South Africa Q1 2022 Venture Investment Report

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Venture Investment in South Africa over Q1 2022 with startup, industry, investor, and Exit breakdown

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The Q1 2022 South Africa Venture Report provides a quarterly update on the venture capital and startup ecosystems in South Africa benchmarked with its peer EVMs. 

After raising its highest quarterly funding record of $462M in the last quarter of 2021, the VC ecosystem in South Africa slowed down its funding drive in the first quarter of this year. Despite observing a 25% QoQ dip in total transactions as compared to Q1’21, the SA-based startup ecosystem was able to raise more funds in each month of the quarter to record a 105% QoQ increase in funding compared to Q1’21 while closing 5 fewer deals. 

Closing no Mega Deals in 2022 YTD, the South African ecosystem was outperformed by its Peer African markets to rank fourth by total number of transactions and capital investment in the first quarter of the year- with a 15 deal difference between its frontrunner Kenya and a $41M gap between its frontrunner Egypt. The 5 Exits recorded in South Africa were the highest in the African continent for this quarter accounting for 45% of total Exits recorded in Africa in Q1 2022. 

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Key Highlights - South Africa Q1 2022 Venture Investment Report

  • $115M was recorded in VC funding in South Africa over in Q1 2022 marking a 105% QoQ increase compared to Q1'21

  • While smaller-sized funding rounds ($1M-$5M) accounted for 45% of total transactions in Q1 21, small size rounds ($0k-$1M) and large-sized rounds ($20M+) together accounted for 54% of total deals

  • South Africa surpassed was the fourth-most funded and most transacting geography across Africa accounting for 9% of total funding and 8% of total transactions closed in the continent over Q1'22

  • FinTech remains the leading industry of choice in SA accounting for 68% of all capital invested in the ecosystem, while IT Solutions, Transport & Logistics, and Enterprise Software remain top-contenders 

  • 5 Exits recorded in South Africa were the highest in the African continent for this quarter

 

What’s In The Report?

This quarterly report provides a comprehensive deep dive into the South African VC ecosystem with an overview of the Middle East and Africa venture capital and funding investment space and includes the following: 

• A 5-year analysis of South Africa venture funding evolution, with a focus on 2022 YTD country and industry performance benchmarks

• Top 10 investor ranking, together with the business type and HQ analysis of all investment firms in the region

• Top 10 startup funding rounds that were closed during the analyzed period, as well as the ticket size split of the entire deal flow

• A 5-year analysis of South Africa's exit evolution with a country benchmark breakdown 

• Top 10 last exits by South Africa-based startups

Who will benefit from the report?

The South Africa Venture Investment Report is ideal for investors tracking startup activity, consultants looking to identify technology innovation trends, as well as government entities searching for investments.

This report was created with data from MAGNiTT, a comprehensive directory of technology innovation trends. The platform provides the following analytics tools:

 

• Investment directories, a comprehensive list of all startup venture funding across the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, and Turkey

• Market Sizing Tools to visualize investment growth and trends across industries, geographies, and stage

• Startup Resources including a deal flow tool for applications to leading Venture Capitalists for investment

• Exit comparisons, looking at Mergers & Acquisitions from across the region

 

Sign-up for a demo to learn more about how our platform can help you make data-driven decisions.

*This report aggregates and analyses tech startup investments in 17 countries in the Middle East and North Africa - listed alphabetically: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (KSA), Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen.

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