The first half of 2024 is a slow start for startups in Africa, as only $780 million (excluding exits), was raised in the period under review, Africa: The Big Deal report reveals.
This represents a -31 per cent drop compared to H2 2023, and an even starker -57 per cent decline compared to H1 2023 if we want to account for seasonality, the report averred.
Two thirds of this funding was in the form of equity, and a third was debt, the report said, while disclosing that this is a much higher share of debt than what has been seen in the past (17 per cent on average since 2019).
It also revealed that four of five dollars invested in start-ups in Africa went to ventures based in the Big Four countries which are Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and South Africa. “This is high, but not the highest we have seen (92 per cent back in H1 2023). A third of all the funding went to Kenya alone,” it added.
The sector to attract most funding was Transport & Logistics (28 per cent), with two of the three largest deals announced in H1 (moove and spiro), the report disclosed, while Fintech came only second in amount raised, it stayed in the lead in terms of number of start-ups raising $1million or more during the period (30).
`Only a fraction of the funding continued to go to female-founded and female-led start-ups with 85 per cent of the funding going to ventures without a single female founder and 92 per cent to companies with a male CEO, it added.
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