Unicorn companies are those that reach a valuation of $1 billion without being listed on the stock market and are the dream of any tech startup, which means it is privately held.
Africa is seeing a rush of funding for its commercial sector, and some companies have already emerged as the continent’s biggest firms, becoming unicorns in Africa.
There are a total of seven tech unicorns in Africa right now, with fintech unicorns in Africa holding the majority of five. The other two are Jumia (E-commerce) and the most recent unicorn in the continent Andela (HR solution for software engineers). The space also includes firms popularized as ‘soonicorns’, or companies that are on their way to becoming future unicorns, such as Kuda Bank, etc. The Nigeria-focused challenger bank raised US$55 million in a Series B this year, at a valuation of US$500 million.
While the United States and China dominate the lists of Unicorns globally, Africa has not been left out, adding her numbers of strong and expanding firms to it.
Notably, most of Africa’s unicorns are tech related, with most in the fintech industry. Investors interest are been capture more and more by African firms.
African fintech companies have raised more in the first seven months than they have in the decade before, according to one report. Between January and September this year, African fintech companies have raised a touch near US$1.5 billion. That, against the US$1.06 billion they raised all across 2011 to 2020, is a clear indication of accelerated interest in the market potential of fintech in Africa.
Below is a list of the seven Unicorns in Africa, country of origin and valuation.
Name | Valuation | Country |
Chippers Cash | over $2 billion | Uganda/Ghana |
Andela | $1.5 billion | Nigeria |
OPay | $2 billion | Nigeria |
Wave | $1.7 billion | Senagal |
Flutterwave | $1 billion | Nigeria |
Interswitch | $1 billion | Nigeria |
Esusu | $1 billion | Nigeria |
Jumia | $1 billion | Nigeria |
Fawry | $2 billion | Egypt |
Chippers Cash ($ 2 billion)
Chippers cash is a fintech startup that facilitates cross-border payment across Africa. The venture- capital-backed financial technology company builds software to enable free and instant peer-to-peer cross- border payments.
Last year, the company hit a $2 billion valuation after raising its first Series C round of $100 million led by SVB Capital. This was further strengthened after six months by another $150 million in a Series C extension round led by Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange platform, summing the total of Series C capital to $250 million.
The company was founded in 2018 by two African entrepreneurs; Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled in San Francisco to provide a no-fee peer-to-peer cross-border payment service in Africa via their app. Amongst countries that use its services are; Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, and Kenya.
Andela – ($1.5 billion)
Andela is a global talent network that connects companies with engineering talent in emerging markets. Andela is a global company with operations across 5 continents.
The fintech was founded in 2014 by four professionals working in the online education and recruitment business; Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Ian Carnevale, Jeremy Johnson and Christiana Sass, as a training company to match developers in emerging markets now known as technology hubs.
The company has raised a total of $381 million funding in multiple rounds with the latest funding raised in September 2021 from a Series E round bringing the company’s valuation to $1.5 billion. The fintech is funded by Generation Investment Management and Spark Capital as the most recent investors.
OPay (over $2 billion)
OPay is a company that enables users to accomplish more with their money by providing smart financial services by designing a mobile payment service and consumer platform for users to send and receive money, pay bills and other online transactions. The neobank based in Nigeria offers personal accounts including a debit card, with all transactions being managed from an iPhone or Android application.
OPay sprung to unicorn status after SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 led a US$400 million funding round in the company in August this year. The round took the company’s valuation to US$2 billion. It also made OPay SoftBank’s debut investment in Africa.
OPay provides a mobile money solution (a central fintech sector in Africa) that comes with physical debit cards, an offline banking solution and savings facilities.
The company raised a total of $570 million in funding over 3 rounds with its latest funding raised in August 2021 from a Series C round and is currently worth over $2 billion. The company was founded in 2018 by Yahul Zhou, a Chinese billionaire entrepreneur.
Wave ($1.7 billion)
Wave is a US and Senegal-based mobile money provider that promises low fees on accounts, deposits, bills payments and withdrawals for users who want to send money.
The African mobile money provider recently raised $200 million in a Series A round valuing the company at $1.7 billion. The funding is the largest Series A round raised for the region, making it the first francophone African unicorn
Wave is the latest entrant to the list of fintech unicorns in Africa. The company attained a valuation of US$1.7 billion in September, 2021 after a US$200 million Series A funding round.
Investors in the company include global heavyweights Sequoia, Founders Fund, Stripe and Ribbit Capital. Wave also offers a mobile money solution that includes deposits and withdrawals, transfers and bill payments.
Wave was launched in 2018 by Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk, the founders of remittance and YC- backed company, SendWave, a company that allows users to safely and instantly send money from North America and Europe to numerous countries across Africa and Asia.
