📊 Africa's female-led startup funding declined in 2022

Female-led and female-founded startups in Africa attracted less funding in 2022 than they did in 2021, according to a report by Africa: The Big Deal.

The amount of funding raised by female CEOs decreased both in absolute ($188m in 2022 vs. $290m in 2021) and relative numbers (3.9% vs. 6.3%). The number of 100k+ deals also too fell in both absolute volume; $188m in 2022 from $290m in 2021; and relatively from 6.3% in 2021 to 3.9% in 2022.

In relative numbers, female-led ventures could only rally a 4%($188m) share of the total volume, while the male-led counterpart copped 96% ($4.6bn). In other words, investment in male-led ventures was 25x times more than funding that was invested in female-led start-ups in 2022.

Based on the gender of the founding team, male-only founding teams (whether a single male founder or an all-male founding team) continued to attract the vast majority of funding in 2022: 85%, up from 83% in 2021 while female-only founding teams raised more in 2022 ($115m, 2.4%) than in 2021 ($44m, 0.9%). This progress was however somewhat cancelled by a decrease in funding going to gender-diverse founding teams (from 16% in 2021 to 13% in 2022).