Venture capital investment is slowing down globally; the NASDAQ-100 Technology Sector Index, a technology index weighted for tech stocks, was down by 11% in April 2022. This has made headlines all over the world but the important question for Africa, which draws over 70% of its venture funding from the international investment market, is – how does this affect the growth of the ecosystem?
For one, we know that Africa will eventually mirror the events on the international front. As startups brace for the impact, it is important to evaluate how instrumental the funding Africa has received over the years, especially for startups funded at the early-stage, has been to the continent’s growth.
In partnership with Future Africa and The Baobab Network, TechCabal Insights has launched a report on early-stage investment in Africa. We analyzed over four years of early-stage investment data, tracing trends and finding valuable insights.
In terms of deal size, 2020 clearly outdid 2021 in the seed stage with a 52% gap. In all other stages, however, 2021 significantly got better funding. Why were investors pumping more funding in 2020, during a pandemic?
Fintech has been notorious for getting the larger share of funding across sectors but this flipped in 2021. E-commerce and retail took the lead, closing about 23% of the total early-stage funding for the year.
Looking at how the growth of companies like Paystack, Wave, and Flutterwave has increased investor interest in fintech and how Jumia, the continent’s e-commerce giant, has recorded losses consecutively in the past years, what could be behind investor optimism for the e-commerce sector?
Find out all of these and more in the report. Ready to dig in? Check out the report here.
