A little less Nigeria. A little more West Africa.
West Africa has claimed $5.8b in start-up funding since 2019, 80% of which have gone to Nigeria
After looking to the East last month, we’re turning to the West this time to focus on Africa’s behemoth - West Africa -, the region that’s attracted the most start-up funding (exc. exits) on the continent since 2019 ($5.8b, 36%) and is home to the most active market in terms of fundraising in the period - Nigeria - with $4.6b raised, i.e 29% of all the funding claimed by start-ups in Africa.
There is no denying the weight of Nigeria and the broader region in the African ecosystem overall, though things have shifted since the end of the funding heatwave in mid-2022, as we’d discussed briefly in our 2024 round-up. Indeed, during the heatwave and the period leading to it (2020 to mid-2022), West Africa had attracted 41% of the continent’s start-up funding, almost double the share of the second-most attractive region (East Africa, 22%). Since mid-2022 however, this share has dropped to 25%, with East Africa (30%) claiming the top spot…
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At the same time, West Africa has experienced a relative rebalancing of start-up investments, moving away from the overwhelming dominance of a regional Big Four seen before and during the heatwave, which is still a reality in other parts of the continent. In fact, in 2024 (and 2023 actually) Nigeria attracted around 70% of the funding in the region (vs. 84% for Egypt, 88% in Kenya & 99% in South Africa). Meanwhile, other markets in the region have grown, with West Africa home to four countries having attracted $100m or more since 2019, more than any other region. Ghana ($460m, #5 overall) and Senegal ($410m, #6) are getting closer to the half-billion mark, while Benin ($133m) and Côte d’Ivoire ($107m) complete the regional top 5. The rest of the region only attracted 1% of the regional total since 2019.
Which companies did all this funding go to? Since 2019, we’ve identified 700+ start-ups that have raised some level of funding in the region ($100k+). However, 15 of them have attracted 55% of the regional funding overall. Unsurprisingly, 13 out of the 15 are Nigeria-based, and 8 are fintechs; actually, 7 are Nigerian fintechs: Opay, flutterwave, Interswitch, PalmPay, Moniepoint, Kuda and Yellow Card. And with Interswitch, flutterwave, Opay, Moniepoint but also Andela valued at $1bn+ (at least as per their latest announced round), Nigeria is by far home to the most unicorns on the continent. The two non-Nigerian ventures in the top 15 deserve a special mention: Wave Mobile Money in Senegal (nearly $300m raised), and Spiro in Benin ($100m+). Both are largely responsible for their HQ country’s positive performance since 2019 with 71% and 85% of the funding respectively.
Thanks again to all 12k+ of you for being with us week in, week out (I know, we’re skipping a week from time to time, but things are rather busy these days, to say the least). As you know, all the data we’re using to do these analyses is available for a small fee if you register to our database. Actually, as a reader of the newsletter, you can access it at an even smaller fee here. Next up: a review of the Q1 numbers of course! Until then: Stay safe :) Max
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