African startups raised $1 million every 2 hours in 2021 — Africa: The Big Deal
Even to a casual observer, 2021 was a massive year for the African tech ecosystem. It was the year when there were more disclosed funding rounds than we could keep up with. Data from various sources show that startups on the continent received over $4 billion from investors in 2021. That represents more than double the investments gotten in 2020. Numbers, they say, don’t lie, and with help from Briter Bridges’ Africa Investment Report 2021 and data from Africa: The Big Deal, we’ll be extracting some insights. Funding for women-led startups needs to be better Much has been written about the near absence of financing for women-led startups. While startup funding continues to grow, it is still disproportionately skewed towards startups led by men or at least one man on the founding team. The Big Deal reports that only 0.95% of the funding raised by African startups went to startups founded or led by a woman. While this percentage is less than that of 2020 (2%), it is partly explained by t