­ ­ ­ ­
Start-Ups | February 1, 2022

2021 in Review: Building a Pan-African Startup Support Platform

Over the past 11+ years, we have provided in-depth support to startups across the continent; supporting them to build globally sustainable companies creating positive impact. In 2019, we streamlined our support into 4 key focus pillars that, based on experience, we believe are essential to the success of every startup. They are Product, Talent, Distribution, and Funding. 

These pillars have formed the foundation of our startup support efforts ever since and year-on-year, we have continued to deepen our capacity and expand our resources to adequately support African startups across these pillars.

As we establish our plans for the year and press on to the tasks ahead, we take stock of what we accomplished in 2021. Here’s how we closed out the year across our incubation, acceleration, and investment efforts: 

Highlights

  • We executed 16 programs through which we supported 175 startups across various stages of growth- Ideation 12%, Early 65.7% and Growth Stage 22.3%. Some of these programs include: Google Black Founders Fund Africa, $1.5m AYuTe Africa Challenge by Heifer International, Women in Business programme by CcHUB, Africa4Future by Airbus and GIZ and the SSA cohort of the community Accelerator by Meta amongst others. Powered by the African Development Bank (AfDB), we also launched an incubation Centre of Excellence at two pan-African research universities – one at PAUSTI which is situated at the Jomo Kenyatta University in Nairobi and the other at PAULESI, which is located at the University of Ibadan in Ibadan.
  • Across the different programs, we disbursed over $5.89 million USD to startups. This amount includes funds managed and disbursed on behalf of partners, as well as CcHUB’s direct investment in companies through the CcHUB Syndicate – an investment vehicle empowering investor all over the world to co-invest in the most innovative companies across Sub-Saharan Africa alongside CcHUB. The Syndicate invested in 11 companies led by amazing founders, of which 45% are female-led, aligning with our ethos to support gender balance in the companies we invest in 
  • We supported startups across multiple verticals including Healthcare, Agriculture, Sustainability and Clean Tech, Consumer and Lifestyle, Media, Education, Data and Business intelligence and more. 
  • Thus far, startups we supported in 2021 have raised over $25.4 million USD in external funding and created 1460+ jobs directly and indirectly with a 35% female representation.
  • One of the 4 key pillars of our support structure is Distribution. Our work here involves connecting startups we support with key partners that can help unlock distribution for their products/services. In 2021, we connected startups supported with 35 strategic partners to accelerate their growth. We also encourage and facilitate intra-program partnerships between startups in our programs and portfolio.
  • Lastly, as a Pan-African innovation center, we are proud to have supported startups across 17 African countries with representation in all four regions on the continent.   

2021 was indeed an exciting year for us and we look forward to an even more exciting 2022. This year will see us deepen our work in the Eastern and Western regions as well as cover new territories in the Southern African region starting with our Seedr Program in Namibia.

We are grateful to all of our 2021 partners who partnered with us and trusted us to deliver their vision of supporting the future of Africa – High growth African companies and the brilliant innovators and entrepreneurs that lead them.

To download the report, click here.

Media/Testimonials

Segun Olamide Samuel