Rabat – Moroccan startups do not weigh much in the African market, observes the third annual report released by Partech Ventures, a leading international venture capital firm specializing in ICT, which has just published a study on the fundraising of African startups in 2016.
According to the latter, the total amount of funds raised by African tech startups last year stood at US$ 366.86 million representing a more than 30% increase from the previous year that raised a total of $276.5 million.
The money ($366.86 Million) was raised by 77 startups from 12 African countries Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, and finally Uganda.
In terms of total funds raised, the report recognized only the top three, Nigerian startups led the way with $109 million, South Africa following closely with $96 million, and Kenyan startups raised $92 million. These top 3 investment destinations accounted for 79.4% of the continent’s total funding.
However, Moroccan startups have only raised US$ 980,000 out of a total of US$ 366.8 million, a record on the continent. The Kingdom thus ranks 10th, far from the continental champions like Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Rwanda.
For its ranking, Partech Ventures only include deals higher than US$ 200K. Smaller deals are harder to keep track of and are outside of our focus, and exclude what they call “megadeals”, funds higher than US$ 100 million. For instance, Jumia 2016 mega-deal of US$ 463+ million raised over multiple rounds from AXA Group, MTN, Rocket Internet, Goldman Sachs, Orange and CDC is not taken into account.
