African tech has a serious gender problem when it comes to women within leadership positions at startups, yet there has been tangible progress on this front since 2023.
That is according to the third edition of “Diversity Dividend: Exploring Gender Equality in the African Tech Ecosystem”, the regular deep-dive into the state of gender diversity in the African startup and VC ecosystems released by Disrupt Africa in partnership with Madica, Thinkroom and Jumpstarter Crowdfunding.
The report contains both quantitative and qualitative data – quantifying female founders in the ecosystem, as well as their access to funding and opportunities, and speaking to them – and investors – directly about their experiences within the ecosystem. It also features personalised case studies, and is free to download here.
The 2026 edition finds slow but steady progress has been made in terms of gender diversity over the last few years. Back in 2023, when Disrupt Africa released the first version of the report, only 350 (14.6%) of the 2,395 startups tracked had at least one female co-founder, and just 230 (9.6%) were led by a female CEO. That improved marginally in 2024, when 483 (17.3%) of the 2,786 startups had a female co-founder and 310 (11.1%) a woman CEO.
This edition, with the benefit of a further two years, analysed more startups than ever before, and found gender diversity to have reached unprecedented heights. Of the 3,331 startups tracked for the purposes of this publication, 641 (19.2%) had at least one woman on their
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