Portrayed as the Cash App of Nigeria, Abeg, which started as a social payment app, recently rebranded to Pocket by PiggyVest. Beyond adding its parent company to its name, the startup is foraying into the social commerce space by allowing users to buy and sell on its platform.
Social commerce is already an important part of the Nigerian Internet space, with a handful of startups trying to have a piece of the cake. Escrow platforms for social commerce like Pepperest come to mind.
In the early 2010s, before social commerce, the Nigerian Internet space witnessed a rush of startups in the eCommerce space, with the emergence of Jumia, Konga, and DealDey, among others. However, Easyshop Easycook, founded in 2006, is arguably the oldest eCommerce platform in the country.
The spike in the number of eCommerce startups in online retail and classifieds in the early 2010s was nothing compared to the fintech rush of the past five years.
Jumia is now a New York Stock Exchange-listed company, Zinox Group acquired Konga, Gloo pivoted, and others have shut down. Among other activities over the years, I’m currently looking at prominent players in the Nigerian eCommerce market.
Below is a representation of the current status of the 28 players that have been considered so far.
Look out for the story on the Intelligence blog soon.
In this edition, we will look at:
- African startups raised $2.17 billion in H1 2022
- Leading up to the 2023 elections in Nigeria: Facts and figures
- Insights from social media
- Intelligence project updates
African startups raised $2.17 billion in H1 2022
In the first half of 2022, African startups raised $2.17 billion, which is between 41% to 50% of what they raised in 2021; depending on whose 2021 figures you reference, the amount was between $4.3 billion and $5.2 billion. Note that Intelligence by Techpoint didn’t start tracking African deals until January 2022.
The H1 2022 figure is higher than what African startups raised in 2019 or 2020, with each year recording less than $2 billion.
Irrespective of whose figures you are pointing to, funding for African startups hit an all-time high in 2021 and going by H1 2022's figure, the question is, will there be a new record?
A total of 189 African startups raised $2.17 billion in H1 2022, and numerous other African startups announced undisclosed rounds in the same period.
African startups in the Financial Services space raised $1.02 billion in H1, accounting for 47% of African startup funding. The closest industry in the period was Marketplace (eCommerce, online retail, et al.), with $327.79 million, 15.1% of the whole figure.
Nigerian startups only accounted for 29.8%, followed by Kenya, Egypt, and South Africa with 21.5%, 15.3%, and 13.8%, respectively. As with past trends, these countries are the top destinations for the continent's Internet and technology startup activities. What happens in the other half of the year will determine if this remains the same through 2022.
The breakdown of H1 2022
- Total announced deals for H1 2022 – $2.27 billion
- Financial Services received $1.02 billion, 47% of the amount raised
- Nigerian startups had the largest share, with $646.97 million
- Other top African countries
- Kenyan startups raised $468.09 million
- Egyptian startups raised $333.46 million
- South African startups $298.80 million
- 189 disclosed funding deals
- 89 seed rounds
- 42 pre-seed rounds
- Top deals of H1 2022
- Flutterwave’s $250 million Series D
- Wasoko’s $125 million Series B
- InstaDeep’s $100 million Series B
- MFS Africa’s $100 million Series C
Other African updates
Funds
- Launch Africa Ventures closed its $36.3 million fund to invest in B2B and B2B2C startups across Africa.
- The International Finance Corporation (IFC) to make an equity investment of up to €25 million ($26.43) into the Partech’s Africa Fund II (PAF II).
- Southbridge A&I, Salient Advisory, and SCIDaR have partnered to launch i3, a US$7 million initiative to support 30 African e-health startups yearly.
- FirstCheck Africa has received a commitment of $2 million from TLcom, bringing the total of its debut fund to $10 million.
- Constant Ventures is raising a $100m fund for West African investments.
Acquisitions
- MFS Africa, a South African-based payment company, acquired U.S.-based Global Technology Partners (GTP) for $34 million.
- Egyptian quick commerce platform for groceries, Appetito, is acquiring Lamma, a startup in the same sector in Tunisia and Morocco for over $10 million.
- Egypt-based micro-lending and payment company, MNT-Halan acquired Talabeyah, another Egyptian startup in the B2B e-commerce space.
- A subsidiary of EFG Hermes Holding and Egypt’s leading provider of microfinance solutions, Tanmeyah acquired Fatura, an Egyptian B2B marketplace.
- After buying a 51% stake in 2020, South Africa’s leading short-term insurer, Santem, has completely acquired insurtech startup JaSure by purchasing the remaining 49% stake.
Leading up to the 2023 elections in Nigeria: Facts and figures
I looked at the facts and figures of the Nigerian political landscape from 1960 to 2023 to answer questions about the geopolitical zone that should produce Nigeria's next president.
Below are some of the points considered in the article.
- By President Muhammadu Buhari’s last day in office in 2023, Northern presidents and heads of state would have ruled for 16,506 days (45 years and 2 months) from October 1, 1960, until May 29, 2023. This is a wide margin compared to Southern presidents and heads of state with 7,213 days (19 years and 9 months).
- By May 29, 2023, Nigeria would have had more days of civilian rule (13,171) than military (10,548), with eight presidents and eight heads of state.
- 106 political parties have participated in past presidential elections since 1999, and only 8 ever got above one million votes in a single election, while 11 had between 100,000 to 999,999 votes.
- Nigerian youth aged 18 to 34 accounted for 69.8% of newly registered voters as of June 6, 2022.
- Voter turnout during general elections has declined in the past two general elections.
Read the full story here.
From our social media
- Pension plan subscription: 36 of 69 respondents in one of our June polls in the month are not subscribed to a pension plan.
- On Nigeria's 2023 presidential elections, 69.4% of the votes went to Peter Obi of the Labour Party, with the All Progressives Congress' Bola Tinubu and the People's Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar getting 16.4% and 6.6% of the votes, respectively.
- The total Foreign Direct Investment into Africa in 2021 was a record-high $83 billion. You can see the trajectory here.
- Seychelles recorded Africa's highest cost of diesel; here are the African countries with the least and most expensive diesel costs.
Intelligence updates
- The plan to revamp the Intelligence by Techpoint website is still underway, and you can contribute by replying to this email with a feature you would like us to include.
- The State of Insurance in Nigeria: The third and final data gathering process — which is the hardest part — is currently ongoing, and I’m happy to report that we already have input from 16 insurance companies.
- We are working on making this newsletter better. Please share your thoughts by filling out this short four-question survey.
- We have revisited our previously suspended mini-report about Africa's blockchain space and plan to release it as soon as possible.
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Do have a nice day.
