Afrigather African startups obtained off to a sluggish begin in 2024, elevating simply $83 million throughout 31 disclosed offers in January, in line with information from Africa: The Big Deal. This marks a steep decline from the $545.1 million raised in 20 offers throughout the identical month in 2023, representing an 84.8% year-on-year drop.
The January 2023 fundraising exercise was, nonetheless, closely influenced by a single giant deal: the $443 million acquisition of AI firm Instadeep by BioNTech. Excluding this outlier, African startups in January 2023 raised roughly $99.1 million, bringing the YoY decline to a extra reasonable 16.2%.
This means that the underlying progress of the African tech ecosystem stays comparatively steady, regardless of the headline-grabbing funding slowdown.
The three sectors with the very best funding are agritech with $26.3 million in raises, cleantech with $18.1 million, and healthtech with a modest $13.5 million. Numerous sectors—most notably fintech—inside the ecosystem have noticed a decline in funding in comparison with the sums raised in earlier years. With a world funding winter in tow, traders are more and more specializing in startups with confirmed observe data of traction and progress, leaving fewer sources accessible for testing the waters.
Three of the 4 logistics startups—Bosta, FriendlyM and Roboost—who raised funds in January 2024 have been from North Africa, or Egypt particularly. Final 12 months, logistics startups acquired a good bit of curiosity because the fourth sector with the very best funding at $205 million. Whereas solely a fraction of this funding got here from North Africa, Egypt’s logistics sector may even see elevated curiosity this 12 months with the rising success of mobility startup Swvl which recorded its first-ever net profit of $2.1 million final 12 months after recording $161 million in losses in 2022.
2. Investments: EIB makes its third African injection, and Speed up Africa and T-vencubator debuts
Whereas funding is just about the identical since final 12 months, Africa’s tech ecosystem funding area noticed each new and previous faces in January 2024.
Early on within the month, the European Funding Financial institution (EIB) made its third funding in an Africa-focused enterprise. This time, Seedstars was the fortunate alternative with a $30 million check. The enterprise says it is going to distribute 50% of the funds throughout francophone Africa with chosen startups set to obtain between $250,000 and $2 million. Seedstars additionally acquired an additional $10.5 million from the African Improvement Financial institution (AfDB) later within the month.
On the strategic facet, two-time unicorn founder Iyin Aboyeji and funding powerhouse Mia von Koschitzky-Kimani teamed as much as launch what media homes at the moment are terming “The YC of Africa”. The enterprise is Accelerate Africa, a Nigeria-based accelerator which is able to present 10 pre-seed and seed-stage startups with enterprise and product improvement experience with the goal of pitching to traders.
Lastly, Egypt noticed the launch of a VC Agency-Incubator hybrid with T-vencubator, a agency that desires to put money into “distinctive skills shaping Egypt’s future”.
3. M&As: Entry Holdings closes three acquisitions in a single month
Final month, the father or mother firm of Nigeria-based business financial institution, Entry Financial institution, taught startups a lesson on acquisitions. Entry Holdings accomplished three acquisitions inside the area of a month.
Within the second week of January, it introduced that it had accomplished the acquisition of Zambia’s Atlas Mara greater than two years after it introduced the merger. Lower than per week later, it accomplished the acquisition of insurance coverage brokerage firm Megatech Insurance.
One in all its most important acquisitions was ARM Pensions, Nigeria’s second-largest pension fund supervisor, which acquired regulatory approvals simply days earlier than the tip of the month. These acquisitions, lengthy anticipated, underscore Entry’ strategic growth throughout the continent.
4. Pivots: Kippa and Zilla bounce ship
Ecosystem gamers who contributed to our 2023 Wrapped article famous that 2024 will see extra startups transfer in the direction of higher enterprise fashions.
We noticed a little bit of that in January with two startups pivoting. Zilla, which launched as a buy-now-pay-later product in 2021, modified gears and pivoted to cross-border funds final month. Sources near the corporate stated it confronted challenges with serving to prospects perceive the BNPL mannequin.
Subsequent, Kippa, which confronted a $31,000 inner fraud case, introduced that it might transfer from fintech to edtech. The corporate, final 12 months, moved its company banking product KippaPay to a different startup, and now, it’s launched an edtech platform that may permit customers to create programs utilizing AI.
5. Shutdowns: Cova shuts down, and Woven knits itself again collectively
Whereas some startups pivoted, some wound their actions up.
