2025 IN REVIEW - Mapping the money 🗺️

The Big Four dominate once again. Nigeria continues to slip...

Jan 13, 2026

If you haven’t already read and/or watched the first part of our 2025 IN REVIEW series, you can find it here. And you will find a video version of this post if you scroll down.

One of the first questions we get asked when we start talking about start-up funding in Africa is always: ‘Which countries are coming on top?’ And since 2019 the short answer hasn’t changed: ‘The Big Four’…
Once again in 2025, the Big Four have attracted the majority (82%) of all start-up funding on the continent. (As a reminder, the Big Four - Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa - represent a combined ~30% of Africa’s population and ~40% of its nominal GDP). Nothing new here then: this proportion has been pretty constant since 2019, oscillating between 80% and 86%. The Big Four’s share in 2025 is also exactly the same whether we look specifically at equity or debt (82%). Because the Big Four concentrate a lot of the larger deals, the picture is quite different if we look at the number of individual ventures raising money in 2025 though. Overall, 64% were located in one of these four markets. But while 81% of the start-ups raising $10m or more were HQ’ed in the Big Four, the share falls to 69% if we look at those raising between $1m and $10m, and to 56% for those raising between $100k and $1m. There is life beyond the Big Four; but we’ll come back to that in a moment.

First, let’s zoom in on each of the Big Four individually,
Kenya topped the charts in terms of funding raised, almost hitting the $1b mark. This is the most funding an individual market has attracted in a single year since 2022. In fact, it represented almost a third of the total raised on the continent in 2025. Funding in the country grew +52% YoY overall. Debt ($582m, +33% YoY) represented 60% of the total raised, and the amount of equity raised ($383m) almost doubled YoY. Most of the performance was driven by large energy players (d.light, Sun King, M-Kopa (though arguably now a fintech), Burn and PowerGen). 75 ventures raised $100k or more in Kenya in 2025 (#3), a -23% YoY drop (the worst performance on this metric in the Big Four).
Egypt came second with $614m raised, 20% of the total. Funding in the country grew at a similar rate as Kenya: +51% YoY. Roughly half of the amount raised was equity, and the rest debt. Egypt was also the second-largest market in terms of debt funding ($278m, 24% of Africa’s total). 61 start-ups raised $100k or more in the country last year (#4).
South Africa ranked third as funding in the country also grew +51% YoY to reach $600m, 19% of the total raised on the continent. Over 90% of the funding was raised as equity ($545m) though, making it the biggest market in terms of equity funding (29% of Africa’s total) by quite a margin. We did a deep-dive on South Africa a few weeks ago you might find interesting. The number of ventures raising at least $100k jumped significantly YoY (83, +63% YoY), placing the country at #2 (vs #4 in 2024).
Nigeria ($343m) underperformed in 2025 and was the only one of the Big Four to see a drop in funding raised compared to 2024 (-17% YoY) and a decrease of its share of total funding raised on the continent (from 19% in 2024 to 11% in 2025). This is the lowest share we’ve ever recorded for Nigeria since we started tracking the numbers back in 2019. In fact, no Big Four market dipped so low in terms of its share of overall funding since 2020. Equity - which represented 83% of the total raised in the country - dropped -22% YoY. However, Nigeria continued to lead in terms of number of ventures raising $100k or more in 2025 (86), despite a -14% YoY decrease.
What is happening beyond the Big Four, you may ask? Two other markets registered over $100m in funding raised in 2025: Senegal (#5, $157m) climbed up from the #10 spot in 2024, mostly thanks to Wave’s $137m debt round. In Benin (#6, $100m), almost all the funding came from Spiro’s $100m round, just like in 2024. There is a healthy group of countries where start-ups raised between $10m and $100m in Northern - Morocco (#7, $58m) & Tunisia (#9, $37m) -, Western - Ghana (#8, $56m), Togo (#10, $31m), CIV (#11, $28m) & Mali (#14, $18m) -, and Eastern Africa - Rwanda (#12, $25m) & Uganda (#13, $22m). An additional 8 markets attracted between $1m and $10m in funding, and another 6 saw some minimal deal activity. In 26 country though, we were not able to identify any deal above $100k. In number of ventures raising at least $100k however, the ranking is quite different though, with Ghana (#5), Morocco (#6), Tunisia (#7), Tanzania (#8), Rwanda (#9) and Uganda (#10) making up the top 10.
Finally, at a regional level, Eastern Africa was in the lead in 2025 when it comes to the total funding raised (34%), followed by Western (24%), Northern (23%), Southern (19%) and Central Africa (0.1%). This split is very similar to what we’d seen in 2024, with the exception of a slight slip of Western Africa (from 27% to 24%) as other markets in the region did well, but couldn’t quite compensate Nigeria’s YoY drop. Over a longer period of time, things have evolved quite dramatically: back in 2021, Western Africa was clearly dominating (48%), with the other regions at quite a distance: 23% for Southern Africa, 14% for Northern Africa and for Eastern Africa (now the leading region in terms of funding). When it comes to the number of ventures raising at least $100k, Western Africa (29%) was actually in the lead in 2025, followed by Eastern (27%), Northern (23%), Southern (18%) and Central Africa (2%).

