African tech startups raised funding in excess of US$195 million in 2017, up 51 per cent on 2016, with the number of startups securing funding also increasing to 159.
This is according to the Disrupt Africa African Tech Startups Funding Report 2017 released yesterday which looks at the tech investment ecosystem across Africa.
According to the report, this represents the most successful year of fundraising by African tech startups since 2015 when tracking began.
Here are 6 highlights from the report.
1. South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya remained the top three investment destinations for the third year running, however the total percentage of funding received by these top three ecosystems declined to 74.7% from 81.7% in 2015.
2. For the first time since the launch of the survey Nigerian startups overtook South Africa in 2017 in the amount of funding secured, although the survey shows that “significantly more South African ventures raised” funding.
3. Less developed markets are beginning to see increasing investor interest, with Ghana, Egypt and Uganda, according to the report, emerging as “hotspots”.
4. The most attractive sector for investors was fintech. The report shows that 45 fintech startups raised almost one-third of the total funding going to African tech ventures in 2017.
5. Interest in e-commerce increased by 350% on the previous year. E-commerce startups raised over US$16.7 million. Nigeria leads in e-commerce startups, the Afri-Shopping: Exploring the African E-commerce Startup Ecosystem Report 2017 released in December 2017 showed that with 40% of Africa’s e-commerce ventures located in the country, Nigeria is where most of the continent’s e-commerce startups are located, followed by South Africa and Kenya who also have developed e-commerce markets.
6. Agri-tech saw similar rebounding interest with funding of the sector growing 203% on 2016.
