July 2026: Just a trickle of equity
44 start-ups raised $102m last month, but barely any equity
44 start-ups announced funding rounds of $100k or more last month in Africa, raising a combined $102m (exc. exits). That makes July a low-value month, but not a low-activity one. Indeed, from a number of ventures raising perspective, this was almost exactly in line with the previous 12-month average. However, the amount raised was far weaker: at $102m, July came in 60% below the previous 12-month funding average of $258m/month. It was also the lowest monthly total since March 2025.
The real signal is in the funding mix. Out of July’s $102m, only $25m (25%) came through equity rounds. That is the lowest monthly equity total since April 2019. Debt, by contrast, accounted for $75m, or 74% of all funding raised during the month. The largest transactions explain most of it, as they were all debt: M-Kopa’s $30m FMO package, Bridgement’s $20m, BioLite’s $11m, and Nesa Power’s $9m. We also recorded three exits in July - Stakpak and Better Auth’s acquisition by US cloud platform Vercel, and Conservio, acquired by Dutch glampings.com, bringing the 2026 YTD exit count to 28, slightly ahead of the 27 recorded over the same period last year.
Zooming out, from January to July 2026, African start-ups raised $1.46b, below the same period in 2025 ($2b, -27% YoY). Equity funding stands at $921m, also lower than in 2025 (-9% YoY), while debt is at $529m, well below last year’s $941m at the same point (-44% YoY). More importantly, only 241 unique ventures have raised $100k+ so far this year, below Jan-July 2025 (302, -20% YoY), 2024 (286), and 2023 (300). We also listed 256+ unique named active investors this year so far, down from 328 at the same point last year (-22% YoY). In short, so far 2026 records double-digit YoY decline across almost all key indicators...
If you want to go beyond the headline chart and numbers, our database lets you pull the full July deal list, slice it by country, sector, stage and instrument, and benchmark against any month or rolling window since 2019. It also includes an ever-growing set of deals shared confidentially by selected investors, so you’re not just reading what made the news. If you don’t have access yet, grab it here with a discount. Ciao! Max