Following the news of two Nigerian start-ups winning $300,000 at LEAP tech conference pitch in Riyadh
Nigeria attracted the largest technology startup investments in Africa in 2022, according to a new report.
Indeed, of the $3.3 billion investment that Africa attracted, Nigeria was the apple of investors’ eyes, especially the fintech sub-sector, where some 180 startups raised combined $976 million – substantially ahead of all other countries on both counts for the second year running.
According to the 2022 African Tech Startups Funding Report, released at the weekend by Disrupt Africa, Nigeria’s startups make up 28.4 per cent of Africa’s total funded ventures and the country received 29.3 per cent of the continent’s total investments.
The report claimed that startups raised more funding than ever before, in spite of a global downturn in investments, especially in riskier asset classes such as venture capital.
The researchers said that a total of 633 startups in Africa raised a combined $3.3 billion in 2022. This was 55.1 per cent more than the $2.15 billion raised in 2021 by 564 Africa startups. By implication, total yearly funding for African tech startups has increased by over 1,000 per cent since 2015.
Disrupt Africa co-founder, Gabriella Mulligan, said: “In spite of global pressures, 2022 was another outstanding year for the African tech space. Who knows what the future holds, and whether the sector will now enter a more fallow period, but for now the space can reflect on a very good 12 months’ work.”
According to the report, the record for largest round ever raised by an African tech startup was again beaten in 2022, with Nigerian fintech startup Flutterwave topping its own 2021 record with a $250 million raised in February.
Standout amounts were also raised by Nigerian mobility fintech company Moove ($181.8 million across five investments); Egyptian fintech platform MNT-Halan ($150 million); Algerian super app Yassir ($150 million); Kenyan retail-tech startup Wasoko ($125 million); Tunisian AI startup InstaDeep ($100 million); South African e-commerce company Clickatell ($91 million); and Kenyan pay-as-you-go solar company M-KOPA ($75 million).
On the investor front there were at least 987 different disclosed investors in African tech startups in 2022, up by 216 from the 771 tracked in 2021. Disrupt Africa said this is the largest amount of individual disclosed investors in any year on record.
Meanwhile, Nigerian startups have again started 2023 on a good note with two of them winning $300,000 at LEAP’s Rocket Fuel Pitch Competition in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at the just concluded tech conference and exhibition.
At LEAP, over 10,000 startups submitted applications from different countries. After rigorous scrutiny, the applicants were down to 220, and only 90 startups were selected to pitch their business ideas in the semi-final. Eight Nigerian startups participated at the semi-final, and three reached the final stage.
RiceAfrika Technologies – is a tech-driven agric optimisation startup that deploys IoT-enabled harvester and its FARMEasy mobile app for smallholder farming communities in Africa. RiceAfrika believes Africa can feed itself and feed the world. It emerged as the global best in ‘The Tech for Humanity Award’ category and came home with $150,000, while Wicrypt, a tech startup decentralising Internet globally, has a custom operating system (OS) and hardware that allows users to share data with people around them and charge an affordable rate also won $150,000 dollars after he was announced as the global best in the ‘The Into New World Award’ category.
Discover more from DiutoCoinNews
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
