Kenyan start-ups raised about Sh 43.5 billion in 2019

Kenyan start-ups raised about Sh 43.5 billion in 2019

Kenyan start-ups raised Sh 43.5 billion ($428.91 million) in 2019 with companies in Fintech and Agritech topping in terms of the destinations of the investment, a trend they have maintained for several years

This is according to The 2019 African VC ecosystem report  by WeeTracker, a fundraising tracking firm based in South Africa and Nairobi.

The report gives a detailed overview of the state of ventures and venture capital in Africa. It will also help you, deep-dive, into the data to uncover insights on the most upcoming and promising startup ecosystem in the world.

However, in comparison to figures from 2018, the number of deals in Kenya were more or less the same, with this year recording 72 deals, down from 77 in the last year,

The report also shows that investment volume went up by close to 300 per cent with the gross escalation partly attributed to big-ticket deals of more than $40 million (Sh4 billion).

The top three companies in clinching the deals were mobile money lender Branch, who raised Sh17 billion ($170 million) in both equity and loan.

The firm who is an alumnus of Nairobi Garage secure most funding from American digital payments firm Visa and other investors for on-lending to customers.

Other companies that also secured bigger deals include energy solutions firm Bboxx and medical expenses management outfit CarePay.

Interestingly, the report also revealed that logistics firms also secured rise in funding getting more number of deals than both fintech and agritech. Overall, the number of deals in each also just slightly increased.

Start-Up founders having a meeting at our Kilimani Office Space.

Funding across Africa

The African venture investments broke all the previous records to register USD 1.340 Bn in investments through 427 deals in equity and debt financing in 2019.

The year was especially a great year for the Nigerian ventures that raked in USD 663.24 Mn, highest amount of venture capital money secured by a country in 2019.

And as mentioned earlier, Kenya had a super growth year netting 283.64% growth over the previous year’s funding amount. South Africa took the third position in the top 3 countries as per funding amount.

Fintech, which is on a growth path for the fifth year in a row securing USD 678.73 Mn, witnessed a spectacular growth of 138.48% over the previous year.

The ecosystem appears solid for the companies to set their footing as evident from the rise in seed and Series A rounds which were the most preferred form of deal closures for the investors.

Other highlights from the report

2019 was also a year where;

• The corporates led investments into industry shaping ventures that could be game-changers for African infrastructure.
• Women entrepreneurs were a vital part of the growth in 2019, bagging a few of the big-ticket rounds of the year.
• The local investors did not stay behind in loosening their purse string and did not fail to surprise the African startup ecosystem with bigger rounds. 24 M&A deals took place during 2019 which was a 50% growth over 2018 numbers.

In conclusion the report states that with the current market climate, the VC market in 2020 is expected to remain robust, particularly in areas such as fintech, logistics, on-demand services and agritech.

The report was analysed from 20 industries, 54 countries and 20+ deal types with a comparison to 2018 numbers.  Here is a link to the full report.

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