Q1 2026 Private Capital in Africa Activity Report
Analysing trends in private capital activity in Africa.
Key takeaways
Transaction activity declined despite stronger headline value: Africa recorded 172 private market transactions in Q1 2026, down from 188 in Q4 2025 and 201 in Q1 2025, even as disclosed deal value rose sharply to $16.1 billion.
Landmark Nigerian infrastructure deals drove value growth: The increase in disclosed deal value was largely driven by the $6.2 billion MTN–IHS transaction and the $4 billion Dangote Refinery financing, both in Nigeria.
Mid-market activity strengthened despite fewer mega deals: While the share of mega deals declined, large transactions ($25 million–$75 million) increased modestly, indicating a broader base of mid-sized deal activity.
Egypt dominated mid-market activity, led by real estate financing: Egyptian companies accounted for 55% of all large transactions, with a cluster of real estate financing deals highlighting strong capital deployment into urban development.
Mobility investments concentrated in East Africa: Investor interest in mobility solutions remained strong, with East Africa as the hub for electric vehicle, battery-swapping, and vehicle financing platforms.
Early-stage AI investment continued to gain traction: Artificial intelligence startups like Cybervergent and KNOT Technologies attracted early-stage investment in the period, reflecting the gradual emergence of AI-focused innovation on the continent.
M&A activity remained a significant component of deal flow: Mergers and acquisitions accounted for nearly a quarter of all transactions, with continued consolidation among African fintech and technology companies.
Financial Services maintained dominance, driven by MSME lending: Financial Services accounted for 29% of all transactions, with MSME lending alone representing nearly a tenth of total deal activity.
Agriculture saw fewer debt deals as M&A activity increased: Only 30% of Agriculture transactions involved debt financing, while consolidation activity picked up, signalling a shift in how capital is deployed in the sector.
West Africa led Financial Services activity: West Africa accounted for 48% of all Financial Services transactions, reinforcing its position as the continent’s primary hub for fintech and lending activity.
Overview of private capital transaction activity
Private market activity in Africa began 2026 on a relatively subdued note, with 172 recorded transactions in Q1 2026, down from 188 in Q4 2025 and 201 in the corresponding period last year. Despite the decline in transaction volumes and a lower disclosure rate quarter-on-quarter (58% in Q1 2026 vs. 65% in Q4 2025), disclosed transaction values increased significantly to $16.1 billion, up from $14.1 billion in Q4 2025 and $5.8 billion in Q1 2025.
This rise in disclosed value was largely driven by two landmark transactions in Nigeria: MTN Group’s $6.2 billion acquisition of IHS Holding Limited’s Nigerian operations and the Afreximbank-led $4 billion debt financing for the Dangote Petroleum Refinery. Together, these transactions accounted for approximately 63% of total disclosed deal value in the quarter.
The concentration of value in a small number of large-scale transactions underscores the continued investor appetite for opportunities that address critical infrastructure gaps in Africa’s largest economy, particularly in telecommunications and energy.
Ticket sizes: Large transactions dominate, driven by activity in Egypt
Despite the two outlier transactions, the share of mega deals declined slightly in Q1 2026, falling to 16% from 22% in the previous quarter, though remaining above the 11% recorded in Q1 2025. In contrast, there was a modest increase in large-sized transactions ($25 million–$75 million), indicating a broader base of mid-market activity during the quarter.
A notable feature of this segment was the strong concentration of large transactions in Egypt. Incredibly, Egyptian companies accounted for 55% of all large deals in Q1 2026, including these notable transactions:
Commercial International Bank’s (CIB) $72 million investment in Paradise Textiles to support the development of a fabric manufacturing plant in Egypt.
Development Partners International’s (DPI) $50 million growth equity investment in Egyptian discount retailer Kazyon.
Banque du Caire’s $26.5 million investment in Kandil Glass Group, a packaging manufacturer serving the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries.
Significant investment in the real estate sector: Mixed-use developer Marakez secured two EGP 3 billion ($63.8 million) facilities from Banque Misr and KFH-Egypt, while the National Bank of Egypt and Bank Al Baraka Egypt jointly provided a $30.1 million syndicated loan to Al Qamzi Developments, a developer focused on high-end residential communities and coastal resorts
These trends emphasise Egypt’s place as a key destination for mid-sized capital, particularly in sectors tied to domestic consumption, manufacturing, and urban development.
Venture Activity in Q1’2026
Egyptian appeal: Venture capital deals further emphasise the pattern in Egypt - the largest venture deal was a $50m pre-series C for Breadfast, a Cairo-based online grocery delivery service, which was led by the Mubadala Investment Company, while Flextock, an e-commerce logistics and enablement company, completed a $12.6 million Series A round led by TLCom Capital.
Mobility sector: Congruent Ventures led a $25 million Series A for Zeno Moto India Private Limited, an electric two-wheeler and battery-swapping company, further showcasing the investment appeal of the electric two-wheeler and battery-as-a-service markets in the region.
Mobility solutions attracted investor interest in general across the continent. GoCab, a drive-to-own vehicle financing company in Côte d'Ivoire, secured a bumper $45 million seed round, with $15 million in equity led by E3 Capital and Janngo Capital, and $30 million in debt from Cur8 Capital and other lenders. And in Morocco, urban mobility startup 22 Mobility Maroc secured a $2.3 million seed investment.
Emerging AI investments: Early-stage artificial intelligence (AI) investments continued to pick up in Africa. First, Ventures Platform and Atlantica Ventures made a $3 million seed investment in Cybervergent, a Nigeria-based technology company that provides an AI-native governance, risk, and compliance platform for enterprise clients. Then, A15 invested $1 million in KNOT Technologies, an AI-native ticketing and access-control platform for live-event organisations in North Africa.
Mergers & Acquisitions in Q1 2026
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) continued to contribute to private capital activity across Africa in Q1 2026, accounting for nearly a quarter of all recorded transactions. Several notable transactions took place during the quarter, including the MTN Group's landmark $6.2 billion purchase of IHS Holding Limited in Nigeria and The Beverage Company (a subsidiary of India-based Varun) acquiring South African non-alcoholic beverages manufacturer Twizza for $123 million.
Notably, a number of African startups and scaleups continued the inorganic expansion strategy we began to see in 2024, with the most notable moves in the fintech sector:
African fintech unicorn Flutterwave acquired Mono, a Nigerian open banking infrastructure company, in an all-stock transaction valued between $25 million and $40 million.
Moneipoint acquired Orda (Star Kitchens Group Inc.), a cloud kitchen and restaurant technology company that began operations in Nigeria.
Trove, one of Africa’s earliest digital wealth management startups, acquired UCML Securities Limited, a licensed brokerage firm, thereby bringing its brokerage operations in-house.
Paystack acquired Ladder Microfinance Bank in Nigeria.
Egyptian circular economy platform Dawar took a strategic stake in the consumer recycling app BekyaPay, a company that has been operating for less than a year, as it seeks to extend its digital oversight to the household level.
Exit Analysis: Ecosystem liquidity softened by the absence of international buyers
The first quarter of 2026 saw a number of notable exits in Africa’s private capital market, boosting ecosystem liquidity. The most notable exits were:
Global impact and agri-business investor Truvalu exited its investment in GrowPact Kitale in Kenya to a Dutch family office.
Adenia Partners acquired a majority stake in Parkville Pharmaceuticals, an Egyptian pharmaceutical company, enabling an exit for Admaius Capital.
Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), through its project development arm InfraCo, exited its $26 million preference share investment in InfraCredit in Nigeria. InfraCo retains its ordinary shareholding following InfraCredit’s listing on the NASD OTC Securities Exchange in mid-2025.
Agile Capital, RMB Corvest and other shareholders exited Feedem Group, one of the largest independently owned service providers in the South African catering industry, in a sale to Empact Group.
PCM Capital Partners completed a full exit from First Atlantic Bank in Ghana following the company’s listing on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).
