Africa Investment Report 2025

The Africa Investment Report is Briter’s flagship annual publication and the largest report we have produced to date. It brings together research and insights from Briter Intelligence, alongside learnings from our direct market engagement with hundreds of businesses and investors throughout the year. The Africa Investment Report 2025 is the sixth edition of this publication.

The 2025 Africa Investment Report is a data-driven overview of investment trends across the continent, powered by Briter Intelligence. Built on Briter’s proprietary datasets, the report examines how Africa’s investment landscape has evolved following the 2022–2023 market correction, with a specific focus on activity in 2025.

The analysis explores where capital is flowing, which sectors and business models are proving most resilient, and which investors have remained active as markets recalibrated. It also looks at how funding dynamics differ across stages, from early-stage experimentation to growth capital, and how geography continues to shape outcomes. While the Big Four markets remain the primary anchors of deal activity and capital concentration, the data highlights shifting roles within this group and signs of broader participation beyond the usual hubs. Together, these patterns offer insight into how Africa’s investment ecosystem is stabilising and where it may be heading next.

Key insights from the year include:

1. African companies disclosed $3.8B in funding in 2025, with volume up by 32% and the number of announced deals rising 8% year on year.
2. The Big Four raised the most funding: South Africa (32%), Kenya (29%), Egypt (15%) and Nigeria (8%). Nigeria recorded its lowest funding share since 2019 but the highest number of deals in 2025.
3. Fintech and digital financial services remained the most funded sector by value and deal count, while climate-focused solutions recorded the fastest growth, raising more than three times their 2024 total.
4. Solar energy was the top-funded category in 2025, reflecting increased investor focus on infrastructure-like clean tech models with predictable returns.
5. AI emerged as one of the most closely watched areas of new investment, with activity largely concentrated in applied use cases rather than deep R and D.
6. Funding is becoming structurally more uneven across stages, with growth capital increasingly concentrated while early-stage finance and the middle remain fragmented and fragile.
7. 63 acquisitions were announced, with only five disclosed transaction values, half of which involved startups acquiring other startups.
8. Excluding $100M+ mega-deals, the average deal size reached its highest level since 2018. Fewer than 5% of deals exceeded $50M, yet these accounted for half of disclosed funding.
9. Equity remained the dominant funding instrument, while debt surpassed $1B for the first time in a decade.
10. Non-Western countries, including Japan and the GCC, are emerging as increasingly important sources of capital.
11. The funding gender gap persists, with less than 10% of funding going to companies with at least one female founder.
12. Compared with other emerging markets, Africa’s investment landscape is more diverse, particularly in debt, but remains concentrated in a small number of markets and models, with limited exit pathways.

Whether you are an investor, policymaker, or entrepreneur, the report provides a clear, data-backed view of how the African investment ecosystem is evolving and where future opportunities may lie.

As a business intelligence and research firm focused on emerging markets, Briter combines company intelligence with real-time funding data to map activity across high-growth sectors including fintech, cleantech, agtech, and healthtech. Through its integrated tools, Briter Intelligence for deal tracking and Briter AgBase for agriculture and agri-food data, Briter delivers consistent, comparable insights to support informed decision-making.

For longer-term context, readers can also refer to the End-of-Year 2024 Africa Investment Report: https://www.briter.co/insights/reports/africa-investment-report-2024