FinTech: Nigeria Produces Five of Seven Unicorns in Africa
TECHDIGEST – As the Nigeria FinTech ecosystem maintains its steady growth within the African continent, three more unicorns – Flutterwave, Opay, and Andela- are joining Interswitch and Jumia as five out of the seven unicorns on the continent.
The term Unicorn refers to any startup company that reaches a valuation of over $1 billion.
FinTechNGR, Nigeria’s fintech association, which disclosed this, noted that Nigeria’s FinTech ecosystems stronger and improved brand appeal to global investors showed that the country is an economy positioned for growth, financial inclusion, and a narrowing poverty gap.
FinTechNGR, in a document, said Nigeria was ranked as sixth in real-time payments by Finshots, and also as one of the top crypto trading countries in the world by Statista, amongst other ground-breaking feats, which attest to the value of the country’s ecosystem.
The document, signed by President, FinTech Association of Nigeria, Ade Bajomo, revealed that in the year under review, Nigerian FinTech startups raised $1.37 billion out of $4 billion total raised by African startups, despite the effects of the pandemic.
According to the document, Nigeria raised the largest chunk, followed by other key FinTech hubs – South Africa ($838 million), Egypt ($588 million), and Kenya ($375 million).
Outside the big four, other proactive markets were Senegal and Tanzania whose startups raised $222 million and $96 million respectively, according to Connecting Africa.
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One of the biggest success stories was Ghanaian FinTech Chipper Cash, which raised a total of $250 million in 2021. Without Chipper Cash, Ghana would have raised $48 million.
Also, FintechNGR said it will continue to develop robust venture capital and private equity channels to support innovators that have significant growth potential, stressing that simplifying and optimizing the process for raising capital would give more investors the opportunity to benefit from the growth of these companies and create wealth for the economy.
On the feat achieved in Nigeria, the association said it played a key role as an enabler, providing direction and support in various ways such as the formal launch and graduation of the maiden cohort of the DigiStuds project, a Digital Academy Project aimed at equipping 500,000 students of public tertiary institutions in Nigeria with relevant digital skills.
The association said the launch of the Nigeria FinTech Census, an aggregated data on FinTechs in Nigeria done in partnership with EY, is aimed at helping stakeholders to make informed decisions on the ecosystem.
According to the body, deepening of collaboration and technical skills through various training and knowledge events such as the Nigeria FinTech Week (NFW), World FinTech Festival (in collaboration with Singapore FinTech Week), Intercontinental Webinars, and various ad-hoc interventions on regulations, also contributed to the success of the ecosystem
“Therefore, it is no surprise that FinTechNGR membership grew by 24 percent, as we attracted new strategic members such as Facebook and many others, who are keen to take part in the critical role we play and the impact we have on the ecosystem as an Association.
“We also experienced the renewal of existing memberships and several upgrades of membership plans to a higher category,” Bajomo added.
