Africa's unicorns in focus 🦄

With Moniepoint's recent announcement, we're having a closer look at how Africa's unicorns came to life; and ask the question: Who could be Next?

A couple weeks ago, Africa minted its latest unicorn, when Moniepoint announced $110m in funding. We won’t get into the debate of whether start-ups should aim to become unicorns 🦄, or zebras 🦓, or camels 🐫, or flamingoes 🦩(don’t look up this last one, I just made it up; the other ones are ‘real’ though), but I thought it was a good opportunity to look back at the continent’s unicorn history. And just as the arrival of a unicorn is an exceptional event, this piece is going to be uncharacteristically long, but hopefully worth it…

Before history, there was… prehistory. Starting in the early 2010s, one start-up in particular made headlines in Africa, repeatedly, by raising funding in volumes never heard of before, and that we wouldn’t hear of again until the end of the decade: Jumia. Between 2012 and 2014, the e-commerce start-up is thought to have raised more than $200m, culminating in a $300m round for its parent company Africa Internet Group in March 2016, earning AIG its ‘unicorn’ title. The company continued to grow until its listing on the NYSE through an IPO in April 2019 (therefore automatically giving up its unicorn label). From an initial market cap of $3bn, it then dropped dramatically, went back up to $5bn, but has mostly been again below the $1bn mark since early 2022 (at the time of writing, it is around $600m). Another company sometimes mistakenly identified as a unicorn is Egyptian fintech fawry. Fawry went public on the Egyptian stock exchange in 2019, reaching a $1 billion valuation as a public company rather than a private start-up. Although its market cap exceeded $1bn for an extended period, it currently stands at approximately $600m.

But let’s now focus on the organisations generally agreed to make up Africa’s current unicorn list, in chronological order:

• First up is Interswitch. The Nigerian fintech kicked things off when it announced a very large investment from Visa in November 2019 (estimated at $200m), opening a new season of 9-digit rounds on the continent. With a valuation of $1bn, it was most likely the only unicorn on the continent at the time, reaching this status 18 years after being founded in 2002 (while the average for its future peers will be 5 years). The start-up then announced a new funding round of $110m in May 2022, but did not comment on its valuation at the time. Without any indication that this could have been a ‘down round’, we can assume that Interswitch retained its unicorn status.

• After announcing its $35m Series B in January 2020, Nigerian fintech (another one) Flutterwave joined Interswitch in the unicorn club in March 2021 with its $170m Series C and a valuation of over $1bn. This valuation was seriously bumped up a year later in February 2022, trebling to ‘over $3bn’ with the announcement of Flutterwave’s $250m Series D. ‘Over $3bn’ remains the highest valuation claimed by any of the existing unicorns on the continent, so the company might well be the most valuable privately-owned start-up in Africa today.

• The next venture to enter mythical equid territory was another Nigerian fintech (!), OPay. A $50m Series A in June 2019 led to a $120m Series B in November the same year, which in turn led to a staggering $400m Series C in August 2021 - the largest single equity round on the continent, ever -, which came with the announcement of a $2bn valuation, the highest of all unicorns at the time (a title Flutterwave reclaimed a few months later, as we just saw). An article earlier this year highlighted that one of its investors - Opera - now considers OPay’s valuation to be ‘almost $3bn’; not quite Flutterwave’s ‘over $3bn’, but not far.

• Two weeks later in early September 2021, it was time for Wave to make their big splash and announce a $200m Series A at a $1.7bn valuation. Wave was a spin-off of remittance start-up Sendwave which was acquired by WorldRemit in 2020 for around half a billion dollars. This explains how the start-up went from no funding raised to raising the largest Series A at the time (4x times OPay’s 2019 Series A). There has not been new funding activity - or any valuation updates - in the 3+ years since this round.

• Just three weeks after the Wave announcement, another unicorn was born when edtech Andela announced a $200m Series E in late September 2021, and a valuation of $1.5bn. It was actually not Andela’s first ‘mega deal’ as their previous round was a $100m Series D in January 2019. The company hasn’t announced further funding in the past three years, and there are some concerns that its valuation might have since taken a bit of a hit. Some of the articles covering the recent announcement of its new CEO Carrol Chang - one of the very few women leading a large start-up on the continent - labelled the company as ‘once valued at $1.5bn’.

