Study: AI startups raise 151% more in North America but no premium in Africa
danielrock · x · 2026-11-13
A new paper by Abdoulaye Ndiaye (NYU Stern), Gilles Hacheme, Ebehi Iyoha, and Noureini Souleymane asks whether AI will narrow or widen income gaps between rich and poor countries. Using a novel dataset of 116,795 startups founded 2015-2022 across 172 countries, they find:
- AI startups everywhere show general-purpose tech traits: broader customer bases, more horizontal cross-industry products, and post-ChatGPT expansion of work scope and commercial staffing.
- Yet the financing premium is sharply localized: AI startups raise 151% more annual capital than non-AI peers in North America, 181% in the Middle East, 42% in East Asia, 16% in Europe — and no detectable premium in Africa, Latin America, or South Asia.
- In Africa, half of all AI funding goes to compute and data-center infrastructure; excluding those providers, African AI product startups raise 57% less than non-AI peers.
The authors warn AI may reach users worldwide without building firms worldwide.
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