Overall, it was a decent quarter for exits. Although total exit counts were down from previous quarters, this can be traced to the lower overall deal count—on a proportional basis, exits were stable quarter-on-quarter and higher year-on-year. Despite this, the Stears-Ventures Platform Liquidity Index (SVL Index), a unique gauge of ecosystem liquidity that measures the rate of exits alongside key variables such as the diversity of buyers and exit routes, indicates slightly softer liquidity conditions at the start of 2026, with the SVL index declining from 123.44 in Q4’2025 to 113.53 in Q1’2026 (an SVL index score of 100 means average liquidity conditions). This decline was mainly due to the absence of international buyers in the quarter’s exit activity, meaning fresh capital came mainly from within the continent. The participation of international acquirers typically plays a critical role in strengthening exit pathways by expanding the pool of strategic buyers, introducing additional liquidity, and often supporting more competitive valuations for assets.
Q1 2026 Investor League Table
Multilateral Development Banks came to the fore at the start of 2026, with African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) leading the way with 12 transactions, followed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Afreximbank’s prominence in the quarter was tied to the launch of the inaugural Afreximbank Accelerator Programme, under which provided $0.25 million in seed capital to eight African startups, including OnePort 365, a multi-country digital freight management platform and Zowasel, a Nigeria-based digital agricultural marketplace. Even with this though, the bank still participated in some of the most significant transactions in the quarter, including the $4 billion Dangote Petroleum Refinery debt deal, a $50 million term loan for Spiro—further highlighting the investment appeal of e-mobility solutions in East Africa—and a $1.75 billion syndicated investment in Sonangol, Angola's state-owned national oil company. All three investments show Afreximbank’s focus on boosting energy and transport infrastructure to enable greater intra-Africa trade.
Beyond these multi-lateral agencies, Amethis Investment Fund Manager was highly active in the quarter, leading investments across commercial fund managers, with investments in Côte d’Ivoire (ADEMAT), Egypt (Tiba Starch & Glucose Manufacturing), and Francophone Africa (Overseas Catering Services).
Q1 2026 Sectoral Insights
Sectoral activity remained roughly the same quarter-on-quarter, with Financial Services (29%) recording the highest deal activity, and the other members of the dominant five—Industrials, Energy & Utilities, Information Technology, Consumer Discretionary—just trailing behind. And transaction activity was even more concentrated among the dominant five, which accounted for 85% of all deals, up from 77% in the preceding quarter.
No surprise then that Financial Services sub-sectors led the way on a sub-sector basis, with MSME Lending alone accounting for almost a tenth of all African transactions in the quarter. One of the most notable lending deals in the quarter saw Beltone Holdings acquire the Baobab Group’s African operations for roughly $235 million—a seismic deal given Baobab’s lending footprint and density on the continent. At the smaller scale, Fido secured a $5.5 million term loan from Symbiotics Asset Management.
Outside financial services, infrastructure was a key focus, with Independent Power Producers like Afreenergy Solar Limited (Senegal) and Telecommunications Infrastructure firms like iSAT Africa Mauritius Limited (Liberia and Zambia) securing notable investments. The Communication Services also saw notable M&A activity, from the large-scale IHS Holdings acquisition to the smaller-scale merger between Legend Internet and Spectranet Limited.
Transaction types across sectors
Looking at transaction types across sectors, equity investments remained the dominant type in most sectors, with a few exceptions. As usual, the greatest share of Energy & Utilities transactions were debt-based (58%), but, less usually, only 30% of Agriculture transactions were debt financing. Instead, debt deals were more prominent in Real Estate (60%) and Materials (50%).
Meanwhile, mergers & acquisitions (M&A) transactions were most prominent in Communication Services (31%) and Industrials (30%), with notable deals including the oft-mentioned IHS Holdings acquisition, as well as Fera Science's acquisition of Qotho Minerals' operations in South Africa.
In terms of exits, agriculture stood out, with 30% of recorded transactions involving a reported investor exit, including JSE-listed Zeder Investments' exit from Zaad as part of the Phatisa Food Fund 3-led acquisition, while Phatia itself secured an exit (alongside AgDevCo) after Vanden Avenne Group's majority acquisition of Goldenlay, Zambia’s largest egg producer.
