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Total investment into the African tech startup ecosystem increased by almost 50% to $1.64 billion in 2025 as the sector began to slowly recover from the impacts of the global capital shortage.
This is according to the 11th edition of the annual African Tech Startups Funding Report released by startup news and research portal Disrupt Africa.
A total of 178 startups raised a combined total of $1.64 billion over the course of the year, which represented a slight decline in terms of the number of funded ventures, but an increase of 46.2% on total raised funding.
This comes after two years of decline, which saw startup funding fall to $1.1 billion in 2024, as the sector bore the brunt of the global “funding winter”.
The number of active investors – individual or institutional – fell again in 2025, by 4.6% to 330 from 346 in 2024. Yet this represented a stabilisation of sorts after two years of major decline. In 2022 there were 987 investors, and in 2023 there were 527.
Each of the so-called “big four” of African tech – Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa – raised more funding than in 2024, when steep declines occurred as a result of the global capital shortage. This meant they accounted for much of the continent’s growth in 2025, as even though there are signs the “funding winter” is coming to an end, capital remained focused on markets perceived as being less “risky”.
Fintech, yet again, once again proved by far and away the most popular sector for investors in African tech startups in 2024, increasing its share of funded ventures and generally matching its proportion of total funding from 2024.
“2024 was a very difficult year indeed for African tech from a funding perspective, with a significant decline in investment for the second year in a row. Yet we’ve seen a big boost in 2025, and though funding levels have by no means “recovered”, it seems like we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel from an investment perspective,” said Disrupt Africa co-founder Gabriella Mulligan.
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