Startups
Funding, founders, scaleups and the deals reshaping African innovation.
- Startups
Djamo wants to be Francophone West Africa's bank
The Abidjan neobank is raising a $40 million Series C to push beyond payments into credit and savings across Senegal and the wider WAEMU bloc, chasing what Wave and Flutterwave have already proven: scale is possible for a homegrown African fintech.
73d ago - Startups
A Johannesburg fintech skips Africa to challenge the UK's giants
Float, a South African card-linked instalment startup, has launched in the UK before expanding anywhere else on the continent, betting that constraints built at home make it more competitive than incumbents like Klarna.
73d ago - Startups
A Lagos neobank served 150,000 freelancers for three years. It could not survive the funding drought that followed.
Gigbanc, a Nigerian cross-border neobank for Africa's freelancers and remote workers, is winding down after failing to raise fresh capital, and is now in acquisition talks with an undisclosed Nigerian fintech infrastructure firm.
75d ago - Startups
A Lagos SoftPOS Startup Just Beat 88 Countries in Geneva — And Won $40,000, Not $20,000
Nearpays, an Abuja-based fintech that turns smartphones into card readers, won the UN's AI for Good Innovation Factory 2026 in Geneva on July 9 — then musician will.i.am doubled its prize on the spot.
76d ago - Startups
Fewer deals, bigger checks: African tech quietly notched its biggest H1 ever
African startups raised $1.44 billion in H1 2026 on just 146 disclosed deals — down from 252 a year earlier — while M&A nearly doubled to 63 deals, the clearest sign yet that the continent's funding market is consolidating rather than shrinking.
77d ago - Startups
FoodCourt Called Itself Profitable. Then It Couldn't Pay Its Cooks.
The Y Combinator-backed Nigerian cloud kitchen paused all operations after months of unpaid wages and vendor debt, exposing a gap between its public growth story and its cash position.
78d ago - Startups
Africa needs $2.8 trillion for climate adaptation. Catalyst Fund just added $30 million to the $30 billion it's actually getting.
Nairobi-based Catalyst Fund closed a $30m second close backed by IFC, Shell Foundation and We-Fi, betting that pairing capital with hands-on venture-building is the fastest way to close Africa's climate-finance gap one founder at a time.
78d ago - Startups
Grey's newest feature looks tiny. It's really a bid to own Africa's money on-ramp.
The Y Combinator-backed payments company now lets users in Ghana and Kenya fund accounts directly in cedis and shillings via bank transfer and mobile money — a small tweak that quietly decides where the continent's cross-border money starts.
78d ago
