Lagos, Nairobi, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Cairo… they all have legitimate claims to being Africa’s “startup capital”.
But according to RS Components, a distributor of electronic, electrical and mechanical components, which recently analysed a series of metrics to reveal the startup capitals of Africa, the continent’s two main startup hubs are actually in Mauritius.
Port Louis ranked first with an overall score of 85.4, with Plaines Wilhems second with 85.2. These scores were far ahead of the nearest competitors, with Nairobi third on 70 points, Johannesburg fourth on 67.2, Cape Town fifth on 63.4, and Lagos sixth on 62.7.
Cairo was seventh with 61.7 points, Giza eighth with 60.2, Tunis ninth with 59.9, and Accra 10th with 57 points.
To come up with the scores and the resulting ranking, RS Components looked at the number of companies, the percentage of companies with VC funding, the number of companies per investor, and the average time to start a business, amongst other metrics.
Once all metrics were sourced, they were assigned a score based on how valuable they were considered to be, with this valuation used to form a score for each metric for every city. These scores were added together to create an overall score, which is what each city was ranked by.
Port Louis and Plaines Wilhelms in Mauritius taking the number one and two spots is certainly a surprise, which RS Components itself admits. Yet it defended the ranking.
“In comparison to the population of the two cities, the number of companies and investors is reasonably high, with the island nation having set out to become a hub for global investors,” the company said.
The rest of the list is available here.
