Kenya led in the value of corporate deals in East Africa in the first half of this year, new venture capitalist performance data shows.
A new report by the London-based African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCA) shows overall, Egypt led in deal value on the continent at Sh42.7 billion, with 63 deals clinched over the review period, followed by Kenya at Sh40.1 billion with 54 deals.
Nigeria was third with 101 deals valued at Sh34.6 billion.
The "2022 H1 African Venture Capital Activity" report shows the first half of 2022 saw 445 venture capital deals attributed to 300 unique companies take place in Africa's venture ecosystem, a record for the industry.
This, the report notes, corresponds to year-on-year growth of 72 per cent from the first half of last year.
"Despite the historic tendency for increased deal activity in the tail end of the year, the first six months of 2022 demonstrated strong annual growth in a muted global macroeconomic environment where contractions rather than expansions were the norm," says the report.
Median value
At the same time, seed stage deals, which comprise the largest proportion of venture capital deal volume in Africa, registered a 97 per cent year-on-year increase from the previous year.
"The median value of seed deals also showed significant growth in this period, rising from Sh72.8 million in 2021 H1 to 218.5 million in 2022 H1."
On the opposite side of the spectrum, the data shows late-stage deals (which more than doubled in the last year) are appearing with increasing frequency in Africa's startup ecosystem.
"A selection of late-stage deals that occurred in this period include Flutterwave's Sh30.4 billion Series D round and the Sh11.1 billion Series C round in South African chat commerce provider Clickatell," notes the report.
