Villgro Africa has joined the list of investors who have partnered with startup-focused news and research company Disrupt Africa in a bid to make their annual funding report available to all in January 2021. Other investors who are on board to launch the open-source initiative include Catalyst Fund, Quona Capital, 4Di Capital, Otundi Ventures and Lateral Capital
Since 2016, Disrupt Africa's "African Tech Startups Funding Report" has tracked the growth in investment coming into the tech space, and analyzed various trends across nations and verticals.
The report has tracked the extraordinary progress made by the continent’s startup ecosystems from an investment perspective since, with the amount of total funding having increased by more than 160 percent and the number of startups raising that funding growing by almost 150 percent over those five years.
Aside from providing a full list of the funded startups, who invested in them, and, where possible, the amount raised, from the previous year, the annual reports also provide deep-dives into investment trends within key startup geographies and verticals, as well as data on African startup acquisitions.
Previously available for sale, the report has been purchased each year by leading tech companies from Africa and the rest of the world, Big Four consulting firms, banking and fintech leaders, venture capital firms, supranational investors, and international trade bodies. In January 2021, however, Disrupt Africa will make the next edition open source for the first time, to make it accessible to those for whom the information is most valuable – African entrepreneurs.
“Our flagship funding report, which was the first of its kind when the inaugural edition was released in January 2016, has become an industry benchmark. We are proud of the customer base we have built, which is hundreds-strong and includes the great and the good of the global tech, innovation and investment industry. But Disrupt Africa’s core remit is to empower African entrepreneurs through access to information, and this was not happening under the previous model,” said Tom Jackson, co-founder of Disrupt Africa.
Speaking on the partnership, Villgro Africa CEO and Co-founder, Mr. Wilfred Njagi said, “Any startup enabler or ecosystem actor is as strong as the entrepreneurial ecosystem they operate in. Villgro Africa has partnered with Disrupt Africa because we are passionate about the democratization of transactions happening across the continent which will then lead to better deal flow and even more vibrant ecosystems, especially in geographies that have been under-represented over the years. As Villgro scales its model across Africa, these investment insights and analytics will come in handy,”
Making the report open source will open up more opportunities for investors and more importantly entrepreneurs, this will in turn help improve the quality of the pipeline and lead to better deal flow. It will also increase our ability to identify a successful range of compelling entrepreneurs to address some of the social-economical challenges in Africa.