Africa’s tech investment landscape in 2025 is showing signs of cautious resurgence — and a handful of lead investors are setting the pace. From early-stage backers orchestrating syndicates to growth-stage firms writing the first big cheque, these investors are not just cutting deals — they’re creating momentum others follow.

In a market still defined by currency shocks, regulatory overhauls and capital flight, getting a lead investor on board is often the difference between a round closing — or stalling. So far this year, a small group of VCs have repeatedly taken that critical first step: setting terms, pricing rounds and bringing others in.

Launch Base Africa reviewed disclosed startup fundraises across the continent in 2025 to date, and tracked which firms led them. Here’s who’s leading the charge.

The Global Fintech Specialists

Fintech continues to be a magnet for capital, and global specialists are doubling down, often targeting infrastructure and enablers of the digital economy.

QED Investors: This US-based fintech-focused firm has been notably active. So far in 2025, QED has led a hefty $55 million round for South African open banking and payments firm Stitch and an $11 million Series A for Nigerian remote work payment platform Raenest.

• Key Takeaway: QED’s strategy, spearheaded by Partner and Head of Africa Gbenga Ajayi, appears focused on backing companies building the critical “picks and shovels” for Africa’s digital finance future. Their investments in Stitch (payments infrastructure) and Raenest (cross-border B2B payments for the gig economy) hint at a belief in the long-term growth of seamless, integrated financial services across the continent. As Ajayi noted regarding Stitch, there’s confidence in “visionary founders” setting “new standards in the payments industry across Africa and beyond.” This points to a search for scalable, best-in-class solutions.

Highland Europe: The UK-based growth-stage investment firm made a significant move by leading a $53 million Series B into LemFi, a London-based fintech serving African immigrants with cross-border payment and financial services.

• Key Takeaway: Highland Europe’s investment in LemFi, a company with annualized revenues reportedly exceeding $2 billion, signals a growing appetite from major European growth funds for African-focused (or diaspora-focused) scale-ups. This reflects an understanding of the immense market for remittance and financial services tailored to the needs of the African diaspora, a segment often underserved by traditional banking.

Flourish Ventures: This global fintech investor with an impact lens led a $5.2 million pre-Series A for Egyptian paytech orchestrator MoneyHash.

• Key Takeaway: Flourish Ventures consistently backs ventures that promote financial health and inclusion. The MoneyHash deal aligns with their thesis of supporting infrastructure that simplifies the increasingly complex payments landscape for businesses operating across the Middle East and Africa. Their focus is often on market-making innovations that can unlock new efficiencies and access.

Indeed, these investments show that the African fintech playbook is evolving from basic digital payments to embedded finance and B2B infrastructure. Investors are prioritizing startups that integrate with larger financial ecosystems rather than standalone solutions.

Pan-African Champions: Regional Expertise and Diverse Theses

Homegrown and Africa-focused funds are playing an increasingly crucial role, bringing local context and specific thematic approaches to the table.

Al Mada Ventures: The Casablanca-based pan-African firm demonstrated its versatility by co-leading a $13 million pre-Series C for Egyptian group savings fintech MoneyFellows and a $30 million Series B ($15 million equity) for Francophone African mobility and fintech platform Gozem.

• Key Takeaway: Al Mada Ventures, backed by the prominent Al Mada holding, has as its strategy that of identifying and backing scalable tech companies aiming for significant regional impact across diverse sectors — from digitizing traditional financial models (MoneyFellows’ ROSCAs) to building super-apps for transport and financial services (Gozem). Their backing signals a belief in “transformative ideas for Africa and for the world,” originating from the continent.

Janngo Capital: A trailblazer in gender-lens investing in Africa, Janngo Capital led a seven-figure pre-Series A for Tunisian circular fashion marketplace Dabchy and a $17 million Series B equity round for Ivorian fintech Djamo.

• Key Takeaway: Led by Fatoumata Bâ, Janngo Capital’s strategy is twofold: delivering strong financial returns while ensuring social impact, particularly by empowering women and youth and backing ventures in Francophone Africa. The investments in Dabchy (female-led, promoting sustainability) and Djamo (financial inclusion, with a significant portion of female users and SMEs) clearly reflect this dual mission. Bâ highlighted Djamo’s role in “bridging the gender gap but also unlocking economic opportunities at scale.”

Norrsken22: This Africa-focused tech growth fund led a $6.75 million pre-Series B for Egyptian social e-commerce platform Taager and participated in Raenest’s Series A.

• Key Takeaway: Norrsken22 aims to back “Africa’s new tech giants,” focusing on growth-stage companies (Series A to C) in key markets like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. Their investment in Taager points to a conviction in the burgeoning social commerce model in the MENA region and its potential for scaling. They seek businesses with proven traction ready for significant expansion.

Impact Capital

Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and foundations continue to provide crucial capital, often with a dual mandate of financial sustainability and developmental impact.

