AfriCo Insights – WeeTracker

Readyguide on the African FaaS Industry

AfriCo Insights — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 07:52:35 +0000

It has been reported that agricultural production has registered highest growth in Sub-Saharan Africa in the past 20 years. But there's a shift in farming habits as the younger population is either finding newer ways to engage with farming or simply moving away from it.

About 60 percent farmer population in Sub-Saharan Africa is small holder farmers. It is said that if the right investments are made into improving farming techniques and input material, Africa could add another 20 percent of grains to the current worldwide output.

With enormous potential and promising returns, more and more technology are venturing into increasing farm produce and farming productivity.

Access our Readyguide on Farming-as-a-Service in Africa with the complete list of funding details.

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ReadyGuide Of Early-Stage VCs in Africa

AfriCo Insights — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 06:13:41 +0000

Early-stage investments in Africa

The African startup ecosystem has been referred to as an early-stage startup ecosystem. Investments at this stage are often viewed as risky and may reflect the risk appetite of the investors active in the region.

Seed-stage investments (also including pre-seed, angel, and crowdfunding investment) in Africa decreased from 131 deals in 2019 to 108 deals in 2020. The decline in the number of seed capital deals in 2020 as compared to 2019 can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, lesser entrepreneurs seeking seed funding, and a shift towards investments from accelerator programmes and Series A+ funding.

In 2020, a total of USD 54.1 Mn was deployed as seed capital which presents a 48.4 percent decline in investment amount compared to USD 104.99 Mn invested as seed capital in 2019.

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The State Of Ugandan Startup Ecosystem

AfriCo Insights — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 12:40:29 +0000

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South African Venture Capital Performance 2020

AfriCo Insights — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 06:40:00 +0000

South African ventures/ tech companies have received a lot of attention from local and global VCs. With a population of 57.8 million, the country’s market is robust and has higher purchasing capacities, on an average, in the continent.

In the pandemic hit 2020, South Africa was one of the most proactive countries to initiate a lockdown without losing a single life. The slowdown in the economy did not influence the venture capital investments of South Africa in 2020, at least seemingly. When the data is observed closely, it is found that investments in 3 companies have contributed to the upsurge in numbers over the last year’s figures.

The ventures in South Africa in 2020 raised USD 175 Mn in over 80 deals spread across 20+ industries.

If these top 3 deals – Jumo USD 55 Mn, Skynamo USD 30 Mn and Aerobotic’s USD 17 Mn are removed from the investment figures, the growth over last year’s figures stands at 8.95%. It would be interesting to note that the top deal in 2019 was USD 12 Mn.

The VC firms that played a pivotal part in keeping the ecosystem bright during the gloomy period include – Kalon Venture Partners, Naspers Foundry and Enygma Ventures.

The data is based on the number of deals

The Fintech Industry, Information Technology, Analytics and Big Data led the chart as the top industries with higher fundraise and investment deals. For instance, ventures falling under the financial services & fintech sector claimed 40 percent of the total funding raised.

Several new entrants made way into the 2020 funding list of the startup ecosystem. Native Nylon, an eComm platform that raised USD 13K in an equity round, and LetMeIn, an InfoTech startup with a seed round of USD 140K from an undisclosed investor are a few examples.

3 acquisition deals took place in 2020, interestingly all of them were for an undisclosed amount. Africa Fashion International acquired Wezart. Cape Town-based social media content company Over got acquired by GoDaddy. Knife capital-backed Snapplify acquired Onnie Media/ Teacha.

Four new fund launches, focussed on early-stage startups to growth-stage startups made their mark on 2020 investment landscape. Enygma Venture, which was also among the most active investors, launched a USD 7 Mn fund for early-stage women-led businesses in Africa.

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