The continued rise of Francophone Africa: 28 founders that raised over $1 million in 2023
Afridigest is your intelligent guide to Africa’s tech ecosystem. We provide ideas, analysis, and insights for startup founders, executives, and investors across Africa and beyond.
This essay briefly highlights a key trend of 2023 in Africa Tech: the continued rise of Francophone Africa. And it showcases 28 founders of companies in French-speaking Africa that announced raising $1 million or more in equity last year.
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Across Africa's tech ecosystem, investors generally focus on four main hubs: Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa — the so-called NEKS countries.
But there's a quiet shift underway.
One of the main themes of 2023 in Africa Tech was the continued, slow-but-steady rise of Francophone Africa.
For example, while the overall number of fundraises across the continent in 2023 fell ~30% from 2022, the total number of fundraises in Francophone Africa grew ~15% y/y.
And that’s not all.
Last year, according to Partech’s 2023 Africa Tech Venture Capital report (PDF), startups in Francophone Africa accounted for 15% of all equity raised across the African tech ecosystem — up 3x from five years ago.
And if you strip out the four NEKS countries, the 2023 shift becomes much less quiet.
Francophone Africa accounted for roughly two-thirds of all equity raised in the 50 countries that make up the rest of Africa (outside NEKS) last year, up ~1.8x from just under two-fifths in 2022.
While Anglophone Africa sucks up most of the attention that tech in Africa gets, French-speaking Africa is a large, untapped market that offers some unique opportunities.
Here's a look at some founders who are building companies born in Francophone Africa or attacking some of the opportunities therein — their 28 companies announced raising $1 million or more in equity in 2023:
I asked Moulayé Tabouré, Co-Founder & CEO of Ivory Coast’s Anka, about the challenges & opportunities of building a company in Francophone Africa a year ago — here’s what he had to say:
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