By George Aine
The first six months of 2018 have seen African start-ups attract funding of 168.8 million US dollars, which is more than the total 167 million dollars that the startups received in the whole of 2017.
The results are contained in a report by WeeTracker, a global tech research company with a marked focus on the African technology and start-up ecosystem.
According to the report, fintech firms mainly in Kenya and Nigeria were the biggest beneficiaries, both earning about 120 million dollars in investment.
Fintechs brought in 25 investment deals, attracting a total of 95 million dollars followed by health-tech and agritech. Health-tech attracted 13 deals while agritech and e-commerce both got 9 deals.
The leading beneficiary is Cellulant, a digital pay company, which attracted a record $47.5 million investment deal, followed by Branch, an online microlending platform, which raised $20 million. M-Kopa Solar came in third with $10 million. The other top funded startups were We farm, an agritech which attracted 5 million dollars in investment while software firm Africa’s Talking raised $8.5 million.
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South Africa and Nigeria registered the highest number of incubators set up, according to the report. In terms of country funding attraction, Nigeria had the highest number of startups, with 31 securing funding. It was followed by Kenya with 23 firms, while Egypt had 21 and South Africa 19.
The report also shows that the total funding is three-and-a-half times more than the $47.2 million raised in the first half of last year. There were 72 deals in 2017.
The continent also attracted a lot of donors, notably the $55 million Facility for Energy Inclusion for off-grid energy startups; $70 million from Partech Africa for tech startups; the $76 million Digital Africa Initiative by French Development Agency; the $24.8 million Goodwell Investments for fintechs; the $1 million A24 Media for media technology; and the $30 million Rwanda Innovation Fund for tech-enabled SMEs.
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