Africa
Continent / region · #42 region by EV
Adjacent regions by EV
Startup funnel
Africa's power-law funnel
From the first cheque written to a $10B+ outcome. Each arrow shows what fraction of companies at one stage graduate to the next, tracked by founding cohort.
* C→Unicorn and Unicorn→Decacorn rates are derived from current counts (no founding-cohort data); the four mid-funnel rates use Dealroom's cohort tracking.
Notable companies
Top private companies in Africa
Up to 20 names per tier from Dealroom's tracked dataset. Decacorns are valued $10B+, unicorns $1B+, thoroughbreds have crossed $100M in revenue.
Academia
Africa's academic flywheel
Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to Africa.
Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems
How Africa stacks up
Peers chosen from other continents / multi-country regions, sized closest to Africa by combined EV. The scatter plots growth × current size — outliers in the upper-right are ecosystems compounding fastest.
Top overview
Top regions — combined view
Top regions globally ranked by combined EV. Africa's row is highlighted.
| # | Ecosystem | Combined EV | 5-yr EV growth | Unicorns | VC invested | Tracked startups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | World | $44.1T | 5.8× | 3,634 | $444B | 288.9K |
| 2 | North America | $31.5T | 6.8× | 2,136 | $290B | 122.2K |
| 3 | Asia | $8.9T | 4.0× | 916 | $85.5B | 74.2K |
| 4 | EMEA | $4.6T | 4.7× | 857 | $84.1B | 89.8K |
| 5 | Europe | $3.8T | 4.4× | 689 | $67.9B | 75.5K |
| 6 | European Union | $2.3T | 4.4× | 410 | $37.3B | 48.5K |
| 7 | Nordics | $581B | 5.1× | 105 | $8.2B | 8,196 |
| 8 | South America | $502B | 11.3× | 69 | $4.7B | 8,638 |
| 9 | Oceania | $368B | 10.6× | 51 | $5.4B | 5,662 |
| 10 | Central Eastern Europe | $193B | 5.2× | 58 | $2.3B | 7,162 |
| 11 | MENA | $142B | 12.4× | 33 | $5.9B | 4,435 |
| 12 | Africa | $73.6B | 10.7× | 14 | $1.7B | 4,526 |
Premium analytics
What we don't show on this page (yet)
Sector breakdowns, founder origins, AI-talent leaderboards and live deal flow are gated to logged-in Dealroom users. Book a demo to access the full Africa dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.
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Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.