Kenyan women in tech have continued to trailblaze the way for their African counterparts according to a report by Disrupt Africa.
A report by the tech outlet titled 'the Kenyan Startup Ecosystem Report' indicated that Kenyan tech startups are the most gender inclusive with women forming part of the founding teams behind 55 companies.
With the figure, Kenya beat other tech start-up powerhouses including Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa, in terms of female representation.
“ 55 - 17.9 percent of Kenyan tech startups have at least one woman on their founding team, making the country more diverse than the "big four" ecosystems of Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa,” read the report in part.
Continent-wide, the report also showed that the Recruitment and Human Resources sector recorded the highest number of women led start-ups totaling to 10.
The report further stated that female CEOs founded companies majorly in the recruitment and HR space, which made up to 6.2% of Kenyan startups based in Nairobi.
"Perhaps the most notable statistic about this segment is the high prevalence of female founders at eight companies, 42.1 percent, which is significantly higher than the Kenyan ecosystem average," stated the report.
The report additionally states that there are also more female founders in the e-commerce and retail-tech space, with six startups headed up by female founders (20.7%).
The volumes and prices however are still far lower than what male founders have raised in the vibrant startup environment on the continent.
"With over 80 percent of ventures solely male-founded, there is clearly work to be done to ensure more women become leaders within the country’s startup landscape," the report read in part.
A previous report by Africa: The Big Deal noted that in 2021, the share of investments going to female-owned tech startups was around 6.5%, which meant that only Ksh120 out of every Ksh2,000 raised in the African start-up ecosystem went to female-owned tech companies.
According to the report, some factors making it difficult for female founders to attract investments include investor biases and beliefs that women-led ventures are a riskier bet, as well as fewer women getting involved in the incubation programs.
Chief Executive Officer of the Association of Startups and SME Enablers of Kenya (ASSEK) Mercy Kimalat affirmed the statement stating, “Women founders are more often than not drawn to sectors such as health tech, edtech, and sustainable technology, which do not always receive large amounts of investment.”
Kimlat added that finding female founders who join acceleration programs is often difficult because they are more concerned with job security.
She explained that STEM programs, which have the largest amount of funding, have low female enrollment.
“Most of these female-owned startups are concentrated in non-fintech sectors, which partly explains why they are attracting less funding,” Kimlat added.
Another report named ‘In search of Equity; Exploring Africa’s Gender Cap in Start-up Finance’ noted that Female-led start-ups are also less likely to be pitched for equity financing due to their lack of confidence in their ability to pitch investors on their ventures' growth prospects.
Instead, the majority of them take various financing routes, with a preference for bank loans and retained earnings.
"This disparity exists despite the fact that women entrepreneurs in the sample were more educated, had the same amount of professional experience as male founders, and experienced comparable revenue changes in the previous year," the report noted.
The Disrupt Africa Report however noted that the newer generation of startups were more likely to be female-founded.
“Though the newer generation of startups are more likely to be female-founded, and a handful of venture capital firms are especially focused on backing female entrepreneurs, with over 80 percent of ventures solely male-founded, there is clearly work to be done to ensure more women become leaders within the country’s startup landscape” the report stated.
2022 CNN Hero of the year Nelly Cheboi is an example of a Kenyan tech startup CEO. Cheboi co-founded Technologically Literate Africa (TechLit Africa) a company that uses recycled computers to create tech labs in schools, serving it as CEO.
