- African tech funding rebounded in H1 2025 to $1.42B across 243 deals (+~78% YoY), led by fintech at ~45% of capital.
- M&A accelerated to 29 deals in H1 2025, signaling a shift from fundraising-led growth to consolidation for scale and regulatory access.
- Flutterwave’s all-stock acquisition of Mono ($25–40M) underscores fintech vertical integration into open banking, identity/verification, and bank-payments infrastructure.
- Mono’s ~8M bank linkages and ~$17.5M raised helped deliver strong investor outcomes (up to ~20×), while execution hinges on integration and uneven open-banking regulation.
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Investors in Africa’s tech ecosystem are increasingly prioritizing fewer, higher-value transactions over sheer deal volume. The funding rebound in the first half of 2025—$1.42B across 243 deals—illustrates this recalibration; although the number of deals fell relative to peaks, total capital deployed rose sharply (~78%) year-over-year, especially concentrated in fintech, healthcare, and energy sectors.
Mergers and acquisitions have become an essential lever for achieving scale, regulatory access, and cross-market expansion. 29 M&A deals in just H1 2025 already outpaced full-year historic records, paving the way for strategic consolidation. Fintech was particularly active, with players acquiring capabilities beyond payments—into identity, open banking, and data infrastructure.
The acquisition of Mono by Flutterwave—a transaction valued between $25M and $40M in an all-stock deal—exemplifies this trend. Mono’s API platform, serving over 8 million bank account linkages (~12% of Nigeria’s banked population), and its roughly $17.5M in pre-acquisition funding means investors not only recovered capital but early backers saw up to 20× returns.
Strategically, this deal enables Flutterwave to incorporate data, verification, and direct bank payments into its payments stack, reducing reliance on third parties and increasing platform stickiness. It also reinforces how critical open banking will be for credit-led financial inclusion in an environment where formal credit data remains sparse.
However, challenges include uneven regulatory frameworks for open banking across African markets, competition among infrastructure players (e.g., Okra, Stitch), and risk of overpaying in integrations. Companies must assess not only synergy but also operational integration, compliance, and retention of Mono’s innovation post-acquisition. The all-stock nature of the deal also spreads risk across ownership stakes, though it may limit upside for cash-return seekers.
For investors and startups, open questions include: which markets will lead regulatory standardization for open banking; how well acquirers can retain identity/data teams; and what margin expansion can be achieved by combining data and payment flows. Sectors like fintech infrastructure, healthtech, and climate tech may witness further M&A as capital flows tighten for earlier-stage startups.
Supporting Notes
- In H1 2025, African tech startups secured $1.42B across 243 deals—a 78.3% rise from the same period in 2024.
- Fintech alone raised $638.8M in H1 2025, nearly 45% of total funding; energy, healthcare, and housing followed.
- M&A activity totaled 29 deals in H1 2025, the highest for any half‐year on record and 45% more than H1 2024.
- Flutterwave acquired Mono in an all-stock transaction valued between $25–40M.
- Mono had raised ~$17.5M prior to acquisition and had secured over 8 million bank account linkages (about 12% of Nigeria’s banked population), plus delivered 100 billion financial data points.
- Mono’s investors not only recovered capital in the acquisition; some early backers realized returns of up to 20×.