November comes And November goes

32 ventures raised $180m in November, as the year nearly comes to an end

I (Max) am in DC this week while Maxime is in Cape Town, and though the weather here is beautifully crisp, it does feel a bit like I’ve drawn the short end of the stick 😉… In any case, this won’t stop me of course from sharing our latest November numbers: last month, 32 start-ups in Africa announced a total of $180m in funding raised (exc. exits) in the form of debt ($122m, 68%), equity ($55.5m, 31%) and grants ($2.5m, 1%).

The largest announcement by far (44% of the total) was IFC’s backing of Sun King in Nigeria to the tune of $80m in debt. There were three other 8-digit deals in November, including Kenya-based ISP Mawingu, who raised $15m in debt and equity to finance its expansion into East Africa; and Ivorian fintech Djamo who raised a $13m Series B (only the 7th Series B to be announced this year, vs. 14 last year). Combined, the four deals represent two thirds of the funding raised on the continent last month. 76% of al the funding went to Kenya and Nigeria alone. Two ‘exits’ were also announced in November: Egyptian ‘contech’ Elmawkaa was acquired by Saudi proptech Ayen; while SteamaCo and Shyft Power Solutions merged.

In 2024 so far, start-ups on the continent have now raised $1.86b in funding (exc. exits) spread between equity ($1.2b, 64%), debt ($635m, 34%) and grants ($33m, 2%). While we can hope the $2 billion mark will get crossed by the end of December, it is now pretty clear that we will end the year significantly below the $2.9b raised in 2023…

What else? Actually something New, something Old, something Borrowed and something Blue. New, like our snazzy website we launched last week. Old, like the good old discount all of you get if you subscribe to our database using this link. Borrowed, like the hour of your time we’ll be asking you for for our 2024 Round-Up that will happen on January 16 (more details to come soon here!). And Blue, like the sky in both DC and Cape Town (on and off at least) this week.

And in case you missed the reference in the title, you can read the short and sweet - yet rather Northern hemisphere-centric - poem here.