Africa: start-ups raised USD 254 million in October 2024

The platform Africa: The Big Deal recently published the monthly financial report on African start-ups.

According to the report, in October 2024, African start-ups raised $254 million, a record for this month since 2019 as forty-two (42) companies raised financing despite a global context of tightening liquidity.

Indeed, these figures, places October as the second best month of 2024, after July, with an increase of almost 50% compared to the average of the last 12 months, a contrast to the global trend.
“The main highlight of the month was the transaction by Moniepoint, a Nigerian fintech, which closed a $110 million Series C financing round, representing 43% of the total raised in October. This fund-raising, one of the largest in the sector, could establish Moniepoint as the eighth African unicorn, a title reserved for companies valued at over one billion dollars. Other major deals of the month included the $42 million raised by BasiGo in Series A, and the $33 million obtained by cryptocurrency exchange platform Yellow Card in Series C.

In addition, the report notes that since the beginning of 2024, African start-ups have raised a total of $1.7 billion, spread over 393 deals exceeding $100,000, although this performance remains down 32% on the previous year.

Of these, 137 transactions exceeded the million-dollar mark, a year-on-year decline of 20%, reflecting the persistent tensions in the financing of technology start-ups.

AGNES KAYEMBE