T he term “unicorn” was coined in a 2013 Techcrunch article by Aileen Lee, founder and managing partner of Palo Alto’s Cowboy Ventures. She

The complete list of African unicorns today

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2023-02-07 15:00:19

T he term “unicorn” was coined in a 2013 Techcrunch article by Aileen Lee, founder and managing partner of Palo Alto’s Cowboy Ventures. She used it to describe American software companies that were less than 10 years old and valued at $1 billion or more by private investors or public markets.

Today, it’s widely accepted by the global VC & tech community that a ‘unicorn’ is a privately-held (i.e., not public) tech startup worth $1 billion or more on paper, irrespective of its founding date, sector of operations, and regional focus.

And according to that definition, there are currently seven unicorns in the African tech ecosystem, with the newest — Egypt’s MNT-Halan — being minted just last week.

The company today offers a variety of digital payment & commerce solutions including online payment gateways, interbank transaction switching and third-party card processing, card acquiring & issuance via domestic card scheme Verve, identity management and digital payment infrastructure for state governments, point-of-sale solutions, and more.

While Interswitch’s IPO plans were first made public in 2016 and new media reports bubbled up in 2019, those plans haven’t yet come to fruition and the company remains privately held.