Regional Dynamics
Although West Africa retained its spot at the top of regional rankings (37% of transactions), North Africa surprisingly rose to second (30%), helped by Egypt’s strong showing in the quarter. Meanwhile, Southern Africa dropped to fourth (25%), despite having the second-highest aggregate disclosed transaction value in the quarter, behind only West Africa.
In terms of country trends within regions:
Central Africa: Activity was once again concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Cameroon. Only one reported Central African deal did not include either of these two countries: BFA Asset Management's $1.2 million investment in Anda's Operations in Angola. At a stretch, the $1.75 billion Sonangol deal could be included here, but the oil giant has significant operations in DRC amongst others.
East Africa: As always, Kenya led in East Africa, contributing twice as many deals as the next country (Uganda) and 21% of all East African deals were single-country Kenyan deals, i.e. involved a company with only Kenyan operations. One such deal was the $5 million IFC-led Series A raised by Arc Ride, yet another electric vehicle operator that secured funding in the quarter.
Southern Africa: South Africa dominated the region, representing 77% of transactions. Impressively, though, Zambia accounted for 28% of all Southern African deals and even 14% of all single country deals in the region. This included the aforementioned Goldenlay acquisition, as well as an $11.25 million Series A round for Lupiya Financial Services led by IDF Capital and Alitheia Capital.
West Africa: Nigeria was the dominant country in the region, accounting for 65% of all transactions in the quarter.
North Africa: Egypt accounted for 67% of all North African transactions, but this does not capture its dominance. Looking at single country deals, single country Egypt deals accounted for 60% of the regional total and an impressive 18% of all African private capital transactions in Q1’2026.
Q1 2026 Country Insights
Nigeria continued to lead the way for all transactions, but as we have already seen, Egypt was the star in single-country transactions, recording almost double (31) the number as the next country (Nigeria: 18).
Overall, the Big Five—Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, and South Africa—led the way in terms of overall deal activity, but Ghana’s deal count was matched by Uganda, while it was usurped by Morocco and Zambia in single-country transactions. This suggests that while Ghana remains an attractive investment destination, a significant share of activity in the country is linked to multi-country investments originating from Nigeria, such as British International investment $15 million mezzanine debt financing for Starsight Energy, a Pan-African Commercial & Industrial (C&I) solar provider and a $24 million fundraise by Metro Africa Xpress Inc. (MAX), a logistics and transportation company that began in Nigeria.
Transaction Types across regions
Debt financing was most prominent in North and Central Africa, which together accounted for the majority of debt activity on the continent. 38% of North African transactions and 40% of Central African transactions were debt-financed, even though debt deals accounted for only 28% of total African transactions.
M&A transactions were most common in Southern Africa, which accounted for 33% of all M&A deals on the continent, but West Africa actually contributed more to M&A transactions (36%), mainly because it recorded much more transactions than Southern Africa in the period. In total, 33% of Southern African transactions involved mergers or acquisitions, including the $89 million Phatisa-led Zaad acquisition and The Beverage Company (a subsidiary of India-based Varun) acquisition of South Africa’s Twizza in the non-alcoholic beverages industry.
When it came to exits, West and Southern Africa led the way, accounting for 43% and 39% of exits in the period, respectively. Southern African had a higher exit ratio, with 26% of reported Southern African deals involving an exiting investor. In contrast, exits were scarce in North and Central Africa, both in absolute and proportional terms: just one exit was recorded in Central Africa while North Africa only had two.
Sectoral trends across regions
Analysis of sectoral transaction activity across regions shows the prominence of Financial Services at the start of 2026. Financial Services emerged as the leading sector in all regions except Central Africa, where Industrials took the top position. Further down the list, there were several standout sectors within regions.
Southern Africa: Apart from Financial Services, two sectors stood out: Information Technology and Communication Services.
