No fewer than 37 start-ups in Africa announced a total of $135m in funding through $100k+ deals (equity, debt, grants; excl. exits) in May 2026.
According to the latest stats shared by Africa: The Big Deal, deal activity improved again after April (32) and the March low (22), but remains below the previous 12-month average (45 deals/month). From a total funding raised perspective, May was better than April ($110m) but lower than March ($150m), and significantly below the previous 12-month average ($255m/month).
The more structural signal sits again in the instrument mix. May was almost perfectly balanced between equity ($65m) and debt ($68) (with an extra $2m in grants). And that balance is not just a May quirk: it’s broadly what the market looks like now, a marked shift from 12–18 months ago, when the ecosystem was much more equity-led, with an equity share over 70%. In terms of how many ventures raised by instrument, equity continues to lead: 22 ventures raised equity, 7 raised debt, and 8 raised (small) grants. Zooming out, the year-to-date picture reinforces that same story. 2026 YTD (Jan–May) now stands at $843m across 160 $100k+ deals, split almost evenly between equity and debt. In other words: deal flow is recovering off March’s trough, but the market’s “engine” remains the same, with debt doing a lot of the work to keep totals afloat.
May’s headline total was also heavily shaped by four transactions: Nala’s $50m credit facility, LemFi’s $30m Series B extension, Africa GreenCo’s $10m raise, and Bfree’s $10m round add up to $100m, i.e. roughly three quarters of the $135m announced in May. We also recorded six exits in May (not counted in the totals). One deserves a specific mention: Ghana-born insure tech pioneer Bima – whose corporate footprint has long since expanded globally – is being acquired for $119m. That’s a meaningful reminder that, even in a month where primary funding totals remain muted, liquidity events are still happening in the background, and sometimes at non-trivial sizes.
While the sample is small, we can note that geographically, West Africa and East Africa attracted ~85% of the total amount raised in May (Nigeria alone accounted for ~64% of all equity raised across the continent), though the picture is more balanced when you look at deal count, not just amount. Sector-wise, fintech once again did the heavy lifting on amount raised driven by both the Nala and LemFi tickets. The signal is familiar: a reasonably diverse set of ventures getting funded, but a disproportionate share of the amount raised still hinging on a handful of larger transactions.
Net-net, May looks consistent with the emerging 2026 “new normal”: 30–40 deals/month, $100m–$200m/month, and a funding mix where debt plays an outsized stabilising role. That profile is notably softer than 2025, when the market’s run-rate was closer to ~50 deals/month and ~$300m/month across the year, and the mix materially more equity-led. But the June 1st Spiro announcement – and hopefully more of the like – might help prop up the H1 numbers. We’ll know that in month’s time.
