Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali, has been ranked at sixth position on new continental charts for leading cities in Africa.

The outlook, released in the latest StartupBlink survey, noted quantity (number of startups), quality (number of unicorns), and business as the major factors for the rank.

Kigali scored 1.21, trailing Cairo, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nairobi and Lagos in an increasing manner.

The development also comes at a time Rwanda aims to position itself as a regional tech and innovative hub.

2021, according to the report, was a year of tremendous growth for the start-up scene in Africa.

Start-ups in Africa raised over $4.3 billion through 818 $100k+ deals. This is equivalent to an average raise of $1m every 2 hours and more than two times the amount that had been raised in 2020. 

81 percent of the funding was raised in Nigeria alone.

Pre-Covid numbers in context

Many African ecosystems have shown strong growth patterns since 2019, despite the ongoing pandemic, according to the report.

For instance, in the big four, South Africa is the only market to show strong consistent growth over the period from less than $100 million in 2019 to nearly $1 billion in 2021.

Kenya had a particularly strong 2020, topping the table, but failed to continue at the same levels in 2021.

Nigeria showed a slump in 2020 but rebounded massively in 2021, driven by a few strong ‘mega deals’ while Egypt grew most in 2021.

Beyond the Big Four, however, the report noted a few countries including Tanzania, Cameroon and Tunisia that have grown consistently.

Much as Rwanda had no robust activity in 2019; the report indicated that it had displayed strong growth levels between 2020 and 2021.

Meanwhile, Uganda and Ghana are yet to recover from setbacks registered in 2020.