📈 Pullers and Draggers 📉
While start-ups in Kenya and Egypt have already raised more than last year, Nigeria and South Africa are struggling to keep up with their high 2021 performance
When we compared Africa to other regions last month, we also looked at how Africa was tracking compared to last year. At the end of September, start-ups on the continent had raised 127% of the amount raised in the period in 2021, and 87% of the total amount raised in 2021 as a whole. At the end of October, these numbers stood at 126% (vs. Jan-Oct 2021) and 92% (vs. 2021 in full). But when we updated these numbers, we also realised that continent-level stats are hiding big discrepancies in performance amongst the Big Four…
Let’s start with Kenya: the country is tracking higher than the same period last year in terms of number of $100k+ deals (123 vs. 117), though it is yet to reach the total number of deals clocked in 2021 (142). That said, start-ups in Kenya have already raised 2.3x times the amount they had raised in 2021 as a whole ($931m vs. $413m). Egypt’s performance follows the same trend, though less dramatically: more deals than last year at the same time (125 vs. 112), yet not as much as 2021 in full yet, and already more funding raised than in 2021 (1.3x; $772m vs. $602m).
Looking over to Nigeria, the situation is quite different. As of end of October, there have already been more $100k+ deals announced in Nigeria than in the full 2021, which is very encouraging. But given the incredible track record of Nigerian start-ups last year ($1.7bn+ raised), and the lower number of ‘mega deals’ in 2022 in particular, in terms of amount, Nigeria is currently tracking below the same period last year (80%; $1.16bn vs. $1.45bn). Start-ups in Nigeria have so far raised about two thirds of the amount they had raised in the full 2021. Finally, South Africa’s indicators are all in the red: it is the only one of the Big Four with both less deals announced (86%) and less funding raised (78%) than the same period last year. Worryingly, funding raised in South Africa currently stands at only 43% of the amount raised in 2021.
While the ‘Rest of Africa’ cannot be treated as a homogenous group, and volumes per country are too low to identify meaningful individual trends, it is worth noting that overall outside the Big Four, both the number of deals and the total amount raised are on the rise compared to 2021.
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It feels good to be back with fresh content! Thanks again for your patience last week while things were a bit manic 😇… This month we’re on track to reach 6,000 subscribers and 400,000 unique post views since we launched about 18 months ago. Your support and feedback is incredible… Thank You! Oh, and by the way, we’ve just enriched our deals database (accessible here at a discount) with 100+ exits since 2019. You’re welcome ;)