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12 African Startups That Have Announced the Most Significant Funding Rounds So Far in 2022

African startups exceeded their mark with collective funding worth over $2 billion in 2021. It’s completely incredible how fast some startup ecosystems have grown over the past 3 years. Even in spite of the pandemic. African startups raised the highest amount ever recorded in 2021. The trend did not slow down earlier this year. The African startup ecosystem had a phenomenal first quarter in 2022, raising USD1.235 billion across 197 deals.

African Startups

There were very high expectations for them to sustain or even surpass that trend in 2022. But there has been a significant drop in the amount raised by African startups over the past few months. Especially compared to how much was raised during the first two months of the year. African startups could barely raise $300 million in equity funding between April and May 2022. Whereas in Q1 2022 they raised about $1.8 billion, according to data tracked by Business Insider Africa. READ MORE…

However, there are still good reasons to be hopeful about the future. This is because, the African startup funding outperformed other regions of the world in Q1 2022, growing by 150%. Although the performance in Q2 hasn’t exactly been encouraging. There is a strong possibility of a rebound before the end of June and going forward. With that in mind, this article will be listing the 12 African startups that have performed really well in terms of fundraising.

12 African startups that have announced the most significant funding rounds so far in 2022

Furthermore, these 12 African startups sealed the largest funding rounds between January till date. However, many of them are concentrated in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt, as always. Here are 12 African startups that have performed really well in terms of fundraising.

1. Flutterwave

Flutterwave is a Nigerian fintech company that provides a payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers across the continent. In 2021, Flutterwave raised a US$170 million Series C funding round. This was the largest amount ever secured by an African tech startup at the time. And also gave it a valuation of over US$1 billion.

However, in February this year, Flutterwave announced a $250 million Series D funding round that was led by B Capital Group. As well as participation from Alta Park Capital, Whale Rock Capital, Lux Capital, and others. So far this year, the Nigerian fintech giant remains the only player in the ecosystem that has raised over $200 million in a single round.

2. Wasoko

Wasoko is located in Nairobi, Nairobi Area, Kenya. It transforms access to essential goods and services by connecting small shops to the digital economy. It increases sales and market coverage for companies in emerging markets. Wasoko has 29 investors including Avenir Growth Capital.  In March, this Kenyan e-commerce player announced that it had secured $125 million in a Series A2 funding round. Which was led by Tiger Global and Avenir Growth Capital. It also rebranded from Sokowatch to Wasoko.

3. InstaDeep

Founded in 2014, InstaDeep is today an EMEA leader in decision-making AI products for the Enterprise, with headquarters in London, and offices in Paris, Tunis, Lagos, Dubai, and Cape Town. The company was recently selected by CB Insights as one of the 100 most promising AI start-ups in the world for the second year running.

This Tunisian artificial intelligence startup announced in January that it had raised $100 million in a Series B funding round, led by Alpha Intelligence Capital and CDIB Capital.

4. Clickatell

Clickatell creates a better world through technology, making commerce in chat accessible for everyone, everywhere. Consumers can now connect with brands to find goods and services, make purchases, track orders, and resolve issues with a simple text or chat. Clickatell’s Chat Commerce Platform supports the creation and development of customer relationships in chat-based messaging, engagement, and payment solutions.

Its global customers easily manage millions of monthly conversations and transactions, all through chat. No need for cash, phone calls, in-person interactions, or apps, Clickatell is powering the digital commerce transformation. Clickatell is a privately held company headquartered in Silicon Valley, CA with over $18 million in venture capital funding led by Sequoia Capital.

This Africa-focused chat commerce startup announced in February that it sealed a $91 million Series C funding round that was led by Arrowroot Capital, with participation from Kennedy Lewis Investment Management and Endeavor Global, and Harvest.

5. M-KOPA

M-Kopa (M for mobile, kopa is Swahili for borrow) is an African connected asset financing platform that provides underbanked customers in Africa with essential products including solar lighting, televisions, fridges, smartphones & financial services.

Furthermore, M-Kopa was launched commercially in 2012 and is headquartered in Nairobi. The company is currently operating in Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. In March this year, this asset-financier secured $75 million in growth equity from Generation Investment Management and Broadscale Group. Previous investors, including CDC Group and Light rock, also participated.

