African Ventures Raised USD 3.6 B – WT Annual Report 2022
The year 2022 was a tricky one, quite challenging not just for the African tech ecosystem but for the tech industry across the globe. Many experts called it a year of ‘corrections’. The year undoubtedly started with a bang, with almost all the big funding taking place in the first quarter. But as we hit Q2, the global slowdown caught up with African ventures.
A roller-coaster year
In 2022, tech startups, technology companies and digital solutions operating in Africa raised USD 3.6+ B in disclosed deals.
This represents a 12% de-growth in the funding value compared to 2021. However, it could be argued that 2021 saw a fair contribution from what can be termed ‘spillover deals’ from the year prior during which the pandemic caused disruptions. Hence, the numbers spiked as 2021 drew to a close. Last year, however, saw a dip in the total number of deals, falling from 542 in 2021 to 506 in 2022 (disclosed funding).
The year had many firsts and highlights too – Sudanese fintech Bloom raised USD 6.5 M in a seed round, which was welcome news coming from a nascent ecosystem. Another big round pulled off by a relatively younger ecosystem was Tunisia’s InstaDeep, which bagged USD 100 M in Series B.
DRC-based Web3 company Jambo raised USD 30 M, with intentions to become a super app for the African mass. Nigerian fintech Flutterwave raised its Series D, the biggest single round of 2022, valued at USD 250 M.
Another point to note is the rise of Egypt’s tech ecosystem. Ventures in Egypt raised USD 700 M+ in 2022 and secured the second position in country rankings for highest funding.
Investments getting bolder
The year 2022 saw participation from more than 1000 venture capital (VC) firms and Angels – locally and globally. And unlike the previous years, the investors took more risks and made solid pre-seed rounds for many innovative startups. The highest pre-seed round was USD 12.6 M.
Launch Africa, which started in 2020, has already made more than 100 investments in African ventures and was the most active VC in 2022. Although, based on the number of deals, Y Combinator and Google Black Founders Fund Africa had more than 50 investments each.
The emergence of new business models
Another unique trend of 2022 was the emergence of startups with unique business models. Our data capture a shift of funding focus to Supply Chain & Logistics companies, followed by SaaS. The companies that raised funding in 2022 focused on streamlining the B2B or B2B2C solutions.
About the report
Decoding Venture Investments in Africa – 2022 records the overall trends and insights of the African venture ecosystem. We have published annual reports, both paid and free, since 2017. We did not release reports in 2020 and 2021 as we recognised the strain of charging our readers and followers during hard times; instead, we released free articles. (see 2020 and 2021.)
We have considered only the disclosed deals in our methodology and collected the information from various secondary sources. All our reports are available on our website and can be accessed here. Our report is complimentary for our WT Premium Elite members and at a 50% discount for our WT Premium Annual and Quarterly members.
In case of any feedback, please do reach out to us at [email protected]
