Learning Brief: Scaling in the African Climate Tech Innovation Landscape
With 16 of the 20 countries most vulnerable to climate change situated on the continent, the climate tech industry is growing rapidly throughout Africa, and we see data as an essential tool to better inform impact-driven investment opportunities.
Inside the Report
The report identifies key trends in the early-stage climate technology investment landscape in Africa, with a focused look at both the impact and commercial viability in specific sectors, namely: logistics, circular economy, and marketplaces.
A short summary of the reports findings reveal:
Logistics:
- In order to best facilitate inclusive growth, technological tools that enable transparent and convenient logistics transactions are key.
- There is growth in the logistics vertical as companies are seeing and capitalising on new scaling and service diversification opportunities across transport, storage and shipping for example.
- In the logistics vertical, the most funded enterprises to date are providing B2B services.
Circular economy:
- Work is needed to prove that the businesses in the circular economy vertical are able to sufficiently scale with economically viable models.
- To create more value and ensure business sustainability, the most promising circular economy startups are developing and building partnerships with corporations and governments.
Marketplace:
- In the climate-relevant marketplace vertical, B2B agriculture dominates. The strongest of these companies have diverse consumer bases including product aggregators.
- There is significant potential in the development of climate-focused marketplace products (for example, carbon credits and nature-based offsets), with supply-side traceability key as this industry grows.
This report identifies important areas in Africa’s growing climate tech industry which can be targeted by impact investors seeking positive commercial return. It also provides an outline of where the majority of the funding is being concentrated by geographic region and which companies in particular are successfully raising funding across the continent.
Timame Wanyoike, Katapult’s Partnership and Ecosystem Manager for Africa, was clear about the report’s intention and value:
“We wanted to take some time to find deeper insights on what was shaping the climate investment space in Africa and share more informed insights with the growing climate investment ecosystem. While we only look in depth at 3 areas, we wanted to use this opportunity to share this with the wider ecosystem and see what other insights and feedback would come up”
Danny Smith, Katapult’s Regional Director for Africa, added:
“Katapult Africa has the privilege to work with some amazing entrepreneurs developing innovative solutions to Africa’s climate challenges. This report – developed in collaboration with our partners at Briter Bridges and enabled through funding from UKAid and the RISA fund – synthesises some key market findings, and we hope will be of interest and use to a range of co-investors, ecosystem players and impact entrepreneurs”.
Collaborators:
This report was produced in collaboration with Briter Bridges and with support from the UKAID funded RISA Fund. Thank you to all of our collaborators: Briter Bridges, UKAID and RISA, and contributors Fair Carbon, Inspirafarms Cooling, Kenya Climate Innovation Center, and Ole Blu.
