African startups raised $151 million in March 2026 across equity, debt and grant rounds exceeding $100,000, according to data from Africa: The Big Deal.
The figure marks a sharp rebound compared to March 2025, when funding was nearly three times lower. However, the March 2026 total still falls short of the average monthly funding of $266 million recorded over the previous twelve months.
“This average reflects a highly volatile market, alternating between strong momentum and sharp slowdowns,” the platform noted, highlighting a peak of $554 million in July 2025 against a low of $52 million in March of that same year.
Over the full period from April 2025 to March 2026, African startups raised a total of $3.3 billion, split between $1.8 billion in equity and $1.4 billion in debt.
The more worrying sign, according to Africa: The Big Deal, is the declining number of funding rounds. Only 22 startups raised money in March, the lowest monthly number recorded since the platform began tracking deals above $100,000 in 2021.
Over the past twelve months, only 130 companies raised between $100,000 and $500,000 in equity, the lowest figure since at least 2021. A year ago, that number still exceeded 150 companies.
Thus, while total funding volumes have held up, they increasingly rely on a smaller number of large transactions, often structured as debt. According to the report, this concentration raises questions about the health of the current startup-financing dynamic, particularly as access to capital remains uneven and constrained for a large share of early-stage ventures.
March was overwhelmingly dominated by debt financing. Of the $151 million raised, just $55 million came from equity, compared to $96 million in debt, nearly two-thirds of the monthly total.
This trend carried into the first quarter of 2026 (January–March), which saw total funding just below $600 million. