$4.1B raised. Four countries took 70% of it. Over 50 countries split the rest.
Venture debt hit $1.6B — a 63% surge and the most telling number in the report. Debt at that scale means founders have auditable revenue. The ecosystem isn't just growing; it's maturing into something lenders will back.
(Note: Partech reports $4.1B including venture debt; Launch Base Africa reports $3.1B equity-only.)
Kenya wins on capital — Lagos wins on volume
Kenya topped every market at $1.04B, driven by multiple deals clearing $100M each. Nairobi's M-Pesa infrastructure built the rails that keep delivering outsized rounds.
M-Pesa didn't just change Kenya's banking — it built the launchpad for a billion-dollar VC market.
Lagos ran 102 deals — more than any other city — and hosts 503 active fintech startups, double any rival. The scale-up rate of 4.2% reaching 50+ employees is the continent's best. Egypt closed 100 deals at $20.8M average per startup, the highest capital intensity anywhere on the continent, with Gulf investors treating Cairo as the gateway between Africa and the Middle East.
503 fintech startups in Lagos. The city isn't just Africa's fintech capital — it's a continent-scale fintech factory.
The concentration problem
Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa control 70% of capital and 69% of deals across 54 countries. Accra has pulled $1.66B in cumulative fintech funding. Kigali is carving a clean-energy niche. The gap to the top four is still very wide.
50+ African countries are sharing 30% of the continent's venture capital. That math has to change.
Investors are going selective — bigger bets, fewer shots, proven models only. Climate tech and logistics are gaining ground on fintech. The question for 2030 isn't whether African tech scales. It's whether the next Lagos is still Lagos.