African start-ups raise more money in the first half of 2018 as compared to 2017

African start-ups raise more money in the first half of 2018

It looks like the year 2018 opened at an exciting high note with half of the year having seen an influx of USD 168.6 million across 118 disclosed deals into the African start-ups ecosystem outstripping the 2017 annual funding mark of USD 167.7 million.

This is according to a report dubbed The African Start-ups and VC Ecosystem Report by Wee Tracker. The report further discloses that the most prominent deal remains the USD 47 million Series c funding of Cellulant, a digital payments provider.

Next in the string is Branch International, a micro-lending platform and an alumnus of Nairobi Garage, that bagged USD 20 million. The two together have cornered a major chunk of 39.88% of the gross deal value.

Other companies that made it to the top ten list include Mkopa Solar (Kenya), Africa’s talking (Kenya), SWVL (Egypt), Sure Remit (Nigeria), Lidya (Nigeria), We Farm (Kenya) and Terragon Group (Kenya).

In the top ten companies, three of the Kenyan companies that made in the list i.e, Branch, WeFarm and Terragon Group are members or alumnus of Nairobi Garage.`

The report further shows that the investment amount also represents a massive jump of 3.5 times in amount invested from H1 2017 that closed with only USD 47.23 million of funding being poured into 72 deals.

Tech firms managed the highest deal amounts

The report shows that four of the top ten start-ups are operating in the space of fintech, while five from the list are headquartered in Kenya. Having cumulatively raised a 123.9 million which translates to about 74% of the total funding amount, the top ten start-ups seem to have help up majority of the funding sky.

Nigeria emerged the top destination netting 29 deals while Kenya followed with 23 start-ups getting funded.

What is fascinating being the funding amounts corresponding to these two countries. While Nigeria managed a higher number of deals, they could only get a gross of USD 29.41 million while Kenya with lesser deals amassed a far greater USD 82.86 million, almost three times of the total funding received by Nigeria.

Trailing further are countries like Egypt and South Africa have 21 and 19 deals respectively to their credit.

Start-ups have a strong support system from the hubs

The report goes further to show that African Start-ups have a strong support system in the form of many the hubs incubators and accelerators. And more and more new to be coming up lately. The first two quarters of the year saw the launch of 11 incubators and accelerators. South Africa followed by Nigeria had the maximum number of these facilities being opened up. Notably four of these had a focus on skill development of aspiring and early stage entrepreneurs. Also world bank gave USD 3 million to Nigeria to be invested in six tech hubs across the country.

Fintech has maintained the top position and owes a sweeping 25 deals to its credit. The sector attracted a grand total of USD 95 MILLION. This whopping amount can be largely attributed to the investment raise of Cellulant and Branch International, which are the two biggest investments of the period under consideration.

This was followed by Healthtech and Agritech that have managed to hit 13 and 10 deals respectively. Ecommerce comes at fourth position with deals to its credit.

Interestingly the study goes further to show that Egypt turns out to be the hub where ecommerce is booming. Six out of the 9 ecommerce start-ups that received investment in the first two quarters happen to be headquartered in Egypt.

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