Africa’s investment landscape showed signs of stabilization and modest recovery in 2025, according to the newly released Africa Investment Report 2025, a comprehensive annual analysis by Briter Intelligence.
The report, published on 20 January 2026, highlights how the continent rebounded after the turbulence of 2022–2023 while also underscoring persistent structural challenges that could shape investor behavior this year and beyond.
Across the continent, companies disclosed US $3.8 billion in funding in 2025, marking a 32 per cent increase in funding volume and an 8 per cent rise in announced deals compared with 2024.
Yet when viewed against long-term trends, the data reveals uneven capital distribution, with a small number of sectors and countries capturing the lion’s share of investment.
South Africa, Kenya, Egypt and Nigeria, known as Africa’s “Big Four” funding hubs, collectively accounted for the vast majority of disclosed funding in 2025.
South Africa topped the list with 32 per cent of total funding, followed by Kenya with 29 per cent, Egypt at 15 per cent, and Nigeria at 8 per cent.
Notably, Nigeria recorded its lowest share of funding since 2019, even as it posted the highest number of individual deals, reflecting an active but lower-value deal environment.
The concentration of capital within a handful of markets underscores persistent geographic imbalances. Investors continue to favour established ecosystems with clearer regulatory frameworks, deeper financial markets, and more mature entrepreneurial sectors.
Consistent with broader regional trends, fintech and digital financial services led both deal count and funding value in 2025.
These segments benefit from Africa’s rapidly expanding mobile money adoption and digital payments infrastructure, which have dramatically increased financial inclusion across the continent.
Alongside fintech, climate-focused solutions exhibited the fastest growth, raising more than three times their 2024 total, and solar energy emerged as the top-funded category overall, reflecting investor appetite for infrastructure-like clean tech models that deliver predictable returns.
The burgeoning interest in clean energy dovetails with broader continental efforts to expand renewable capacity.
At the 2025 Africa Climate Summit in Addis Ababa, leaders reiterated the strategic importance of solar and other renewables, even as electricity access remains a major challenge for hundreds of millions of Africans.
Artificial intelligence (AI) also featured prominently in the report’s analysis. Investment activity in AI was concentrated in applied use cases, from fintech risk platforms to enterprise applications, rather than deep research and development.
This reflects a pragmatic investor preference for commercially viable solutions with clearer paths to revenue.
The Africa Investment Report 2025 reveals a shift in the structure of capital deployment. Equity remained the predominant funding instrument, but debt financing surpassed US $1 billion for the first time in a decade, offering startups and growth companies an alternative to equity dilution.
Despite this milestone, growth capital was increasingly concentrated among a smaller pool of companies.
Early-stage finance and mid-stage funding remain fragmented and fragile, leaving many promising ventures under-capitalized.
Only fewer than 5 per cent of deals exceeded US $50 million, yet those handful of large rounds accounted for half of all disclosed funding.
The report also recorded 63 acquisitions in 2025, although only a handful had disclosed values and several involved startups acquiring other startups, signaling limited exit opportunities through traditional mergers and acquisitions.
A notable feature of the 2025 investment environment was the growing participation of non-Western capital sources, including investors from Japan and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
These emerging actors are diversifying the financing ecosystem and signaling broader geopolitical interest in African growth markets.
Yet despite these positive indicators, the funding gender gap persists.
Companies with at least one female founder received less than 10 per cent of total funding, highlighting ongoing inequities that could dampen the continent’s inclusive growth potential if not addressed.
Overall, the Africa Investment Report 2025 paints a nuanced picture: one of a vibrant, evolving investment landscape that continues to attract capital globally, even as structural challenges remain.
While fintech and clean tech present robust opportunities, gaps in early-stage funding, exit pathways, and gender equity temper the narrative of unalloyed progress.
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