July 23, 2021Africa
African Fintech startups are diversifying to scale up
Increasingly, African Fintech startups are moving from focusing on niche areas such as payment, lending insurance, and investment, to offering a wide range of complementary services.
Almost 25% of the Fintech startups tracked this year are operating in multiple categories. This is up from 15% in 2019 and 8% in 2017. The report is based on data from 576 Fintech startups in Africa.
The diversification trend is most common in Nigeria, where 27% of Fintech startups are multi-category, such as Flutterwave, Kuda, Cowrywise, and OneFi. This is followed by South Africa at 22% and Kenya at 21%. The Covid-19 pandemic has also contributed to the trend with investors more willing to fund the expansion of activities of existing fintech startups as compared to funding new entrants.
The most popular combinations include payment, remittance, and business admin platforms; payment, lending, and financing companies; and investtech and personal finance platforms.
