Digest Africa's vision is to organize all the information and data about Africa's tech startup ecosystem and also disseminate it in ways that are easier to consume and understand. That is why we are launching the Digest Africa NEXT50, to make it easier for some of Africa's promising startups to be noticed.
The list is a selection of the 50 African startups we are confident have the potential to take off and become the 'NEXT' high-flyers. As we highlight these startups, we also create opportunities for them in terms of follow-on funding, strategic partners as well as customers or users.
We follow a strict criterion which involves only considering startups that were founded not more than two years ago. This means that for the 2018 list, we considered those that were founded not earlier than January 1, 2017. Startups founded in that period but have raised over $1 million in funding - like Kobo360 - aren't considered also. Please note that the startups are arranged in alphabetical order.
We have published the list here or you can visit www.digestafrica.com/NEXT50 to check it out. Below are the summaries and statistics of the entire list.
Statistics
The list was dominated by startups from the Financial Services industry followed by those in the Transportation and Logistics sector.
All the 50 startups came from only 16 countries and Egypt dominated the list with 24% followed by Nigeria at 20%.
We considered only 2 years and those from 2017 took the biggest chunk
In total, the startups raised $7 million in funding last year. The list was led by Mali's Teliman and Egypt's Fakahany at $700,000 each. We excluded startup that with undisclosed funding or that never raised for the graph chart below.
Digest Africa tracked 440 deals worth over $1.1 Billion (plus M&A) in 2018. Next week, our 2018 African Technology Companies Investment Report will be released for purchase at $299 (without the data) and $999 (with the data). Send us an email to [email protected] to book a copy.