As mentioned above, you will find below 👇 a video version of this post, with many more graphs. And if you need access to the full underlying data, as you’re probably aware by now, all you need to do is subscribe to our database, available here at a discount. And see you soon for more analysis: equity vs. debt, sector view, gender lens, world comparison… they’ll all hit your mailboxes eventually. Bye! Max

Vital yet At Risk: How to build resilience in Pre-Seed financing in Africa

[Guest blog] Grégoire de Padirac of Digital Africa - the most active investor in Africa in number of deals in 2025 - advocates for a renewed focus on pre-seed on the continent...

Gregoire de Padirac

Jan 12, 2026

Pre-seed financing remains the backbone of African innovation, yet it is often overshadowed by the news of mega funding rounds. As a startup’s first capital raise, it typically finances incomplete teams and rudimentary prototypes, precisely where capital is scarcest. In other regions, founders often bridge this phase through personal savings and “love money” (Friends, Family and Fools). In Africa, however, such resources are far more limited.
Economic history shows that no major technology ecosystem - African ecosystems included - has emerged without substantial initial public investment. In the United States, DARPA and the SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) program, which injects over $2.5 billion annually, paved the way for the internet and modern venture capital. In France, Bpifrance’s Fonds National d’Amorçage (FNA) demonstrated a striking leverage effect: €1 of public investment mobilizes up to €18 of private capital.
These precedents have directly inspired fund-of-funds initiatives in Tunisia (Anava) and Morocco (Mohammed VI Investment Fund), as well as direct investment vehicles such as Egypt Ventures and Senegal’s DER/FJ. Yet across the continent, these initiatives remain rare and modest in scale.
Business angels and family offices also play a critical role. Their impact, however, becomes truly decisive only once ecosystems mature, when exits occur and successful entrepreneurs reinvest as angel investors. This virtuous cycle requires sustained and sizable investment flows, as illustrated by the trajectory of Karim Beguir and InstaDeep in North Africa.
Most African states struggle to play this catalytic role. Private pioneers and international donors have partially bridged the gap, feeding the pipeline toward Series A and B rounds. Today, however, this vital link is dangerously weakening.

A contracting, subsidy-dependent market

Recent data from the Africa The Big Deal database reveals worrying stagnation. Pre-seed remains marginal, capturing only 1.5% of total capital invested on the continent, compared to 4–6% in the United States.
Volume. In 2025, 281 startups closed pre-seed rounds totaling $46.5 million. This figure is virtually unchanged from 2024, even as the rest of the African venture capital market grew by 40%.
From a methodological standpoint, investments ranging from $100k to $500k were classified as pre-seed investments, reflecting typical cheque sizes at this stage in Africa. Of the 281 investments identified, 53% were first-time investments, while the remainder were follow-on rounds executed at very early stages of maturity.
Players. The number of active pre-seed investors is declining sharply: 135 in 2025, down from 155 in 2024 and 200 in 2022. Investment velocity has also slowed significantly, averaging 3.6 deals per investor per year, compared to 5.9 in 2022.
Concentration. Investments remain heavily concentrated in the “Big 4” (Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt), which together capture nearly 60% of total pre-seed flows.

