Africa: Women-led startups still attract less than 3% of funding (Report)

Despite the steady rise in the volume of funds raised by African start-ups over the past few years, gender inequalities are still very much in evidence. In the 16 months ending on April 30, 2023, start-ups led by women have raised just $119 million, representing 2.9% of the overall funding raised by African startups during the period. 

African women-led startups raised a cumulative $119.05 million between January 1, 2022, and April 30, 2023, according to a report published, on June 7, 2023, by tech news portal Disrupt Africa and pre-seed investment program Madica.

Entitled “Diversity Dividend: Exploring Gender Equality in the African Tech Ecosystem“, the report explains that women-led startups raised just 2.9% of the $4.05 billion raised by African startups during the period under review.

Of the 711 start-ups that raised funds, 83 were headed by women (11.7%), while 149 had at least one woman in their founding team (21%). The latter category raised $369.10 million. Nigeria tops the list of countries of origin of start-ups with at least one woman in their founding team, ahead of Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Ghana, and Tunisia.

The report also highlights the fact that Africa’s tech landscape is largely dominated by men. Out of a total of 2,395 startups tracked by Disrupt Africa, only 350 (14.6%) were founded or co-founded by women, while only 230 (9.6%) were headed by women.

Although figures vary from one country to the other, the African start-up landscape is still a long way from being gender inclusive. No country has more than 23% of women founders. The countries with the most women founders or co-founders are, in order, Rwanda, Tunisia, Senegal, Ethiopia, and Uganda. The four most developed ecosystems on the continent (Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt) are not gender diversified.

The legal-tech sector tops the list of those with the most women founders and co-founders (26.9%). This is followed by healthtech (22.1%), recruitment and human resources management (22%), ed-tech (17.8%), and e-commerce (17.3%).

The report also shows that 80.8% of women think they have experienced professional prejudice because of their gender. Meanwhile, 50% of them believe they lost professional opportunities directly because of their gender, and 69.2% of the female founders also indicated that they felt negatively impacted by the fact of being women when speaking to a potential investor.