Information Technology performed strongly in Southern Africa, recording the third-highest share (21%) of regional transactions, compared to the continental average of 13%, and ranking behind only Financial Services and Industrials. Southern African Information Technology deals also accounted for 39% of the continental total for that sector. Of these transactions, a few were notable:
The first institutional funding round for Yazi Research, a South Africa-based AI research platform that delivers market insights via WhatsApp. The funding amount from sole investor 3Capital Ventures was undisclosed, but reportedly valued the company just under $2 million.
Gallagher Security, a global leader in integrated security solutions, made a strategic investment in B2B SaaS provider Kenai Platform after years of collaboration. Kenai Platform specialises in workplace access control and management solutions.
Orca Fraud, a real-time fraud intelligence platform, completed a $2.35 million seed investment in a round led by Norrsken22 Management, with participation from OneDayYes, CV VC Africa, and Enza Capital.
Likewise, the Communications Services industry performed well in Southern Africa, representing 16% of all transactions in the region, double the continental average. Investments were notably directed towards internet services, with fundraises for Adnotes, an internet service provider (ISP) and Talk360 Group, a VoIP technology firm, both of whom specialise in expanding internet and data connectivity solutions to underserved communities, and
East Africa: The Financial Services sector was particularly active in East Africa, representing 38% of all transactions in the region, while East African Financial Services transactions accounted for 36% of the sector total in the period, only behind West Africa (48%), which had more transactions overall. Here, Uganda was a standout country (albeit still lagging Kenya even in Financial Services). Symbiotics Asset Management SA provided a $4 million term loan to Platinum Credit Uganda Limited, a microfinance institution specialising in non-deposit-taking consumer and small-business credit. Meanwhile, MSME lending was an attractive sector in the country during the period, as Fido (originally from Ghana before expanding into Uganda) and 4G Capital secured significant funding rounds.
West Africa: The Financial Services sector was also particularly active in West Africa, as the region accounted for 48% of all Financial Services deals on the continent in Q1’2026, a sharp illustration of the dominance of West African financial services—and fintech, in particular—in African private investments.
M&A activity was particularly rife, highlighted by the following transactions:
Vista Group Holding’s majority acquisition of Saham Assurances Operations in Niger. Now operating as Vista Assurances Niger, the firm is a non-life insurance company that provides property and casualty insurance. The transaction is a boon to West Africa’s under-tapped insurance industry.
Coris Holding's $95.5 million majority acquisition of Banco Comercial do Atlântico, a commercial bank in Cabo Verde.
Nigerian payments giants Paystack and Moniepoint both completed notable acquisitions. The former acquired Ladder Microfinance Bank while the latter acquired Mono.
North Africa: As highlighted earlier in the report, the North African Consumer Discretionary industry was highly active, driven by healthy investor appetite for Egyptian assets. North African Consumer Discretionary transactions accounted for 48% of all Consumer Discretionary in Africa in Q1’2026, even though North Africa accounted for just 24% of all transactions in the period. These included the $50 million Pre-Series C for online grocer Breadfast, another $50 million investment, this time by Development Partners International in Egyptian discount retailer Kayzon, and the acquisition of Mitcha, an Egyptian e-commerce platform, by Converted, an AI-driven advertising company.
Central Africa: The Industrials sector was relatively active in Central Africa. Whilst the region accounted for just 15% of all Industrial transactions (the lowest-ranking region), this must be considered against the context that Central Africa represented just 9% of all African private transactions in Q1’2026 and the Industrials sector contributed 27% of all Central African deals, the highest across all sectors.
Methodology
This report is derived exclusively from the Stears Private Transactions Database, accessible through the Stears Data Platform. The database monitors private market activity in Africa, focusing on growth equity, private equity, private debt, infrastructure financing, and mergers and acquisitions. Transactions in the database are compiled from reliable third-party sources, including company websites, press releases, and investor reports, with each transaction independently verified by at least two separate sources.
Geographical and Sector Classifications
A single transaction may be associated with multiple countries/regions or sectors, reflecting the operational scope of the company involved. Consequently, regional and sector totals often exceed the underlying total number of transactions. As such, percentage shares in geographical and sector analyses will not sum to 100%.
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