In a January 24 e mail to customers, asset administration platform Cova introduced that it might cease operations by February 10. Whereas Cova’s administration is but to present particular causes for its shutdown, citing solely “a number of components” in its e mail, CEO Oluyomi Ojo had talked about in a 2021 interview that customers have been nonetheless adapting to the idea of a startup that helps customers switch asset possession within the occasion of their dying. The startup raised $800,000 throughout its run.
One other startup, Woven Finance, was additionally within the information for shutting down. The Nigeria-based startup despatched an e mail saying its shutdown plans, however later rescinded the declare, stating that the e-mail was despatched in error.
6. Stepdowns: Peter Njonjo, Ashkay Grover, Tosin Osibodu, and Duke Ekezie, step down
As we waved goodbye to startups in January, some CEOs additionally bid farewell to their firms.
Cellulant CEO Ashkay Grover who joined the group in 2021 stepped down to concentrate on private issues. The corporate had reportedly effected a third round of layoffs only one month earlier than Grover’s exit.
Kenyan agritech Twiga Meals additionally parted methods with its co-founder and 10-year CEO Peter Njonjo who stepped down from the corporate’s board. TechCabal’s investigation signifies that Njonjo was forced out by traders who bailed the corporate out of a lawsuit with a $35 million funding.
Tosin Osibodu, co-founder and CEO of Chaka additionally exited the corporate to concentrate on a brand new enterprise, Alpaca. Chaka was acquired by Risevest final 12 months, and Osibodu left the corporate within the succesful palms of Risevest CEO Eke Urum.
Lastly, Kippa’s co-founder Duke Ekezie disbanded from the corporate he and his brother Kennedy Ekezie based. Duke is reportedly set to concentrate on a brand new enterprise that he and Kennedy had beforehand mentioned.
7. Corporations: Swvl broadcasts first-ever internet revenue, TymeBank achieves profitability within the fifth 12 months
Two firms netted some revenue final month.
MENA-based mobility startup Swvl reported its first net profit of $2.1 million and an working revenue of $13.4 million. It is a notable shift from the $56 million working losses reported in H2 2022. Swvl’s head-turning enterprise is particularly important when you think about that it reported $161 million in losses only one 12 months in the past. How did it flip the tides? The corporate offered off a few of its subsidiaries and narrowed its focus to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Swvl additionally transitioned right into a B2B enterprise, and laid off over 40%—about 400 staff—of its workforce.
South African neobank TymeBank additionally did what many banks don’t do: it made its first earnings inside 5 years of launching. Two months after it reached 8 million subscribers—and 6 months after reporting $45 million in losses—TymeBank experiences that it reached over $215 million in annualised income. Here’s the full story.
8. Cybercrime: Nigeria and Ghana transfer to combat cellular cash fraud
West Africa is tackling fraud by specializing in its cellular cash brokers.
Nigeria’s apex financial institution, in January, introduced a partnership that may see to the implementation of new KYC measures at PoS factors. The nation recorded over 10,098 fraud instances worth ₦1.95 billion ($2 million) final 12 months, and it desires to be sure that gained’t occur once more. Quickly, the apex financial institution will launch the brand new characteristic that may flag probably fraudulent transactions and power PoS brokers to conduct KYC measures earlier than approving transactions.
Ghana is doing one thing much like sort out fraud in its $155 billion cellular cash area. Cellular cash brokers within the nation had till February 1, 2024, to hyperlink their accounts to Tax Identification Numbers (TIN) or the Ghana card.
9. Large Tech: Google launches first African cloud centre
In January, throughout a week-long dialog surrounding how cloud computing eats right into a startup’s funds, Google launched its first cloud region in Africa, bringing its cloud providers to South Africa.
This makes Google the most recent main cloud supplier to enter the South African market, following Microsoft Azure (2018), Amazon Net Providers (AWS) (2020), and Alibaba Cloud (2019).
10. Web: Telecom Egypt to launch 5G
Egypt authorised its first 5G licence.
Over 12 African international locations together with Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe have launched 5G and Egypt is about to affix them in a few months.
The Nationwide Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) of Egypt, in January, awarded the nation’s first 5G licence to the state-owned Telecom Egypt at a $150-million price ticket. The telecom additionally introduced that it has begun testing 5G services in 5 areas throughout the nation, aiming for a full rollout later in 2024.
