Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, is also one of the region’s fastest-growing hubs for venture funding. And while rounds rarely match the supergiant sizes we often see in U.S. and Europe, they’re steadily getting bigger.
Today was a case in point as Reliance Health, a Lagos- and Austin-based digital health care provider, announced a $40 million Series B funding round led by General Atlantic. The company began operations in Nigeria seven years go as a telemedicine startup and later expanded into a single-fee health care provider.
Reliance’s Series B was the largest venture round for a Nigerian startup so far this year, per Crunchbase data. It’s also the first African technology investment for General Atlantic, a New York-headquartered growth equity investor. Given that the firm has $86 billion under management, that’s a bullish sign that deep-pocketed investors are taking interest in the region.
Search less. Close more.
Grow your revenue with all-in-one prospecting solutions powered by the leader in private-company data.
In recent years, venture investment to Nigeria has mostly been trending upward. Using Crunchbase data, we looked at total reported seed and venture investment over the past four years:
2022 YTD: A total of $89 million has gone into about a dozen reported rounds.
2021: A record $1.2 billion went to over 2oo financings, topped by payments app OPay.
2020: Funding slowed some with $189 million in reported venture investment.
2019: Investors put $576 million to work, a majority going to two fintechs: Interswitch and OPay.
2018: Reported investment totaled $218 million, led by now-public online retailer Jumia.
Notably, sizable rounds to Nigeria-based companies tend to skew early-stage. That means there’s plenty of room for growth ahead—and even bigger nationwide annual funding totals—as the most successful early-stage players scale up their game.
Illustration: Li-Anne Dias
Stay up to date with recent funding rounds, acquisitions, and more with the Crunchbase Daily.
67.1K Followers