Norfund: The Norwegian DFI co-led a $20 million Series A in Nigerian B2B e-commerce platform OmniRetail. This deal marked Norfund’s first direct equity investment in an African tech startup.

• Key Takeaway: Norfund’s move into direct tech equity signals an evolution in DFI strategy, recognizing the transformative power of technology in achieving development goals. The OmniRetail investment targets the vast informal retail sector, aiming to improve efficiency and provide embedded financial services, thus fostering economic growth and job creation.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Co-leading a $9 million Series A extension for Nigerian HR and payroll tech provider SeamlessHR, alongside Helios Digital Ventures.

• Key Takeaway: The Gates Foundation’s investment highlights a strategic focus on human capital development and workforce productivity as key levers for economic advancement in Africa. SeamlessHR’s platform digitizes HR processes, which can unlock significant efficiencies for African businesses. This reflects their broader commitment to supporting “solutions in health, agriculture, and other critical areas — and the systems to get them out.”

Local Private Equity Heavyweights

Local and regionally focused private equity and venture capital firms are instrumental in nurturing and scaling businesses, often with deep market understanding. We are also seeing large tickets from them. 

CardinalStone Capital Advisers (CCA): This Nigerian private equity firm led a $15 million Series B extension for Nigerian cleantech Arnergy, focusing on distributed solar solutions.

• Key Takeaway: CCA’s investment in Arnergy highlights the growing role of local institutional capital in funding critical infrastructure. Their focus on high-potential SMEs in Nigeria and Ghana, particularly in sectors like energy, points to a strategy of building resilient local champions capable of addressing fundamental market needs.

Africa Capitalworks (ACW): This Lagos-based private equity firm led a substantial $24 million equity investment in Enko Education, a network of African international schools.

• Key Takeaway: ACW, a mid-market private equity investor, is focusing on scaling established businesses. The Enko Education deal, aimed at tripling student numbers through acquisitions, shows a strategy of consolidation and expansion in the education sector, betting on the rising demand for quality international education across the continent.

Niche Focused Players

Specialist VCs are also making their mark, backing companies at the forefront of new technologies and niche markets.

E3 Capital: This Africa-focused investor, with a notable interest in climate and energy tech, co-led an $8.1 million pre-Series A ($3.25M equity) for Ghanaian energy tech Kofa and led a $5.7 million Series A extension for Insight Terra, an environmental risk management platform.

• Key Takeaway: E3 Capital’s investments hint at a strong conviction in Africa’s green transition. Their backing of Kofa (battery-swapping networks) and Insight Terra (AI-driven emissions monitoring) signals a focus on innovative solutions that address both energy access and environmental sustainability, tapping into a rapidly growing global and local demand. The Q1 2025 trend of cleantech leading funding rounds reinforces this focus.
  This investment indicates that Africa-focused investors are moving beyond basic solar home systems to energy-as-a-service models, where startups own the infrastructure (like Kofa’s battery swaps) rather than just selling hardware.

Silicon Badia: A global VC with a strong US and MENA presence, Silicon Badia made its first foray into Morocco by leading a $4 million round for AI-powered data activation startup Journify.

• Key Takeaway: This move by Silicon Badia signifies growing investor interest in North Africa’s tech ecosystems beyond Egypt, and a bet on specialized AI applications. Their investment in Journify, which focuses on privacy-first data solutions, aligns with global trends towards ethical data utilization and the power of AI to enhance marketing efficiency. It also showcases a “local-to-global” model, leveraging Moroccan tech talent for worldwide solutions.

Others Include: 

Next176

Backed by Old Mutual, South Africa’s Next176 led a ZAR60 million ($3.3 million) round for Jem HR, an HR-tech platform tailored for deskless workers. With part of the funding provided through private debt, the round exemplifies hybrid funding structures increasingly used to bridge growth-stage capital gaps in the region.

HAVAÍC

Key Deal: NjiaPay (>$1M pre-seed)
 Cape Town-based HAVAÍC consistently supports SaaS-for-Africa — products built for local businesses but with modular, global scalability. Their lead in NjiaPay reflects confidence in payment-as-a-service models that allow enterprises to embed financial tools without rebuilding core systems.

Creandum

Swedish venture capital firm Creandum led the €17.2 million ($17.9 million) Series A in Capi Money, a cross-border fintech with African and Latin American traction. The round attracted global interest from Y Combinator and Firstminute Capital, cementing Creandum’s position among the few European funds making large early bets on international trade finance from the Global South.

Keheilan Asset Management II / Wafra

Key Deal: Widebot ($3M)
 Keheilan Asset Management II, backed by Saudi’s Wafra, is investing with an eye on “sovereign technology relevance”. Their investment in Widebot, an Arabic LLM company, isn’t just about returns — it’s a bid for linguistic and data sovereignty. This is emblematic of a rising trend: Arab capital backing homegrown AI to reduce reliance on Western models.

Oui Capital 

Pan-African VC Oui Capital led a $3.5 million seed round for Cauridor, an Ivorian fintech building out Africa’s payment rails. With participation from Rally Cap and BKR Capital, the round reflects growing support for infrastructure plays that solve systemic liquidity and remittance issues.

