African Venture Funding Landscape in 2025
While 2025 was a generally positive year for venture funding in African startups, it presented a less favorable scenario for Nigerian startups, which collectively raised $343 million during the year. This data comes from Africa the Big Deal, an analytics company focused on African venture funding.
The $343 million raised in 2025 signifies a decline of 16.3 percent compared to the $410 million secured in 2024. Consequently, Nigeria accounted for only 10.7 percent of the total $3.2 billion raised across the continent in 2025. This marks a significant decrease from the previous year, when Nigeria contributed 18.6 percent of the $2.2 billion raised continent-wide.
This underperformance placed Nigeria last among the Continental Big Four: Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa.
Nigeria's diminished performance in 2025 is highlighted by its status as the sole country among the Big Four to experience a drop in funding compared to 2024 and a decrease in its share of the continent's total funding.
The report stated, "This is the lowest share we have ever recorded for Nigeria since we started tracking the numbers back in 2019. In fact, no Big Four market dipped so low in terms of its share of overall funding since 2020. Equity – which represented 83% of the total raised in the country – dropped -22% YoY."
Nigeria's decline in venture funding is further underscored by the growing contributions from other West African markets. Beyond the Big Four, Senegal attracted $157 million in startup investments, and Benin secured $100 million.
In 2025, Nigeria also saw a 14 percent reduction in the number of ventures that raised $100,000 or more. Despite this decrease, the country still leads in this category with 86 such ventures, indicating continued investor interest in early-stage Nigerian startups, a positive trend for the ecosystem's future.
Kenya Leads African Startup Funding for the Third Consecutive Year
Kenya has experienced substantial growth in venture funding, solidifying its position as the continent's top investment destination for the third year in a row.
Startups in Kenya raised $984 million in 2025, marking a 54.2 percent increase from the $638 million raised in 2024. This amount represents nearly one-third of the total funding attracted by the continent (30.7 percent).
While a significant portion of this funding, $582 million (59.1 percent), was debt financing, the amount of equity funding raised, $383 million, nearly doubled over the year, signaling a resurgence of investor confidence.
A substantial part of Kenya's total funding was attributed to large rounds secured by major energy companies such as d.light, Sun King, M-Kopa, Burn, and PowerGen. However, early-stage funding in the country appears to be declining, with only 75 ventures raising $100k or more. This represents a 22 percent decrease and the lowest performance in this metric among the Big Four.
Egypt and South Africa's Funding Performance
Egypt moved into second place, having been close in 2024 but narrowly surpassed by a late funding surge from Nigerian startups. In 2025, Egypt raised $614 million, a 53.5 percent increase from the $400 million attracted the previous year. This positions the North African country to account for 20 percent of the continent's total funding of $3.2 billion.
Approximately half of the funds raised by Egyptian startups were in equity. With $278 million obtained through debt, Egypt also emerged as the second-largest market for debt funding, representing 24 percent of Africa's total. Sixty-one startups in Egypt raised $100k or more last year.
South Africa advanced to third place, moving up from fourth in 2024. Startups in the country raised $600 million in 2025, an increase of 52.3 percent from the $394 million raised the previous year. This figure represents 18.7 percent of the total funding raised across the continent.
Over 90 percent of the funding raised by South African startups in 2025, amounting to $545 million, was in the form of equity, making it the largest market for equity funding with 29 percent of Africa's total. Eighty-three startups in South Africa also raised at least $100,000, the second-highest number on the continent, trailing only Nigeria.