The year 2023 kicked off with African startups disclosing deals worth $116m in January, which increased to the year's peak at $663m in February, and recorded fluctuations with a downward slope from March to December. During the year, Intelpoint tracked 375 deals to the tune of $2.28b from 327 African startups that disclosed funding, representing a 43.6% decline from 2022 ($4.03b).
The year's peak funding was greatly influenced by MNT-Halan's deals worth $400m, while the second highest month's funding in May was influenced by M-KOPA's $255m deals. MNT-Halan's total funding for the year is about 82% of the amount received by startups in the most funded country, Kenya.
The big four — Kenya, Egypt, South Africa, and Nigeria — combined attracted a whooping 80% ($1.83b) of the total amount, with Nigerian startups announcing the least amounts.
Industry-wise, Financial Services attracted more than half of the funding, with $1.16b. Apart from Financial Services, other notable industries are Marketplace, with 8% ($183m), Mobility & Logistics - 7.2%, Energy - 6.9%, and Healthcare - 5.7%.
Startups offering credit services in the Financial Services industry attracted the highest funding, followed by a wide margin are payment, neo-bank, insurance, and remittance. Others were less than $10 million.
In 2023, 168 of the deals announced were worth less than $500,000 each, adding up to $22 million. There were only three deals involving over $100 million, while seven of the deals involved between $50m and $99.9m.
Series B funding rounds received the highest amount ($362m), with 15 deals. They were followed by seed rounds with 106 deals and a total of ($268m). Unspecified rounds made up $1.3 billion of the total funding. Only one convertible note round received funding worth $2 million.
Startups with two co-founders raised more than half the total amount, followed by startups with three co-founders. Most of the year's funding went to startups with all-male co-founders receiving 81.3% of the total, mixed genders received 15.3%, while all-female co-founders received 3.4%. Startups in an accelerator or incubator programs raised $291 million (13%).
African startups as considered in our findings are startups:
- Founded and or headquartered in Africa
- That are 12 years old or less
- That are not publicly listed
