Obinna Chima
Financial technology (fintech) startups in Nigeria raised a total of $120,557,026 in 60 deals in 2020, the Nigerian Startup Funding Report 2020 published by Techpoint Africa has revealed.
According to the report obtained yesterday, of the 60 deals, 18 of it were pre-seed rounds.
A further breakdown of the amount raised showed that 53.7 per cent of the total funding was raised by financial services providers; while 74.7 per cent was attributable to six startups that individually raised at least $10 million.
Also, while 3.5 per cent, which was 15 of the deals were local; 37 (71.2% of the total amount raised), were foreign deals, and nine (25.3% of the total amount raised) were deals with participation by both local and foreign investors. However, it pointed out that there were more than 15 undisclosed deals in the year.
When Nigerian businessman and philanthropist Tony Elumelu, in his keynote address before world leaders, at the 2019 Invest for Growth in Africa Conference in Paris argued that “Africans do not need aid – rather our young people need investment,” the business tycoon and thought leader spoke confidently on sustainable means to grow the economy through real-time empowerment and investment.
Today, away from aids, Nigeria in 2020 is proud of what venture investments from tech have added to its GDP. From disclosed raisers to undisclosed investments, Nigerian tech startups in the year under review closed millions in cash to scale and expand their ventures, thus -facilitating increasing employment opportunities for citizens with possibilities of cutting down on Nigeria’s poverty index which stood at 40.1% in 2019.