It's raining big deals 🌂

H1 2025 saw the largest number of both $10m+ deals and exits since 2022

Last week we looked at high-level numbers and trends for H1 2025 - remember, $1.4b in total -, and this week we will dig a little bit deeper and focus specifically on the number of deals, investors, and exits (briefly). So, let’s go:

In the first half of the year, 238 start-ups raised at least $100k in Africa. This is a good number overall, roughly on par with what we have been seeing since mid-2023. If we were nitpicking, we’d say it’s slightly below the H1 2024 and H2 2024 numbers. If we zoom in, we find that out of those, 108 have raised at least $1m. That’s again on par with the numbers since early 2023, though slightly above average. Where things get much more exciting though, is when we zoom further and notice that 39 start-ups raised $10m+ in H1. And that’s impressive, because we had not seen such levels of large deal activity since the end of the heatwave in mid-2022 (the average over the last five periods was ‘only’ about 26 every half-year.)! Look at this:

The majority of these larger deals were in the Big Four, as expected, but there were also some happening in Cote d’Ivoire (Djamo), in Ghana (Zeepay), in Senegal (Wave, Kera Health) in Togo (Gozem), and in Uganda (Furaha)

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We interrupt this broadcast to remind you that our next Linkedin Live is scheduled for July 22nd. Join us - and the 550 people who have already registered - as we bring the H1 2025 data to life... Don’t miss out!

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We have also identified 21 exits in total in H1 2025. Information remains patchy about those unfortunately, and the volumes and available data are not sufficient to run any meaningful analysis. That said, here’s an interesting data point for you: in the first half of 2025, we have listed roughly as many exits as in 2023 and 2024 throughout the whole year (20 and 22 respectively), a serious surge in activity. There were six announced in June alone, a level we had not witnessed since 2022.

Finally when it comes to those signing the checks, we have identified 330+ investors who have participated in at least one $100k+ deal on the continent in H1 2025, and this number is likely underestimated as only the largest investors tend to be mentioned in deal announcements. This is slightly better than in H1 2024 (300+) but behind H1 2023 levels (400+), let alone H1 2022 (700+). The most active so far have been DEG (the German DFI, part of KfW group) through the financing and implementation of BMZ’s develoPPP grant programme - and Digital Africa, a subsidiary of French DFI Proparco. The top ten includes a lot of familiar names such as Launch Africa*, Renew Capital, BII - the UK’s DFI - and Partech Africa, as well as a new player: Investing in Innovation (i3).

I know, I know, we still need to cover the sectorial and geographical analyses, but it is coming soon, don’t worry. Coming soon… just like our July 22nd Linkedin Live. OK, I know you know by now. Just like you know that if you click here, you will get access to our database with a little discount… Hasta pronto. Max

* Full disclosure: Africa: The Big Deal’s co-founders are LPs in Launch Africa.