In the developed world, startups serve as the backbone of their economies. The amount of funding directed towards these startups is ginormous and is led by private investments.

Global startup ecosystem. (Source world of statistics)

Total unicorns:

 USA: 644
 China: 302
 India: 111
 UK: 46
 Germany: 29
 Other: 73

Total fundings in last 4 years:

 USA: $930 billion
 China: $259 billion
 UK: $106 billion
 India: $103 billion
 Germany: $48 billion

Contrastingly, the startup ecosystem in #Africa is thin, and only a few countries are making slight progress in attracting private investment for their startups.

In my opinion, the main reasons why unicorns and even promising startups are not emerging prolifically in Africa are:

- A limited number of visionary founders. In other words, those with new business ideas lack the financial resources and courage to pursue them. Conversely, those with money lack innovative business ideas and long-term vision. As a result, they invest in safe bets for short-term returns.

- Poor business-enabling environment and policies that make conducting business difficult. These are the primary disincentives.

- Business incubators are predominantly donor-driven rather than market/private sector-driven. This has led to a significant dependency, where founders focus on keeping their startups afloat for immediate needs rather than focusing on growth.

- Access to finance for startups is extremely limited, and even where available, the amounts are minimal, with high borrowing costs.

- The startup ecosystems are unstructured and fragmented, resulting in minimal inflow of venture capital and private equity funding in Africa.
For Africa to become an economic powerhouse and generate millions of jobs, it is imperative to address the above constraints and provide support for the development of startup ecosystems in every African country.