(Ecofin Agency) - During the period, they raised 37% of the overall VC funding in Africa. Although Nigeria remained the destination of a sizable portion of the funding, other countries like Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire recorded surprisingly strong performance.

West African startups raised US$1.8 billion in 2022, according to Africa: The Big Deal. With such performance, West Africa was the leader in terms of funding raised and outpaced North Africa (US$1.1 billion), East Africa (US$1.2 billion), and Southern Africa (US$600 million).  The funding is nevertheless down by 12% compared to the US$2 billion the region attracted in 2021.

With US$1.2 billion raised, Nigeria remained the leader even though the volume is down compared with the US$1.7 billion it attracted in 2021. According to Max Cuvellier, Nigeria's regional hegemony was challenged "with its share of regional funding down 17 percentage points to 68%." 

The country recorded only two transactions exceeding US$100 million in 2022 (Flutterwave raised US$250 million and Interswitch raised US$110 million in May) against five in 2021.

According to the Big Deal, Nigeria's dip in performance "is to be attributed to Ghana’s very strong performance in 2022 with 47 deals over $100k for a total of nearly $400m [...] nearly 8x times more than in 2021."

Apart from Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire also stood out by raising three times more funds in 2022 (US$34 million) in 2022 than in 2021 (US$11 million). It is worth mentioning nevertheless that seven West African countries recorded zero US$100K+ deals. They include Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, The Gambia, and Liberia.

Chamberline Moko