The year 2023 may have been a regressive one from a funding perspective for the African tech startup space, but one silver lining is that there have been significant improvements from a gender diversity perspective.
According to the ninth edition of the African Tech Startups Funding Report, released last month by Disrupt Africa in partnership with Flourish Ventures, AAIC Investment, and Atlantica Ventures, a total of 406 startups raised a combined total of US$2.4 billion over the course of 2023.
After bucking global trends in a record-breaking 2022, African tech saw a reset of sorts in 2023, as the global capital shortage began to bite. The number of funded ventures, and the total funding raised, declined for the first time since 2016, though not as dramatically as many had feared.
Leading markets, like Nigeria, and sectors, like fintech, took big hits. But the gender diversity figures were better than usual. They aren’t good, don’t get us wrong, but then they never are. But there are hints of progress.
In all, 107 of the funded startups, 26.3 per cent of the total, counted at least one female within their founding team. This was already a marked improvement on 2022, when just 20.2 per cent of ventures had a female co-founder, and is generally on the rise.
Between January 2022 and April 2023, according to the Diversity Dividend: Exploring Gender Equality in the African Tech Ecosystem report released by Disrupt Africa in June 2023, just 149 (21%) of funded ventures had a female co-founder.
The percentage of funded startups with a female CEO is also generally on the rise, standing at 62 (15.3%) in 2023 as opposed to 83 (11.7%) in 2022.
Looking at total funding – in 2023 US$399,694,000 in funding went to startups with at least one female co-founder, a share of 16.7 per cent. Meanwhile, US$198,491,000, or 8.3 per cent, went to companies with a female CEO.
Compared once again with Disrupt Africa’s historic data, we once again see an increase in gender diversity. Between January 2022 and April 2023, US$369,102,000 (9.1%) of funds went to startups with at least one female co-founder, and US$119,053,000 (2.9%) was invested in companies led by a female CEO.
So at least there has been some good news from a generally depressing 2023 from a funding standpoint – an increase in gender diversity.
