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.
