As of November 2022, Kenyan fintech accounted for 30.2% or 93 of the 308 tech startups tracked, Disrupt Africa research recently revealed The study also found that Kenyan fintechs are the most popular tech startups in the country. In addition, the study found that of the 11,462 people employed by tech startups during the same period, the fintech subsector alone accounted for 3,100, or 27%.
Fintech solves a fundamental problem
According to a survey of Kenyan startups, fintech ventures alone accounted for 93 of the 308 startups tracked, or just over 30%. This figure is almost triple that of the closest challengers, agri-tech and e-health, which accounted for 10.1% of Kenyan tech startups tracked between January and November 2022.
However, fintech dominance is not uncommon, as explained in a Disrupt Africa research report on the Kenyan startup ecosystem.
“Fintech occupies the top spot in most African countries because it is an area that solves fundamental problems for the populace, where novel technological solutions tend to be well received and quickly adopted, and offers attractive returns to investors,” the report states.
Remittances and lending are the more popular categories
Fintech accounts for the largest share of technology startups and employs more workers (3,100) than any other subsector. Only agri-tech and e-commerce employ more than 1,000 workers in the other technology subsectors.
Meanwhile, a breakdown of fintech focus areas shows that the areas of remittances (24%) and loans and finance (21%) seem to be the more popular categories. According to the report, one reason for this is that “these areas cover many of the most basic financial services that are still lacking for much of the population.” The report adds that these categories have become “a jumping-off point for the continent-wide fintech ecosystem.”
With regard to tech startups’ use of blockchain, 12 of the 30 ventures using blockchain were found to be fintechs; e-health (6) and agritech (5) ranked second and third, respectively.
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