I know we keep coming back to this topic, but it is because itâs the one that determines the ecosystemâs future outcomes. On the surface, start-up funding in Africa is doing pretty well: in the 12 months to March 2026 (Apr 2025âMar 2026), start-ups in Africa raised $3.3b (exc. exits), including $1.8b in equity and $1.4b in debt, still very much within the pattern we described recently (if anything, towards the top end). But it is increasingly a top-of-the-market story.
Indeed, the long tail is a cause for concern: fewer small equity deals are being signed, and those are the deals that create the next cohort of companies that can raise larger rounds later. Itâs not a crash, but a continued erosion. One simple proxy is the share of equity deals that are âsmallâ in the total number of equity rounds announced. In 2021, 40% of disclosed equity deals were in the $100k-$250k range, and 53% in the $100k-$500k range. By 2025, those shares had fallen to 29% and 45% respectively. And while 2026 YTD is still a small sample, the numbers are quite dramatic with only 21% of equity deals in the $100k-$250k range and 31% $100k-$500k. Over the past 12 months, only 129 ventures raised $100kâ$500k in equity. A year earlier, it was 148. Under this definition, 129 is the lowest rolling count since we started tracking this metric in 2021.
This reality hides in plain sight because small deals barely move the headline numbers. While making up 45% of the equity deal count in 2025 (164 of 363), $100k-$500k deals represented only ~2% of equity funding ($40m out of $1.9b). So you can lose a lot of early-stage activity while totals stay unaffected, especially if a handful of larger equity rounds (and more debt) keep coming through.
Two important nuances though. First, this is not uniquely African. It maps to what is being observed globally: more money (much more money in the case of AI and the US specifically) concentrated into fewer companies, with deal counts looking down. Second, grants are still doing the work. While theyâre sometimes looked down on as an âinstrumentâ, they are particularly important when the market isnât taking the early-stage risk. In our database, 2025 has the largest number of annual $100k+ grants weâve tracked since 2021 (160 disclosed grants to 154 ventures). However, 2026 so far is running far below last yearâs pace: in Q1 2026, we tracked only 15 disclosed $100k+ grants totalling about $4m (versus 27 deals and ~$20m in Q1 2025). If grants are meant to help de-risk innovation and keep the early-stage engine running, those Q1 numbers should worry us a bit.
So, Yes: totals are holding up. But the ecosystemâs future is written in the base. And right now, the base is thinning, in small equity cheques, and (so far this year) in grants too. If this trend continues, Africa might still be producing big rounds in 2026, while silently starving the pipeline that produces the next generation of breakout companiesâŠ
If you want to read more on the topic, Gregoire de Padiracâs guest post is a must. All the numbers above are computed from our database. If you want to be able to pull out the underlying time series behind the $100k-$250k and $100k-$500k deal shares, the rolling count, or the grant Q1 comparison, the raw data in a simple Excel format lets you do just that. And more. And sorry to those of you who might have rolled your eyes when you saw we were covering this topic again this week, but this is too important a topic to be ignored. Best, Max
Itâs interesting that Pre-seed is sitting at 1.5% while late-stage keeps pulling more of the capital. The real insight here is that you can have a healthy-looking market on the surface while quietly starving the next generation underneath. By the time people notice, the pipeline problem is already years old.