Start-ups in Africa raise $1.4b in H1 💰
Another strong month in June helped drive the numbers up and up
As you might have guessed from the title of this post, start-ups in Africa have indeed raised more than $1.4b in H1 2025 through $100k+ deals (excluding exits). We’ll look into the numbers in much more detail throughout the month - and in particular during our Linkedin Live on July 22nd…
Wait, What?! You didn’t know our infamous live Round-Up is coming back on July 22nd to unpack all the latest data and trends from a very successful H1? Don’t miss it and join the 500+ experts who have already signed up here.
… - but we didn’t want to miss a chance to celebrate this great result.
Start-ups in Africa closed $365m in funding in June. This has been the strongest monthly performance this year so far, and the best month in almost a year. But it wouldn’t be right to think the H1 numbers are solely driven by the successful June results. Indeed, the monthly tally has crossed the $250m bar four times this year so far, making the (very) disappointing March results feel like a distant blip. The monthly average funding stands at $237m in H1 (vs. $187m in 2024, and $133m in H1 2024 specifically).
As a result, the H1 performance is very solid, and marks a significant improvement (+78%) compared to H1 2024 when ‘only’ $800m had been raised. H1 2025 is also on par with H2 2024 ($1.4b), with just a minor -1.5% decrease HoH. And the trends look pretty similar if we look specifically at equity or debt. On the equity front, $950m were raised in H1 2025, significantly more than in H1 2024 (+79%) but slightly less than in H2 2024 (-7%). While the debt numbers didn’t look too good until end of May ($177m, vs. $255m in the same period last year), June was pretty impressive with $227m of debt funding announced - we hadn’t seen a monthly number that high for more than two years -, including $137m for Wave alone. As a result, H1 closed with $400m raised in debt, +55% compared to H1 2024, and pretty much exactly what had been raised in H2 2024 (-1%)…
But which countries claimed most of that money? And is there a sector doing better than the rest? And how does that compare to global trends? Well, with a little patience, you’ll soon get all the answers through our upcoming posts, and in our July 22nd Linkedin Live. If you’re so excited you can’t wait, there is always the option to purchase the underlying data and run your own analysis. You can do that here, with a discount of course. So long! Max
Interesting article