Despite the unfavorable global environment, crypto exchanges captured 52.4% of the overall funds raised by African blockchain-focused startups last year.    

African startups operating in the crypto industry attracted $474 million in venture funding in 2022. The amount is up 429% compared to 2021, according to a recent report published by Swizerland-based venture capital firm Crypto Valley Venture Capital (CV VC) and South African banking group Standard Bank.

Entitled "The African Blockchain Report 2022," the report reveals that in Africa, blockchain-related venture capital investments have grown much more strongly than the global average (4%) despite the turmoil that hit the crypto market last year. 

However, the continent only accounts for about 1.8% of the total funding captured by the blockchain industry globally ($26.8 billion).

The number of deals closed between venture capital players and blockchain startups on the continent reached 28 deals in the past year compared to just 26 deals in 2021.

In 2022, the continent also recorded its first two mega-deals (deal size exceeding $100 million) and its first two blockchain-related unicorns.  The two mega-deals were attracted by Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange platform Kucoin which raised $150 million and South Africa-based MFS Africa which raised $100 million. These two large deals represent 33% of the total number of mega-rounds completed by all African startups (across all industries) over the past year.

A mixed Q1-2023 

Thanks to its record-breaking fundraising, Kucoin achieved unicorn status last year alongside Scroll, a Seychelles-based startup that raised $30 million in April 2022.

With $208 million, Seychelles was the country that attracted the most African blockchain-focused venture funding in 2022, ahead of South Africa ($177 million). These two countries together captured 81% of venture capital investments in this category that year.

They are followed by Liberia ($37.5 million), Kenya ($25.7 million), Nigeria ($15.9 million), Cameroon ($8 million), and Ghana ($2 million).

The breakdown of venture capital investments in blockchain startups by business segment shows that crypto exchanges captured 52.4% of the VC funding raised. They are trailed by fintech (24.3%), infrastructure and development (14.3%), non-fungible tokens, gaming and metaverse (6.8%), decentralized finance (0.8%), energy (0.7%), data management, verification and analytics (0.5%) and real estate (0.1%) segments. 

The breakdown of investments by type of fundraising reveals that 90% of fundraising was in Series A and B rounds, compared to 9.4% in Seed (first round of financing), 0.3% in Pre-Seed (seed capital), and 0.3% in Equity Crowdfunding.

The report further reveals that the first quarter of 2023 has not been as good as 2022. Only four deals ($77.5 million in total) were recorded in the first quarter of this year, which represents a 14.4% decrease compared to the same period last year.