How Nigerian Startups Raised Over $2 Billion Dollars Between 2015 & 2022

The Nigerian startup scene has been the most popular destination for tech investments in Africa, raising a total of $2,068,709,445 in funding from the year 2015 to 2022. Within this years, about 383 Nigerian startups have been launched and have successfully raised over $2 billion dollars.

Over the first couple of years in tracking the number of Nigerian startups, investment in the country increased at a slow pace, but the big surge started in the year 2020, accelerating most companies to gross in billion of dollars.

From 48 startups the year before, 85 startups received funding that year. The amount nearly quadrupled once more in 2021, reaching 161.

By August 2022, 107 Nigerian companies had raised money; they were on track to surpass the total from the previous year.

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Backdrop of Nigerian startups funding to billion in dollars 

The total amount of financing that Nigerian entrepreneurs have received has increased dramatically. Nigerian businesses have raised a total of $49,400,000 since 2015.

Fast-forwarding to August 2022, $747,908,000 has already been secured for this year. This amount falls just short of Nigeria’s projected 2021 yearly total of $793,790,000. As a result, by year’s end, we can anticipate another notable figure.

The largest round in history was also held in Nigeria earlier this year when the fintech company Flutterwave received a $250 million Series D financing, demonstrating both the growing maturity of the Nigerian ecosystem and its strength in the fintech industry.

In Nigeria, fintech is actually the main focus. Every year, it has received the most funding of any sector. About $507 million has already been invested on the area in 2022, which makes up 67.8% of Nigeria’s total funding for the year.

It is also astounding to see how much more money is being invested in Nigeria’s fintech industry, especially in the last few years as overall fintech funding has started to surpass the half-billion dollar level.

Acquisitions 

When it comes to startup acquisitions, Nigeria is behind South Africa and Egypt, with only 15 such deals occurring since 2016.

With 13.2% of the 114 acquisitions that have occurred during this time, the country is ranked third on the continent due to this.

Before 2020, there was hardly any merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in Nigeria. However, that changed when global payments pioneer Stripe bought fintech firm Paystack, ushering in a new era of activity.

Only six acquisitions were made between 2016 and 2020, while seven businesses were acquired in total in 2021, making up nearly half of all startup buyouts in Nigeria.

It is not surprising that there are no trends to be observed given the lack of activity until 2021, however, the Paystack merger sparked M&A activity in Nigeria’s fintech sector. 

These were both of the deals completed so far in 2022. Six of the seven acquisitions made in 2021 were of fintech startups.

Indeed, Nigerian startups have demonstrated their ability to actively acquire both domestic and foreign competitors, with companies like Autocheck, EdenLife, and TradeDepot being active in this area just in the past year.

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