African countries Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt are major investment destinations.
Maxime Bayen, Senior Venture Builder at BFA Global, shared data stating African startups raised $1.19 billion in the first half of 2021. This is about double what was raised in the first halves of 2019 and 2020. The countries Nigeria and South Africa account for 56% of funding amongst African countries countries. African Startups with all-male founding teams got 77% of the funding, while female CEOs raised about 14% of the financing, which is up from 2% for the same period in 2020. Digest Africa reported that the biggest investments went to Expensya ($20 million), Gro Intelligence ($85 million), TymeBank ($109 million), and Flutterwave ($170 million). It took about eleven months for funding for African Startups to hit the billion-dollar mark in 2019, nine months in 2020, and about five months in 2021.