Sectoral distribution in 2025 shows a modest concentration in Fintech and Agriculture & Food, which together account for a significant share of pre-seed deal flow. This mirrors both the structural importance of financial inclusion and the outsized role of impact funds across African economies. Healthcare, Logistics & Transport, and Energy & Water also attract substantial pre-seed activity, reflecting growing interest in essential services and infrastructure-adjacent solutions. By contrast, sectors such as Deeptech, Waste Management, and Housing remain underrepresented, underscoring their higher perceived risk, longer time horizons, and greater capital intensity.

More concerning still is the deterioration of the financing structure itself. Dependence on grants is increasing: in 2025, grants account for 42% of pre-seed financing in value, up from 20% in 2021. In key markets such as Kenya and Tanzania, grants represent 50% and 74% of total pre-seed funding respectively. While grants are useful for R&D and impact externalities, they rarely create the market discipline required for a sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem. Their growing weight also skews deal flow toward impact-first models, often at the expense of economic viability.

The withdrawal of historic players and the European response

Between 2019 and 2025, the withdrawal of historic players such as Techstars, Y Combinator, and the Google Black Founders Fund - combined with the repositioning of Loftyinc and Launch Africa - reduced private pre-seed investment capacity by more than 60%. In response, European public actors stepped in to fill the vacuum, most notably Germany through its matching funding program with DEG/GIZ, the United Kingdom through PREO, and France through AFD/Digital Africa.

France has structured a targeted response centered on direct equity investment. A clear division of labor has emerged. Proparco, through Choose Africa VC, focuses on fund investments and larger, more mature tickets. Its subsidiary, Digital Africa, operates micro direct investments starting at the pre-seed stage - ranging from €20k to €100k through its Fuzé initiative - explicitly targeting the market failure abandoned by private investors. In 2025 alone, with 28 investments, Digital Africa accounted for 35% of equity investments beyond the Big 4 by deal count (40% in Francophone Africa), while deploying just 2% of total equity tech funding in that region.
With only $46 million deployed at the pre-seed stage for a tech ecosystem valued at $3.2 billion, Africa must urgently structure and reinforce this critical segment.

Public capital is necessary… but must be rigorously managed

If public funding is essential, its governance must be equally disciplined. Three golden rules should guide pre-seed programmes in Africa.
Private-sector management. Deployment should be delegated to private actors, or to entities operating under similar modalities: pursuit of financial returns, performance-based incentives for fund managers, strict discipline over operating costs, and above all operational agility. Public bureaucracies, by nature risk-averse, are incompatible with the speed and flexibility required at the pre-seed stage.
Profit-driven incentives. Investment decisions must prioritize return potential. Supporting companies capable of generating returns not only creates sustainable jobs and wealth but, critically, helps build a functioning venture capital market. The primary ecosystem-level objective is the emergence of success stories that trigger a virtuous cycle. Long-term social and environmental outcomes will be stronger when companies are anchored in robust, market-driven ecosystems. From the first cheque onward, each investment should therefore rest on a clear conviction regarding the project’s potential for success, independent of any predefined impact agenda.
Strategic patience. States must explicitly accept long time horizons. Venture capital is a long-term endeavour, and measurable outcomes—financial returns or large-scale job creation—may take five to seven years to materialize. In Africa, the pre-seed stage in particular requires patient capital structures, such as evergreen funds, exemplified by Digital Africa’s Fuzé fund.

A sector at a crossroads

African pre-seed equity investment stands at a crossroads, trapped in a blind spot: too small for state-level policies focused on large-scale projects, too risky for private investors, and somewhat anomalous within the international development landscape given its business-driven, non-traditional approach.
The segment must scale both in volume and in durability. To build a robust ecosystem, at least 3% of total financing should flow to pre-seed. Based on a projected $4 billion raised in 2026, this would require deploying roughly $120 million annually across 800 startups. The gap is immense. Bridging it will require a hybrid architecture: catalytic public capital (first loss, evergreen, patient) to prime the pump, intermediated by specialized funds, managed with private-sector discipline, and explicitly designed to support startups toward stages attractive to private investors.
This is the necessary price if entrepreneurship is to meaningfully address the continent’s most vital challenges.
Grégoire