One 🙂 Billion 😀 Dollars 😁
Start-ups in Africa have now crossed this important milestone, earlier than they had in 2024
When we covered the May 2025 numbers last week, we did not make too much of a big deal about this, but a lot of you picked up on the fact that, Yes, start-ups in Africa have now raised more than $1 billion this year (exc. exits). Considering the importance of this milestone - and the level of enthusiasm it is generating -, we thought it deserved its own little post.
But wait, before we go any further, we want to make sure you’re the first to know that our next Linkedin Live - covering the 2025 mid-year review - is now scheduled for July 22. Don’t miss it: Mark your calendars NOW 😊
First off: Where/How have these $1b+ (technically, $1.06b) been invested?
Geographically, Egypt is in the top spot ($332m+, 31%), followed by South Africa ($273m+, 26%), Nigeria ($162m+, 15%) and Kenya ($132m+, 12%). In line with previous periods, 84% of the funding has therefore been going to the ‘Big Four’. We registered some level of activity (at least one $100k+ deal) in 20 markets.
From a sectorial point of view, fintech start-ups attracted almost half of the funding ($484m+, 46%), followed by heath tech ventures ($149m+, 14%) - boosted by hearX’s $100m in April -, and energy start-ups ($106m+, 10%).
Overall, 77% of the announced funding was raised as equity ($810m+) and 13% as debt. The rest was grants ($24m) and a bond ($50m), courtesy of Tasaheel - part of MNT-Halan - responsible for Egypt’s largest ever corporate bond issuance in May.
Now, the main question we heard was: “One billion by late May. Is that good?”. Well, if we compare to 2024, the definite answer is: Yes. Last year, it had taken start-ups on the continent until mid-July to get there. So 2025 is about seven weeks ahead of 2024. It is also comparable to 2021, though definitely not as impressive as 2023 and 2022 (remember: the $1b milestone was reached in just 7 weeks back then!)… We’re now hoping this means the ecosystem is on track to at least top the 2024 final numbers ($2.2b in total).
One last thing. If you follow start-up investments in Africa - and if you’re here, you probably do - you’ll know the name on everybody’s lips these days is Nigerian mobility start-up moove, which is rumoured to be raising $300m, on its way to unicorn status. It seems like it is now more a question of When moove will announce this round, rather than If.
Interestingly, I don’t know if you’ll remember, but when we compared African trends to global trends last month, I wrote (and I’ll leave you with that): “It could be tempting to think that to look at Africa’s future, you need to look at the world’s present… However, the encouraging bump you see at the end of the global line [in Q1 2025] is entirely attributable to Open AI’s $40-billion round announced at the end of March. Which means one of Africa’s unicorns or soonicorns would need to be announcing a $400m round in Q3 to see the same effect on the African curve. That’s not impossible, and we’d love to see it.”…
Voilà. That’s it for today. If you’re not a subscriber to our database yet, and if you need access to all the underlying start-up funding data we use for this newsletter, make sure you use this link to claim your reader’s discount. And we’ll see you all on July 22nd, right? Max
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"That’s not impossible, and we’d love to see it."
This is so encouraging.
This is an interesting story to read from different standpoints.
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This is half of the year, though, but coming this far in a year where a good number of players were interested to see as we enter the half of the decade.
Fast forward to when the whole story and the global theme changed to “uncertainty.” When what we're certain about became hope. And you know the implications for a market like Africa and its startup ecosystem.
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Coming this far is optimistic.