Kenya is known for its vibrant startup hubs and reports show that investors are very interested in ideas in this country.
According to a preliminary overview report about startup investments in Africa by Startup list Africa, Kenya is the leading destination for startup investments in Africa in 2020.
Kenya received over 25% of total funding in Africa which is a significant cut of the pie. The top industry that received the funding was renewable energy which is an industry that has seen tremendous interest in.
According to their report. Kenya led the way with $266 million (Kshs 29.3 billion) in investments ahead of Nigeria ($237 million), South Africa ($198 million), Egypt ($125 million) and Ghana ($90 million). The top industries that got funding in Kenya are in renewable energy, Agritech and logistics. The startups that got the most funding in Kenya in 2020 include:
- Greenlight Planet – $90 million (Private Equity)
- Twiga Foods – $29.4 million (Debt)
- Komaza – $28 million (Series B)
- Sendy – $20 million (Series B)
- Sokowatch – $14 million (Series A)
Kenya has been attractive to investors for the past five years. Startup investments have been generally on the rise where in 2016, $101 million was raised, 2017 ($357 million), 2018 ($210 million) and 2019 with $152 million. Over the past 5 years, $1.09 billion has been pumped in Kenya’s ecosystem, which is second to Nigeria’s $1.74 billion.
This report follows the one done by Briter Bridges recently about startup funding in Africa in 2020. In the report, they revealed that $2.4 billion in capital was deployed in Africa in 2020 where the largest shares were taken by fintech and clean energy firms. Kenya was singled out as having the headquarters of top companies as well as a number of companies that got a lot of funding in 2020.
