For years, a slot in Y Combinator’s (YC) bi-annual cohort was the definitive launchpad for an African startup. The accelerator’s portfolio reads like a hall of fame, boasting unicorns like Flutterwave and Paystack. In early 2022, this relationship peaked, with 24 African startups joining the W22 batch.

Then came the “great cull.”

Starting in mid-2022, African participation plummeted by over 90% in subsequent cohorts. As of 2025, YC’s new year-round application program — designed to increase access — has done little to reverse this trend. The number of new African startups accepted remains a tiny fraction of its peak.

This “retreat” has dominated headlines. However, a deeper look at YC’s 2025 capital deployment in Africa reveals a far more complex, and perhaps bullish, strategy.

Y Combinator is no longer acting as a simple accelerator for Africa. It is operating as a high-conviction, late-stage strategic investor.

The 2025 Paradox: Seeding Few, Backing Winners

The confusion over YC’s Africa strategy is understandable. In March 2023, President Garry Tan announced YC would de-emphasize late-stage investing to refocus on its early-stage mission.

Yet, YC’s actions in Africa in 2025 directly contradict this.

While the front door for new startups has narrowed, YC has been busy writing multi-million dollar cheques to prop up its existing African champions. This is a flight to quality in a market defined by high-profile collapses.

Consider the evidence:

• Lemfi (Nigeria): In January 2025, the diaspora-focused fintech raised a $53 million Series B round. YC, which first backed the company in its 2021 seed round, returned to participate in this massive growth-stage deal alongside lead investor Highland Europe.
• Thndr (Egypt): In May 2025, the digital investment platform raised $15.7 million. YC, an original seed investor from 2020, also followed on in this round, led by Prosus.
• Chowdeck, the Nigerian quick-commerce startup, has raised $9 million in its Series A round. YC, an original seed investor from 2022, participated again, alongside Novastar Ventures (UK), Y Combinator, GFR Fund, AAIC Investment (Japan), Rebel Fund, Kaleo Ventures, and HoaQ (Nigeria). A Series A typically signifies that the company has proven product-market fit, achieved meaningful revenue, and demonstrated operational capability — key milestones that are reached years after the initial acceleration phase.

This is not the behaviour of a pre-seed accelerator. This is the calculated strategy of a “continuity fund” — an investment vehicle designed to double down on proven winners from an existing portfolio, ensuring they have the capital to survive a downturn and capture the market.

Decoding the New Thesis: A Flight to Quality

In a harsh ecosystem that has seen high-profile startups like Edukoya, Lipa Later, and even YC-alum Medsaf shut down, YC’s new strategy is one of capital concentration.

It appears YC has concluded that in Africa’s volatile market, spreading $500k across 25 new bets (the 2022 model) is less capital-efficient than strategically injecting $5M-$10M into a single, proven winner.

This new playbook has two distinct components:

1. The Filter (For New Companies): Global, Not Local For new founders, the barrier to entry is higher than ever. YC is almost exclusively backing African engineers building global-facing B2B products. These companies are not solving uniquely African problems; they are leveraging African talent to build for the world.

• Cerebrium (South Africa): AI infrastructure for global developers.
• Better Auth (Ethiopia): Authentication tools for global developers.
• Rulebase (Nigeria/UK): AI compliance tech for global fintechs.

YC is not betting on the African market; it’s betting on undervalued African talent.

2. The Shield (For Existing Investments): Late-Stage & Non-African For its existing portfolio, YC is protecting its high-performers that fit a specific mould: companies that are either later-stage, targeting non-African markets, or both.

The companies it is following on in are not classic “Africa tech” plays. Lemfi, its biggest bet, is a diaspora product. It serves immigrants in the UK, US, and Canada, remitting money to Africa. Its primary market is not domestic.

This dual strategy — a narrow filter at the entrance and a high-wall “shield” for its winners — explains the paradox. YC’s “retreat” from Africa was not a retreat at all; it was a strategic consolidation.

The Profile: Who Gets the Cheque

The founders YC backed in 2025 share characteristics that aspiring applicants should note:

• Previous Experience: YC has shifted toward founders with proven track records. Ridwan Olalere (Lemfi) worked at Flutterwave, OPay, and Uber. Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr (Thndr) both came from Uber. Bereket Engida (Better Auth) was a previous founder, and Khalid Ashmawy (Munify) spent over 10 years leading engineering teams at Microsoft and Uber.
• Technical Depth: Better Auth, Cerebrium, Munify, and Rulebase all require sophisticated engineering. YC’s African investments in 2025 skew heavily toward technical infrastructure rather than operational businesses.
• Global Revenue or Arbitrage: With the exception of Chowdeck, every investment either serves non-African customers or facilitates flows from hard currency into local currency (Lemfi).
• Fundraising Power: The companies averaged $12 million per round, suggesting YC now uses follow-on fundraising potential as a primary selection criterion.

Notably absent are first-time founders, non-technical operators, consumer-facing businesses serving African customers in local currency, and capital-intensive models, regardless of market size.

What This Means for African Founders

This shift changes the game. The gates for the quintessential “Made for Africa” B2C or consumer app appear, for now, to be closed at Y Combinator.

The message from Silicon Valley is clear:

• For New Founders: YC is only interested if you are a world-class engineer building a global-first, capital-light software product.
• For the YC Alumni Network: For those who are already in the portfolio and have proven product-market fit (especially with a global or diaspora angle), YC is no longer just an accelerator. It is now a powerful, long-term financial partner, ready to deploy growth-stage capital to secure its investment.

The Uncomfortable Implications for the Ecosystem

This new strategy creates several tensions.

1. It Reinforces a Two-Tier System and Devalues Local Problems. Venture capital is now flowing preferentially to founders building for global customers (e.g., remittance platforms for the diaspora, developer tools for international companies) over those solving core, on-the-ground issues. This implicitly signals that African consumers and businesses are not seen as venture-scale customers, potentially diverting top technical talent away from the continent’s most pressing challenges.
2. It Hollows Out YC’s Core Value Proposition. When YC invests after a company has already secured a lead investor like Prosus or Peak XV, its traditional value likely diminishes. The crucial early validation, network access, and operational guidance are no longer the primary offering. 
3. It Reveals an Unspoken Pessimism About African Markets. The strategy contradicts YC’s public statements about being impressed with African “talent and ingenuity.” If that were the primary constraint, YC would back exceptional founders regardless of customer geography. Instead, customer geography seems to have become a primary filter. The uncomfortable truth (as we now see through YC’s investments in early stage African startups this year) is that YC seems to have concluded that the African consumer and SMB market is, for now, too fragmented and challenging to generate the outsized returns its model requires. In 2025, they are betting on African talent to serve global markets, not on African entrepreneurs building for African markets.

Judging by its recent investment activities, Y Combinator has not abandoned Africa so much as it has strategically redefined its role. In 2025, it has shifted from being a broad patron for the ecosystem to a specialist investor targeting a specific, globally-oriented segment. For Africa’s tech landscape, recognizing this shift is the crucial first step toward building greater self-reliance.