6. Moove

Moove is a mobility fintech that provides revenue-based vehicle financing to mobility entrepreneurs, democratizing vehicle ownership across Africa. Moreover, Moove is a technology company that is transforming the way the world thinks about transportation and democratizing vehicle ownership. The company embeds its alternative credit-scoring technology onto ride-hailing, logistics, and last-mile/instant delivery platforms, which allows access to proprietary performance and revenue analytics of mobility entrepreneurs to underwrite loans.

In March, this mobility fintech company announced that it had raised $65 million in Series A equity funding and another $40 million in debt funding; thus bringing the total to $105 million. The equity round was led by Speedinvest, Left Lane Capital, and The Latest Ventures.

7. Copia Global

Copia, which means “abundance” in Latin, was founded in 2013 by Tracey Turner and Jonathan Lewis, two Silicon Valley veterans. Their vision was to bring the power of mobile commerce to Africans with middle and low incomes, transforming this historically underserved market into empowered global consumers.

Copia Global provides a consumer catalog order and delivery system intended to serve consumers in the developing world. Its service leverages mobile technologies and a network of agents serving as distribution points, enabling rural and peri-urban consumers to get a wide range of quality goods at reasonable prices.

This Kenyan e-commerce startup announced that it had raised $50 million in a Series C round that was led by Godwell Investors, alongside Zebu Investment Partners and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.

8. VALR

VALR is a digital asset trading platform where you can buy, sell, store and transfer cryptocurrencies seamlessly and securely. Moreover, VALR offers one of the widest selections of digital assets. They‘re helping to build a financial system that recognizes the oneness of humanity. This African crypto exchange raised $50 million Series B in March, led by Pantera Capital, Alameda Research, Cadenza, and others.

9. Instabug

Instabug is a computer software company that offers services such as bug reporting, app performance monitoring, crash reporting, in-app chats, and user surveys for mobile app developers to help them in testing their applications. It delivers real-time contextual throughout the application’s life cycle that helps mobile application developers to detect bugs and errors in their application.

The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in California, United States. As of September 2019, Instabug has reached over 25,000 companies, 400 million reported issues and feedback received, and 2 billion devices running their SDK worldwide. In May, this Egyptian anti-malware startup raised $46 million in a Series C round that was led by Insight Partners.

10. Apollo Agriculture

Apollo helps farmers in emerging markets maximize their profits. The company uses agronomic machine learning, remote sensing, and mobile phones to deliver a customized package of credit, high-quality farm inputs, and advice that can double farm yields, starting in Kenya.

Moreover, Apollo assesses farmer credit risk and customizes each package to a farmer’s specific location using satellite data, soil data, farmer behavior data, and crop yield models. Also in March, this Kenyan Agritech startup raised $40 million in a Series B funding round that was led by Softbank.

11. Reliance Health

Reliance Health uses technology to make quality healthcare more affordable and accessible in emerging markets. Using an integrated approach that includes affordable health insurance, telemedicine, and a combination of partner and proprietary healthcare facilities. Meanwhile, back in February, this healthtech startup raised $40 million in Series A, led by General Atlantic, with participation from Partech, Arvantis Social Foundation, and others.

12. Market Force

MarketForce is a US, Kenya, and Nigeria-based technology company that is building the operating system for retail distribution in Africa. MarketForce provides an all-inclusive B2B Commerce and Fintech platform (dubbed “RejaReja” – Swahili for ‘retail’) that empowers merchants in Africa to source, order, and pay for inventory digitally and conveniently, access financing, collect digital payments and make extra money by reselling digital financial services such as airtime, electricity tokens and bill payments.

Furthermore, launched in 2018, MarketForce is a fast-growing YC-backed company running an asset-light business model and is currently operational in 5 markets in Sub-Saharan Africa, with over 100,000 merchants and 50 consumer brands trading on the platform. Market Force also raised $40 million in Series A in February, led by V8 Capital Partners. With participation from Ten13 VC, SOSV Select Fund, Vu Ventures, and Vastly Valuable Ventures.

Conclusions

One of the buzzing stories that rocked the startup ecosystem lately is the acquisition of over $4 billion in investment capital by entrepreneurs of African startups in 2021. Moreover, this investment funding, gathered from an accumulation of various seed rounds, is among the largest ever capital polls raised by African entrepreneurs. Making it a tremendous success for the local startup ecosystem.

Furthermore, there have been growing concerns lately, over the noticeable slowdown in investor funding across the African startup ecosystem. But there are very high expectations for them to sustain or even surpass that trend in 2022.

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