• It didn’t take much more than a month for Chipper Cash to be the one making headlines. The fintech had been on a roll since they’d announced their $13.8m Series A in June 2020. A $30m Series B followed in November of the same year, and six months later in May 2021, a $100m Series C. While co-CEO Serunjogi described the start-up at the time as “probably the most valuable private startup in Africa”, TC - amongst others - concluded that it was not yet a unicorn. It didn’t last long though for them to announce a $150m Series C extension in November, which came with the confirmation of a valuation ‘slightly above $2bn’, and therefore a ‘unicorn’ tag. Chipper hasn’t raised since, and multiple rounds of layoffs starting in late 2022 have led some to question whether its valuation could in fact now be lower...

• And then things got quiet on the unicorn minting front. The 2021 gold rush was over. As the funding heatwave ended in mid-2022, conversations shifted to less whimsical topics. That’s until Egyptian fintech MNT-Halan defied the odds and announced $260m in equity (+$140m in debt) in January 2023, following a ~$15m Series B in January 2020 and a $120m round in September 2021. The valuation was then estimated at ‘about $1bn’; however, later data shared as the start-up raised its next round - $157.5m in July 2024 - not only updated the valuation as ‘over $1bn’ but seemed to confirm that the venture was indeed already a unicorn back in January 2023.

• Nearly two years - 20 months - went by before we could pop the cork again with the news last month - which I’m sure you couldn’t miss - that Moniepoint was now valued at ‘over $1bn’ following its $60m Series C, according to ‘sources close to the transaction’. Slow and steady wins the race as they say, as the company’s Series A ($5.5m) actually dated back to February 2019 and was followed 2.5 years later by a $30m Series B in July 2021 and a year after that by a $50m+ (pre-Series C) round in August 2022.

If we add up the latest shared valuations of these eight unicorns, we land somewhere around $15bn for a total equity raised of about $3bn since 2019. For comparison’s sake, according to our data, start-ups in Africa have raised a total of $13bn in equity during the same period.

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I appreciate it’s a pretty long post already, but I wanted to finish on a bit of a crystal ball moment 🔮, interrogating who could be the next unicorns - or ‘soonicorns’ - or maybe even hidden unicorns on the continent, by looking at the ventures that have raised significant funding but not yet earned their badge (at least ‘officially’, as some might have decided not to communicate on their valuation). They fall roughly into four categories:

1. The Fintech players, of course. After all, seven out of the eight existing unicorns are Fintech… TymeBank ($280m+ equity raised since 2019) recently announced a valuation ‘close to $1bn’ and are rumoured to be planning a $150m Series D, which would almost certainly earn them their unicorn status. Other potential contenders could include onafriq ($203m+), Jumo ($175m+; latest valuation shared of $400m when they last raised in 2021), PalmPay ($140m+; who also haven’t raised since 2021) and Yoco with its $83m Series C back in July 2021. We could also add Kuda ($92m+) to the list, who announced a $55m Series B back in August 2021, at a $500m valuation; however doubts were raised earlier this year about their ability to maintain this valuation.

2. The Energy guys that have built a lot of traction thanks to their ‘BNPL’/pay-as-you-go models could also be contenders. In this group, you would find Sun King ($400m+ equity raised since 2019 | $641m+ if we include debt), M-Kopa ($140m+ | $460m+) - who have now seriously branched out of the energy space -, and to a lesser extent d.light ($34m+ | $312m+) and Bboxx ($81m+ | $134m+)

3. The ‘mobility’ folks also come to mind, though only moove ($242m+ | $422m+) - who after their $110m investment in March are now valued at $750m -, and Yassir ($181m+) - who at the time of their $150m Series B in November 2022 dubbed themselves ‘the most valuable startup in North Africa’ (no offense, MNT-Halan) - could potentially claim the coveted unicorn badge in the near future. Planet 42 ($47m+ | $171m+) might get there in the longer run. Spiro has also raised $113m+ since 2019, but most of it seems to have been debt.

4. Finally the ‘retailers’ are worth mentioning, though they might have a much harder time joining the unicorn list as the current economic climate (inflation, FX etc.) has affected them heavily in some cases. In this category, you would find Wasoko+MaxAB ($243m+ combined) whose merger was completed this summer, but also TradeDepot ($120m+) or Twiga Foods ($120m+ | $149m+), though the latest news on the latter are not so encouraging. Copia Global would have once made this list of aspirant unicorns, but has since gone under.

My last mention before I close will go to InstaDeep. Had they not been acquired by BioNTech last year, they would most probably today have a very special spot on Africa’s unicorn hall of fame… 🎖️

We’re going to stop here, cause that’s quite a bit of information. As you’ll have seen, I have included links to a lot of sources - in particular for existing unicorns - but you can find a detailed list of deals for all the companies mentioned above - including unicorn hopefuls, and so many more - in our comprehensive deal database. If you like special discounts, you’ll want to make sure you use this link when subscribing. Ciao! Max