Flutterwave – ($1 billion)
Flutterwave is a fintech company based in Africa and provides a payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers across the continent. The fintech, headquartered in San Fransisco, California with operations in 10 african countries including Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana, was founded by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Olugbenga Agboola and Adeleke Adekoya in 2016.
According to Disrupt Africa, Flutterwaves has raised a total of $234.7 million in funding in over 11 rounds as of today. Their latest funding was raised in March 2021 from a Series C round which pushed the company’s valuation to over $1 billion.
Payment infrastructure company Flutterwave raised US$170 million in a Series C that took place in March this year. The funding round came at a valuation of US$1 billion, taking the company to unicorn status.
Flutterwave has recently been announcing a string of partnerships, including with MTN Group, 9PSB, and Currencycloud.
In March last year, it acquired Disha, a creative platform helping creators to make a living by offering them simple tools to create In December 2021. It also invested in Cinetpay in a seed round valued at $2.4 million.
Interswitch ($1 billion)
Interswitch is an integrated digital payments and commerce company designed to make payments an easy and enjoyable experience. It was established as a common African financial services provider and maintains exclusively, a wide array of interconnected data centers in Africa.
Interswitch is a digital payments company, with solutions spanning transactions, collection, disbursement, card issuance and more.
The company became a unicorn after Visa picked up a minority stake in the company in 2019, leading to a valuation of US$1 billion. The deal was reportedly valued at US$200 million for 20% equity. The company had IPO plans for the first half of 2020, but the plans haven’t materialised thus far.
The fintech achieved unicorn status in 2019 after a $200 million equity investment by Visa gave it a $1 billion valuation however, its latest funding was raised in November 2019 from a corporate round.
The Nigeria financial services company headquartered in Lagos and founded by Mitchell Elegbe in 2002, pioneered the infrastructure to digitize Nigeria’s then predominantly cash-based economy.
Esusu ($1 billion)
Esusu is the most recent unicorn traced to the continent. The credit building startup reached unicorn late January after a $130 million Series B funding led by Softbank and reflecting a more than ten-fold increase in Esusu’s valuation from its previous funding round last July. The startup was named to the Forbes Fintech 50 list last year.
The financial technology platform that reports rental data to build tenants’ credit scores while helping property owners increase revenue, was founded in 2018 by Indian Samir Goel and Nigerian Abbey Wemimo, as the co-founders and co-CEOs of Esusu.
The company helps report rent payments for more than two million rental units across all 50 states in the U.S., up from 1 million units last year by partnering with some top property managers in the country like Mercy Housing, WinnResidential, Goldman Sachs Asset Management amongst others.
Jumia ($1 billion)
Jumia was launched in Nigeria in 2012 led by ex- Mckinsey consultants, Jérémy Hodara (CEO) and Sacha Poignonnec (CEO) and has since spread to African countries including; Egypt, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Kenya and South Africa and others also expanding and launching platforms like Jumia Food, Jumia Travel, Jumia Deals, Jumia One, Jumia Pay and others.
In 2016, the company rose to become the continent’s first unicorn valued at over $1 billion and in April 2019, it went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), raising $196 million in net proceeds. The share price, initially offered at $14.50, rose more than 200% in the first three trading sessions. But after reaching a peak of nearly $50 on 1 May 2019, the share value has declined to under $5/share by year’s end.
In recent times, however, the valuation has continued to alter. As of the time of writing the company is valued at $907 million, depicting less than a billion valuation, but the value rose last Wednesday to about $984 million at $9.99 per share price. So far this year, the company gained its highest on the first trading day of the year at $11.97 per share price to value at $1.18 billion.
Fawry ($1 billion)
Fawry is the biggest e-payment network in Egypt providing payment services to clients through several canals and more than 60,000 service points. The company was founded in 2008 and launched in December 2009 by Ashraf Sabry, to meet the need for convenience and easy payments in Egypt where traffic congestion and complex procedures were daily challenges for individuals and business owners.
Fawry surpassed a $2 billion market valuation, a milestone achieved after the company went public in 2019 and attracted the support of major investors which led to its stock price shooting up significantly from EGP 6.46 ($0.4) opening price to over 7 times after about eighteen months later. As of today, however, the price market cap of the banks is valued at $989 million (EGP 15.5 million).
Summary:
Barely six years ago, Africa had not a single unicorn, but today, the continent accounts for about 9, all worth over $1 billion.
The African business ecosystem maintained its growth trajectory within the global economy within the 5-6 years ag, today, Africa is becoming of more interest to venture capitalist, which mean in the nearest future, we could have firms that had overtaken ByteDance.
Many new firms are emerging in Africa that has been cited by experts as the possible new brands of Unicorns in Africa, these firms include theforemost Nigerian job/career platform Jobgam, Egyptian Fintech Thndr - Egypt, Immobazyme from South Africa to read the piece on them, click Africa’s Next Unicorns- 11 Firms to Keep an Eye On.