In 2025, the total funding landscape in North Africa saw a widening chasm. While Morocco reached a respectable $128.4m in total funding, a closer look at local participation reveals a deeper issue. Moroccan startups raised roughly $40m from local investors across 11 disclosed deals in 2025. In contrast, Egyptian startups raised north of $200m from local investors across 40-plus deals (contributing to a total national haul of $430m). The five-to-one local funding gap matters, but the infrastructure gap matters more.
Strip away the headline numbers and a pattern emerges: Moroccan founders face financing obstacles at every stage that Egyptian founders solved years ago. No banks provide startup debt. No corporate bond market exists for growth-stage companies. No revenue-sharing facilities offer alternatives to equity dilution. When Moroccan startups need capital, they have one option: find a venture investor or stop growing.
The infrastructure deficit shows up in deal structures, round sizes, and ultimately in which companies can scale domestically versus which must relocate or stay small.
The bank financing hole
At least, five Egyptian banks appeared in the 2025 funding data for the Egyptian startup ecosystem providing startup financing: Commercial International Bank, CI Capital, Banque Misr, Suez Canal Bank, and MSMEDA (a state-backed SME agency).
MNT-Halan, Egypt’s largest fintech, raised EGP 2.5bn (approximately $50m) through corporate bonds sold on public debt markets. The same company later secured $71.4m via securitized notes from CIB and CI Capital. Fintech lender Flend accessed $3m from Banque Misr plus $600k from MSMEDA. Olive Finance drew $629k from Suez Canal Bank. Pharmacy platform iSupply structured $3m in revenue-sharing financing from Bokra, an Egyptian alternative lender.
The pattern: Egyptian startups with revenue and recurring cashflows can access debt, revenue-share agreements, or hybrid structures that preserve equity for founders.
Morocco showed zero comparable bank activity . No Moroccan commercial bank appeared providing startup loans, credit facilities, or structured debt. CDG Invest operates as a development finance institution — closer to a government strategic investor than a commercial lender.
The absence matters arithmetically. An Egyptian founder raising $5m can potentially structure $2m as debt and $3m as equity, keeping dilution to perhaps 15–20%. A Moroccan founder raising $5m sells 20–25% equity because no debt option exists. Over multiple rounds, the Egyptian founder owns 40% at Series B while the Moroccan founder owns 25%.
The Series A desert
Azur Innovation Management led ORA Technologies’ $7.5m Series A solo — the only disclosed instance of a Moroccan investor leading a round above $5m without foreign co-investors in 2025.
Compare that to Egypt. Algebra Ventures was one of the key investors in Nawy’s $52m equity round. Beltone Venture Capital participated heavily in Sylndr’s $15.7m raise and Taager’s $6.75m round. Egypt Ventures participated in InfiniLink’s $10m seed. Multiple Egyptian investors wrote $3m–$10m checks routinely.
When Morocco’s Chari raised $12m for Series A, the round included SPE Capital (Tunisia), Orange Ventures (France), Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (Japan), Plug and Play (USA), Endeavor Catalyst (USA), and Pincus Capital (USA). Seven investors for a $12m round.
The Moroccan ecosystem has seed capital. Al Mada Ventures, UM6P Ventures, Witamax, First Circle Capital, and Azur can all write $500k–$2m checks for early-stage companies. But the follow-on financing gap between seed ($1–$2m) and international Series A ($10m+) creates a valley of death.
From our 2025 data, Egyptian founders can raise $1.5m seed from local investors, grow for 18 months, then raise $5–$8m Series A from the same investors or their networks. The capital compounds within the ecosystem. Moroccan founders raise $1.5m seed locally, grow for 18 months, then discover no local investor can lead their Series A. They either raise from foreign VCs (dilutive, often requiring board control) or extend their seed capital and slow growth.
What happens when banks participate
Egyptian banks don’t just provide capital — they validate business models. When CIB and CI Capital structured MNT-Halan’s $71.4m securitization, they performed credit analysis, examined loan portfolios, modeled default rates, and signed off on the risk. That due diligence carries weight with equity investors.
Banque Misr’s $3m facility to Flend meant Egypt’s second-largest state-owned bank underwrote a fintech lender’s credit model. Suez Canal Bank backing Olive Finance validated that company’s operations. MSMEDA financing Flend signaled government recognition of the business.
Banks entering the startup market creates a feedback loop. Credit committees develop frameworks for evaluating recurring revenue businesses. Risk officers learn to underwrite SaaS metrics or lending algorithms. Treasuries allocate capital to venture debt products. The infrastructure compounds.
Morocco lacks this institutional learning curve. Commercial banks haven’t developed startup lending practices because they haven’t made startup loans. Without that experience, they can’t assess which companies merit debt financing. Without debt financing available, startups don’t approach banks. The absence perpetuates itself.
CDG Invest invested in Nucleon Security ($3.5m late seed) and Docline ($5.2m), but CDG operates with development mandates, not purely commercial underwriting. It can back strategic sectors or underserved markets, but it can’t replace a commercial banking system pricing risk and allocating capital based on returns.
The corporate strategic gap
Egyptian deals frequently involved corporate strategics bringing both capital and operational value. Elsewedy Capital, an industrial conglomerate, invested in Octane ($5.2m fintech) and Nawah Scientific ($23m healthtech).
Morocco showed one disclosed corporate strategic investment: Sanlam Maroc took a $2.2m equity stake in Woliz, a retail tech platform. But one corporate strategic investment versus Egypt’s ubiquitous corporate venture capital indicates a shallower pool. Moroccan startups lack the ecosystem of family offices and conglomerates willing to write strategic growth checks.
What Morocco has that Egypt doesn’t
The comparison shouldn’t suggest Egyptian superiority across all dimensions.
- Pan-African orientation: Moroccan investors deployed capital across the continent (Togo, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa).
- University-linked innovation: UM6P Ventures creates direct pathways from research to commercialization.
- French institutional relationships: Access to Orange Ventures, Bpifrance, and Digital Africa provides a unique bridge to Europe and Francophone Africa.
The pragmatic next steps
Fixing Morocco’s infrastructure gaps requires concrete actions:
- Bank pilots: Banks like Attijariwafa or BCP could allocate $10–20m to structured startup debt. . Through its venture capital arm, Attijariwafa Ventures, banking giant Attijariwafa has recently been investing in high-potential startups, although its exposure in Moroccan startup ventures remains limited.
- Scalable Funds: Local investors need larger vehicles. Local investors like Azur raising a €50–75m Fund II, could be instrumental deploying €5–10m Series A checks regularly, moving beyond the current seed concentration.
- Corporate Innovation: Should major firms like OCP Group or Maroc Telecom allocate $5–10m annually, the ecosystem would gain $25–50m in strategic capital.
- Government Guarantees: Morocco’s government has triggered a new venture vehicle to inject MAD 2.5bn (around $269m) into the ecosystem. Alongside this is a MAD 700m (approximately $70m) “Startup Venture Building” programme under the Digital Morocco 2030 roadmap, targeting 800 startups over three years. These are in their early days but could prove game-changing in years to come.
Why this matters beyond Morocco
Egypt has quietly built a blueprint for its North African neighbours: an integrated infrastructure where banks, corporates, and VCs all participate. The $160m difference between Egyptian and Moroccan local startup financing in 2025 reflected this institutional machinery.
Infrastructure can be built. Morocco has the talent and the capital. The question is whether institutions outside traditional venture capital will start participating before more Moroccan founders relocate to markets where the infrastructure already exists.