Venture capitalists, founders and policymakers from across Africa and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) will gather on January 29 for the Africa Startup & VC Landscape Preview (ASVLP) 2026, as startup funding across the region shows signs of recovery after a prolonged global downturn.
The virtual forum comes after African startups raised an estimated $3.2 billion to $3.3 billion in 2025, marking a rebound from the funding contraction seen in the previous year. While capital has returned, investors have shifted toward more disciplined deployment, prioritising profitability, governance and long-term sustainability over rapid expansion.
ASVLP 2026, now in its second year, is positioned as an agenda-setting platform where venture leaders, limited partners, development finance institutions, family offices and regulators will assess the 2025 funding cycle and outline strategic priorities for the year ahead across Africa and MENA.
The recovery has been accompanied by notable structural changes in the startup landscape. Kenya emerged in 2025 as the top funding destination among Africa’s so-called “Big Four” markets for the first time, while Nigeria experienced a year-on-year decline in capital inflows, reflecting macroeconomic pressures, currency volatility and a broader recalibration of investor risk appetite.
Sectorally, fintech remained the most funded vertical, though investor interest increasingly extended to climate and energy solutions, artificial intelligence-enabled platforms, health technology and infrastructure-adjacent businesses. Development finance institutions and family offices also played a more prominent role, anchoring funds and supporting blended-finance structures that have become critical to early-stage and growth-stage capital formation.
“The conversation has shifted. It is no longer about whether capital will return to Africa and MENA, but what kind of capital, deployed with what discipline, and in service of which long-term outcomes,” Uche Aniche, convener of ASVLP, told BusinessDay.
Discussions at ASVLP 2026 will include the outlook for fintech in 2026, emerging fund managers and capital formation, regulatory evolution, cross-border market integration, and the growing importance of talent depth and institutional capacity as constraints to scaling startups across fragmented markets.
Confirmed speakers include Khaled Ismail of HIMangel, Idris Ayodeji Bello of LoftyInc Capital, Zachariah George of Launch Africa, Tosin Faniro-Dada of Breega, Selma Ribica of FirstCircle Capital, Maha Mandour of COREangels MEA, Patrick Okebu of Interswitch Group, Remi Prunier of Orange Ventures MEA and Ali Hussein, president of the Kenyan FinTech Association, among other regional and international investors and ecosystem leaders.
The forum will also feature a DealRoom pitch session, where a curated group of startups will present to investors, reflecting organisers’ efforts to link data-driven ecosystem insights with actionable capital deployment.
Participation in ASVLP 2026 is free but strictly by invitation, with organisers encouraging interested participants to engage through the event’s official channels to request access.
