Africa raised US$4.1 billion. Almost none of it was a first cheque.
We built this hub against a specific reading of the data, so the reading should be public. Every figure below is Partech Africa's, and every chart has a table view. Where we disagree with the consensus interpretation, we say so.
Equity and debt combined, across 570 deals.
Debt grew +63% to US$1.64B. The headline is being carried by debt.
Of 311 seed-stage companies, a handful reach a Series A.
Three years between rounds, where it used to be under two.
A note on the headline: other trackers put 2025 at roughly US$3.1 billion. The difference is scope — Partech counts debt alongside equity. We quote both separately throughout, because conflating them is how the year gets misread as a recovery.
The money moved up the stack, and left the first rung empty.
2025 was a good year for companies that had already raised. Seed was the only stage that went backwards — and the Series A gate behind it barely opens at all.
311 companies raised a seed round. 95 reached a Series A.
Equity deal count by stage across Africa in 2025. One series, so magnitude is carried by a single gold ramp — darker means fewer companies survive to that stage.
of the 2024 seed cohort converted to a Series A.
quarters now separate Series A from Series B, up from seven in 2020.
Every stage grew except the one founders start at.
Change in equity funding by stage, 2024 to 2025. Series A and B expanded; Seed+ contracted. Polarity is carried by hue, by side of the zero axis, and by a signed label.
- Grew in 2025
- Shrank in 2025
Four markets. Seventy-two percent of the money.
The Big Four took 72% of the money and 68% of the deals. The remaining 28% was shared across every other market on the continent — 23 of which recorded an equity deal at all.
- The Big Four
- Everywhere else
The grey slice is US$1.17B shared across every other market on the continent.
For the first time in a decade, fintech is not the story.
Fintech is still the largest sector by absolute funding, but its share of African equity fell from 60% to 32% in a single year. For the first time in a decade the continent's capital is not concentrated in one vertical.
- Grew in 2025
- Shrank in 2025
Six things we changed because of these numbers.
A chart that does not change a decision is decoration. Each finding below is paired with what it actually made us do differently.
The earliest stage is the one that shrank
Seed+ funding fell 4% while Series A rose 21% and Series B rose 27%.
Capital moved up the stack in 2025. The companies that get hurt by that are the ones that had not raised yet — which is precisely the cohort an incubator exists to fund.
Fewer investors are writing the cheques
539 unique equity investors, down 7% on 2024. Only 43 did five deals or more.
A thinning investor base makes warm introductions worth more than they were two years ago. A founder outside Lagos or Nairobi cannot cold-email their way to 43 firms.
The Series A gate is nearly shut
3.8% of the 2024 seed cohort converted to a Series A. Time from A to B stretched to 12 quarters.
Raising a seed round is no longer the achievement. Building something that earns money without a Series A is — which is why our programmes optimise for a paying customer, not a demo.
Geography is the biggest single filter
Four markets took 72% of the money. 27 countries recorded an equity deal; 23 did not.
The constraint outside the Big Four is not company quality, it is deal flow infrastructure — someone to run the room, verify the investor and make the introduction.
The rotation out of fintech is an opening
Healthtech +232%, cleantech +186%, enterprise software +55%. Fintech equity fell 43%.
The sectors growing fastest are the ones that sell to institutions — health systems, utilities, government, enterprise. That is the part of the market 7Square has been building in for years.
Debt is doing the heavy lifting, and it is not for you yet
Debt grew 63% to US$1.64B across 108 deals; equity grew just 8%.
Debt is flowing to asset-heavy, late-stage, revenue-proven businesses — solar, lending, logistics. Pre-revenue companies cannot access it. The early-stage equity gap is real and it is widening.
Where we actually operate.
We are not pretending Harare is Nairobi. These are the numbers for the markets the hub runs in, including the uncomfortable ones.
Rebounded to a top-five African destination after a slow 2025 election year.
Fastest-improving ecosystem ranking in our home region, from a very low base.
Overtook Nigeria as the continent's largest venture market, up 72%.
Largest equity-only market, up 41% with 85 deals.
- 01Partech Africa — 2025 Africa Tech Venture Capital Report
Primary source for all funding, deal-count, stage and sector figures.
- 02FurtherAfrica — Tanzania startup funding rebounds to fifth in Africa
Tanzania H1 2026 rebound figure.
- 03StartupBlink — Zimbabwe startup ecosystem
Zimbabwe ecosystem ranking and growth rate.
- 04African Business — Africa's venture capital and startup ecosystem in 2025
Context on geographic broadening outside the Big Four.
Figures are as published by the sources named and are reproduced for analysis. Chart colours were validated for colour-vision deficiency and contrast against this page's surface; every chart carries a table view so no value is reachable by colour alone.
This is the gap the hub was built to close.
Capital at entry, a customer before a Series A is ever needed, and a room in the markets the Big Four data leaves out.