Diversity Dividend: Exploring Gender Equality in the African Tech Ecosystem 2024

Baby steps have been taken towards greater gender diversity within the African tech startup ecosystem, but much more needs to be done if anything close to parity is to be achieved, according to a new report released by Disrupt Africa.

Since launching its research arm in 2016, Disrupt Africa has built up a significant portfolio of publications, most notably the African Tech Startups Funding Report, Finnovating for Africa, and deep-dives into various leading startup ecosystems, available free for all via open-sourcing initiatives with various partners across the continent’s tech ecosystem.

Its latest report, the company’s 24th in total, is the second edition of “Diversity Dividend: Exploring Gender Equality in the African Tech Ecosystem”, Disrupt Africa’s annual deep-dive into the state of gender diversity in the African startup and venture capital ecosystems.

The report, the first edition of which was released last year, contains both quantitative and qualitative data – quantifying female founders and VCs in the ecosystem, as well as their access to funding and opportunities, and polling them directly about their experiences within the ecosystem. It also features personalised case studies.

Disrupt Africa has tracked measurable progress from a gender diversity perspective over the last 12 months, yet what has been achieved can still only be characterised as “baby steps” given the significant disadvantage women face within the ecosystem.

Of 2,600 African tech startups studied for the purposes of the publication, just 17.3 per cent had at least one female co-founder, and 11.1 per cent had a female CEO. These figures are by no means high enough, but do nonetheless reveal progress since the first edition, when 14.6 per cent had a female on the founding team and just 9.6 per cent were led by a woman CEO.

There has also been progress on the funding front, though by no means enough. The percentage of total African tech funding raised by ventures with at least one female co-founder increased to 16.6 per cent in 2023 from 9.3 per cent in 2022. Meanwhile, the share of funding raised by female-led startups was up to 8.2 per cent in 2023 from 2.8 per cent from the year before.

The report is powered by Madica, an Africa-focused pre-seed investment programme dedicated to empowering underrepresented and underfunded mission-driven founders.

Other partners include leading impact investing firm Goodwell Investments; SAIS powered by GIZ; a company development and accelerator programme project focused on the agriculture, food, climate and livestock sectors implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministery for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ); and the International Trade Centre’s NTF V programme.