $5bn mark will eventually be accounted for. And you can count on us to give you a shout when they do.
1,000+ deals of $100k or more have been announced in 2022. This is a very strong performance, +11% YoY, especially in a bear market.
And Africa has attracted more interest than ever before: 1,000+ unique investors have participated in at least one deal on the continent in 2022, a +15% YoY progression compared to 2021.
This, obviously, is only the tip of the iceberg, and there is much more to discuss. But that’s for another time. We thought this could give you a taste of what’s to come though… 😉
The next few days and weeks will give us a chance to dive much deeper into the data, but we wanted to stay true to ourselves and stick to our usual short format, as we know most of you don’t have the time to read a dissertation. For the impatient amongst you, you can always run your own analysis directly from the database (if you’re not already a subscriber, check this link for a discount). We’ll be back very soon! And I almost forgot: Best wishes for 2023!