Startups
Funding, founders, scaleups and the deals reshaping African innovation.
- Startups
Nigeria puts $85m of its own money on the table to fix the thing foreign VCs won't
The Bank of Industry has handed Kuramo Capital a $170.6m fund-of-funds mandate under the iDICE programme, with the government's cash sitting in a first-loss tranche to pull private money into venture funds that must back founders in all 36 states — an explicit bet on the Israeli Yozma playbook.
41d ago - Startups
The exit era: how Africa's tech giants started buying the future instead of raising for it
Fewer cheques, bigger companies. As venture rounds thin out, Africa's scaled players — Flutterwave, Moniepoint, LemFi — are growing by acquisition, and 2026 is turning consolidation from a footnote into the main strategy.
41d ago - Startups
Google and four of Africa's top VC funds open an Applied AI Lab in Accra — with frontier models on the table
Google's AI Futures Fund has launched the Africa Applied AI Lab at the Accra AI Community Centre, with Novastar Ventures, 4DX Ventures, Norrsken22 and Ventures Platform as venture partners. Five to ten startups will get pre-release access to Gemini, Gemma and Veo — and a straight line from African research to funded, market-ready product.
42d ago - Startups
African startups raise $1.5bn in H1 2026 as equity roars back — and Kenya leads
A rebound in equity funding pushed African startup investment to about $1.5 billion across 137 deals in the first half of 2026, with Kenya out front and fintech still the continent's magnet for capital.
45d ago - Startups
Spiro's $270m raise supercharges Africa's electric-motorbike revolution
Electric-mobility company Spiro has pulled in about $270 million in fresh equity — one of 2026's largest African rounds — to scale the battery-swap networks powering the continent's two-wheelers.
45d ago
