Kenya has once again led in the value of corporate deals in East Africa, a report has shown.

The report by the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCA) showed that one-third of the start-up funding in Africa went to East Africa in 2024.

“Out of the amount, 29 percent went to Kenya,” the report said.

The report said East Africa attracted the most funding for the second year in a row, being $725m (approximately Sh93.5 billion) in total.

This is one in three dollars raised in Africa. 

“Kenya alone $638m (Sh82.3 billion), made up 88 percent of the total raised in the region, and 29 percent of all money raised in the continent,” the report stated.

It added that large deals were made in the climate tech space, in particular d.light, SunCulture or Basigo, boosted the numbers.

Tanzania attracted $53 m (Sh6.8 billion) while Uganda had $19m (Sh2.5 billion).

According to the report, West Africa took the second place in the 2024 funding, after ranking fourth in 2023.

The region had $587m (Sh75.7 billion).

Nigeria attracted just over $400m (Sh51.6 billion) in funding last year, roughly the same amount as Egypt and South Africa.

The report stated that Western Africa was the most ‘balanced’ region, where the regional lead represented the smallest share of the total.

The funding in Northern Africa was $478m (Sh61.8 billion), with Egypt representing 84 percent of all the funding raised in the region last year. 

The report says Southern Africa had $397m (Sh51.3 billion).

“Only a handful of deals were recorded in Central Africa in 2024, for a total amount $5m (Sh646.3 million) more than 10x times lower than in 2023,” the report added. By SHARON MWENDE, The Star