EchoVC & All On

Key Deal: Rivy ($4M)
EchoVC and All On’s investment in Rivy — formerly Payhippo — embodies the evolution of African fintech from lending toward climate-linked credit. All On is Shell’s impact arm; EchoVC is increasingly leaning into climate-aligned tech. Their co-lead signals rising investor conviction that SME credit will shift from generic working capital to sector-specific capital, particularly in clean energy and sustainable infrastructure.

Global Brain and Norinchukin Innovation Fund

Japanese funds Global Brain (GB-IX) and Norinchukin Innovation Fund co-led the latest round in Hakki, a Kenya-based fintech targeting taxi drivers. The round follows a year of increasing Japanese LP interest in African mobility and financial inclusion, with Hakki’s profitability marking a notable outlier.

Injaro Investment Advisors

Key Deal: Kofa ($8.1M)
E3 Capital and Injaro’s co-lead in Kofa’s pre-Series A points to a “distributed energy thesis” grounded in Africa’s urban density and growing two-wheeler ecosystem. Both firms favor last-mile, scalable infrastructure. E3 Capital, formerly Energy Access Ventures, has evolved into a cleantech VC with industrial discipline. Injaro, on the other hand, represents Ghanaian institutional capital with a climate-smart lens, showing that local LP money is ready to lead in energy.

Speedinvest

Key Deal: Leta ($5M)
 Speedinvest, based in Vienna, is deepening its logistics SaaS thesis in frontier markets. Leta’s AI-powered platform shows the firm’s appetite for solving structural supply chain issues, rather than relying on asset-heavy logistics. It’s a bet that data — not trucks — will drive efficiency in Africa’s $180 billion logistics sector.

Grazia Equity and BACKED VC

In a standout early-stage deal, Germany’s Grazia Equity and UK’s BACKED VC co-led the $8 million seed round for Ghanaian digital bank Affinity Africa. This deal shows European appetite for reimagining inclusive finance, especially as local neobanks scale across underserved regions.

Google for Startups

Key Deal: Platos Health ($1.4M)
Google’s early-stage investments aren’t merely corporate social responsibility; they’re strategic. In Platos Health, Google backed a Nigerian AI-powered metabolic health platform — likely with data and health vertical synergies in mind. The deal suggests Google’s startup fund is acting like a “sovereign innovation sensor”: identifying breakthrough technologies that align with its future platform interests, particularly in under-indexed consumer markets like health and wearables.

Atlantica Ventures

Key Deal: NOSIBLE ($1M)
Atlantica Ventures is quickly becoming a “deep tech scout” in African AI and data science. Their pre-seed bet on South Africa’s NOSIBLE, founded by a former Aerobotics head of data science, reveals a willingness to back founders with second-order technical expertise — not just startup polish. The firm is quietly carving out a niche in early-stage AI infrastructure and applications.

Nclude by DPI

Key Deal: MoneyFellows ($13M pre-Series C)
Al Mada Ventures and Nclude by DPI are betting big on “infrastructure-level consumer fintech” — not payment apps but platforms deeply embedded in cultural financial behaviors. Their investment in MoneyFellows — a digital ‘tontine’ platform — signals a conviction that traditional financial systems can be digitized without being westernized. It also marks a rare North-South pan-African co-lead: Morocco’s Al Mada and Egypt’s Nclude converging on a shared MENA-scale vision.

Notable Trends 

Fintech’s Evolution from Payments to Embedded Infrastructure

• Investors like QED and Norrsken22 are shifting focus from basic digital payments to B2B fintech enablers (e.g., Raenest’s cross-border payroll, Stitch’s open banking). The next wave is about embedding finance into commerce, logistics, and SaaS, not just standalone apps.

Beyond Solar Home Systems to “Energy-as-a-Service”

Cleantech bets are moving from off-grid solar to battery-swapping (Kofa), distributed grids (Arnergy), and climate fintech (Rivy). Investors in Africa’s tech like E3 Capital and Breakthrough Energy prioritize startups that own the infrastructure, creating recurring revenue over hardware sales.

Corporate VCs as Strategic Partners

• Google, Shell, and Saudi-linked funds are leading rounds (e.g., Platos Health, Widebot) and shaping startups’ roadmaps. Their involvement signals sector-specific expertise and long-term alignment, not just financial backing.

Blended Finance 

• Deals like Kofa ($4.3M debt + grants) and Rivy (50% debt) show Africa’s investors mitigating risk associated with tech investments through structured financing. Debt works for revenue-generating models, while grants support high-impact, capital-heavy sectors like cleantech.

Niche Markets 

• Uncommon bets on AI for African languages (ToumAI), recommerce (FARO, Dabchy), and tourism tech (Purple Elephant) reveal investors seeking defensible, untapped markets beyond saturated spaces. Localization and sustainability are becoming key differentiators.