According to the Africa Investment Report by Briter Bridges

In disclosed funding rounds, African startups raised around $4.65 billion last year. As in the past few years, fintech start-ups received the bulk of the funding - 62% ($2.9bn), double the 31% recorded in 2020. They are followed by healthtech and biotech with 8%, as well as logistics (7%), education (5%) and cleantech (5%).

Africa's first two "unicorns" (start-ups valued at $1bn or more) were Jumia (in 2016) and fintech giant Interswitch (in 2019). When Jumia went public on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) in 2019, it stopped being a unicorn and became a billion-dollar public company. In 2021, five more unicorns emerged, four of them from fintech: Flutterwave, OPay, Wave and Chipper Cash, and one was outsourced to Andela.

The so-called "Big Four" (Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa and Kenya) continue to dominate the issue of attracting investment in start-ups. Nigeria alone, for example, accounts for $1.5bn of total funding in 2021. The Briter Bridges report also shows growing interest in Francophone Africa, apparently inspired by Senegal's 'unicorn' Wave.

The year 2021 saw the highest number of deals worth more than $100m, with a total of $1.9m in 2021. - 12, amounting to $1.9 billion of total funding.

With payments still being a challenge for businesses and individuals, and African countries becoming a global hub of Fintech innovation, it’s safe to say that Fintech seems to be shifting for a long period to Africa.