Nigerian firms dominate Google's multi-million dollar start-up funding 2 years in a row

This year's list, which has 10 start-ups added to the programme from last year's cohort has 23 Nigerian firms among the 60 picked to share $4 million seed funding from Google.

This is the second phase of the programme for start-ups in Africa as Google seeks to fund African start-ups with seed capital.

In 2021, Nigerian start-ups constituted half of the eligible firms with 25 out of 50 selected to share $3 million.

For two years in a row, Nigerian start-ups have beat other tech start-ups from Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Botswana to dominate the Google black founders fund (BFF).

The start-ups that made it to the cohort are spread across various sectors including food, media, and travel, but the majority are in fintech, logistics, and healthcare.

While announcing the feat, Folarin Aiyegbusi, Google’s Head of Start-up Ecosystem, Sub Sahara Africa, revealed that the 60 start-ups for the 2022 cohort would also get non-dilutive awards of between $50,000 and $100,000 and up to $200,000 in Google Cloud credit.

The 2022 cohort is made up of 50 per cent women-led businesses, and are from Botswana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda..

12 start-ups made it from Kenya while Rwanda had 12 entries.

Others are South Africa with five start-ups, Uganda got four slots, Botswana and Senegal got one selected start-up each, Cameroon and Ghana both got three slots each while Ethiopia has two selected start-ups.