Every other day, a startup receives money from investors. Africa, for instance, is one of the hottest markets for such ventures, but how have things progressed so far in 2022? To note, venture-backed startup companies face high levels of uncertainty. Also, high-quality startups face the problem of separating themselves from the rest of the companies in the market.
According to a report put together by CB Insights, global funding to startups reached $108.5B in Q2 2022. This represented a 23% drop quarter-over-quarter (QoQ). This is the largest quarterly percentage drop in funding in nearly a decade. While the new funding level marked a 6-quarter low, it was still the sixth largest quarter for funding on record.
In the same spirit, as investors scaled back, funding shrank across all major regions in Q2 2022, including the US and Asia with a 25% QoQ drop each. While the US drove almost half of all funding ($52.9B), Q2 2022 marked its lowest funding amount since 2020. In contrast, Europe-based startups only saw a 13% dip in total funding QoQ.
$100 million+ mega-round funding reached $50.5B across 250 deals in Q2 2022, marking a 31% fall QoQ. Mega-round activity also experienced a 31% decline, hitting its lowest level since 2020. While the US saw a 34% decline in mega-rounds, startups here accounted for 51% of all mega-round funding in Q2’22
Unicorns
During the same assessment period, there was the birth of 85 new unicorns globally — a 6-quarter low and a sharp decrease from the 148 unicorns born a year ago in Q2 2021. The US and Europe accounted for most of the new unicorns, with 49 and 16 unicorn births, respectively. The highest valued new unicorn was the Seychelles-based crypto exchange company KuCoin, with a valuation of $10B.
Exits
Exit activity continued to slow down. The number of exits decreased by 16% QoQ to 2,648 total in Q2 2022. M&A deals fell by 16% to 2,502 in Q2’22, a 6-quarter low. IPOs and special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) dropped by 15% and 26%, respectively. Europe-based startups accounted for 39% of all exits in Q2 2022, surpassing the US’ 36% share.
In Africa
Funding to Africa-based startups totaled $1.7B in the first half of 2022, more than half of the total raised in all of 2021. At the current rate, funding could exceed last year’s figure by $1B. If this occurs, this will be the second year of continuous and significant funding growth for the continent.
