Venture capital investment into Nigeria is now five times the amount of Foreign Direct Investment in Africa’s biggest economy.
Venture capital investment in the country has ballooned from a mere three hundred million dollars ($300 million) in 2018 to a staggering one billion, two hundred and seventy dollars ($1.270 billion) in the first six months of this year alone, according to data from Partech, the Big Deal Substack and TLcom Capital.
In the same period, however, the traditional foreign direct investment, FDI, came to just $232.73 million, a 35.86 percent decline from the amount attracted in the first six months of the pandemic-ravaged 2020, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The boom in venture capital investment into Nigeria means that this source of investment which accounted for only 26 percent of FDI in 2018 has now accelerated to 546 percent of FDI in 2021.
In 2019, total FDI receipts fell 22% year on year to $934.34 but rose marginally to $1.028bn in 2020 and Omobola Johnson, former Minister of Communication Technology and ex chair of Accenture in Nigeria told BusinessDay that the major drivers of the surge can be seen in “Nigeria’s large underserved market where technology start-ups can with good funding mix achieve scale in a short time.”
According to her, “the Nigerian government can position the country for more venture capital funding by going out there to change the narrative, by just talking to investors about what the government is doing to support the tech ecosystem to enhance the work of incubators and accelerators and also by adopting friendly policies that engender growth.”
It is expected that the volume of venture capital investment and its contribution to total investment in Nigeria will continue to grow with more mature companies emerging, and more investors raising money and deploying the same to meet the market demands.
The ticket sizes in Nigerian venture capital have grown substantially since 2010. In March, Tiger Global led a $170 million round into Flutterwave, pushing the company’s valuation over $1 billion, and making it Nigeria’s third unicorn.
In August, the Japanese mega-investor, SoftBank, joined Sequoia Capital China in a $400 million investment into OPay, a Lagos-based mobile money company.
The entry of these firms has been interpreted as a sign of validation for founders pointing to the growing maturity of the Nigerian ecosystem. Where these funds go, other investors tend to follow.
“There isn’t a major global VC firm I’ve spoken to in the last 12 months that isn’t seriously exploring opportunities to immediately deploy funds in Africa right now,” Aaron Fu, head of growth at the global tech accelerator Catalyst Fund said recently.
Investors have been predicting that Nigerian startups would break out for more than a decade, but the ecosystem has gone through several false starts. Rising internet adoption and smartphone penetration have created opportunities to disrupt traditional industries like retail and financial services, but startups have been hindered by weak infrastructure, uncertain policies, and a lack of investment.
Scaling in Nigeria has often proved difficult. Even though the country has a large population — more than 210 million — average income remains low, and companies have struggled to find large, accessible markets. They also face a funding gap — the companies need sums that are too big for local angel investors, but too small for international VCs.
According to Olumide Soyombo, co-founder of Voltron Capital, an angel investment fund, “the startup may have proven some viability and product-market fit, but they couldn’t scale because either the bigger boys thought they were too early, or the smaller angel investors had already reached their funding limits.”
To offset this problem in the past, local investors pooled funding from a network of backers to invest in startups. “We were like the first set of damsels on the dance floor while the music plays,” joked Soyombo, who was an early investor in Paystack, which the U.S. fintech behemoth, Stripe, acquired for $200 million last year.
There are signs that that is changing. In Nigeria, the number of funding rounds above $1 million has almost doubled from 25 to 47 between 2019 and the first nine months of 2021, according to data from Africa: The Big Deal.
“Investors have been eyeing Africa for a while, but have been making safe bets,” said Rebecca Enonchong, chairperson of Afrilabs, a Pan-African network of innovation hubs. “Lately, the size of the investments demonstrate a real commitment to Africa; this is new,” she added.
Tiger Global had already dipped its toe in the Nigerian startup scene in the early 2010s, with investments in Jobberman, a job listing platform, Wakanow, a travel booking service, and Cheki, a car marketplace. In 2012, it made a high-profile $8 million investment in IrokoTV, the video-streaming service.
When Tiger Global made a $1 million investment in Jobberman, they did their due diligence, but their focus was less on the startup and more on the opportunity in that market, said Opeyemi Awoyemi, co-founder of Jobberman.
“When they met us ,” he said, “it was a 30-minute meeting and right there they made an offer.” It was a moment that captured Tiger Global’s trademark process of swift decision-making, which some rival investors found contentious.
Fintech is seen as a likely entry point for global investors due to the scale of the opportunity and their familiarity with the sector around the world. More than half of Nigeria’s adult population has no bank account, and only 2% have access to credit. Fintechs could — if regulation permits — step into that void and build enormous markets. Tiger, Softbank, and Sequoia have been major investors in fintech in China, India, and Southeast Asia.
“Everyone understands the need to build digital infrastructure in Africa, and their partners understand fintech,” Catalyst Fund’s Fu said of leading global VCs looking to Nigeria.
opportunity, Soyombo and Bello, both of whom have enjoyed outsized returns from backing Paystack and Flutterwave, have each announced new venture funds.
This could be crucial. Despite the size and investment spree, companies like SoftBank and Tiger Global rarely invest in early-stage companies, especially in a less-developed market like Nigeria.
Local investors still bear the greater responsibility of backing companies in the early stages and supporting them in developing their ideas. In 2020, early-stage companies represented 64% of Africa’s 359 startup funding rounds above $200,000, according to Partech. However, collectively, they accounted for $220 million of the continent’s $1.4 billion startup investments.
On the back of their successes, local investors can also go on to create more significant funds to invest bigger sums in companies. Soyombo warned that it’s still early days. “You raise the fund based on your track record, and that’s what will give us the platform to raise proper large funds.”
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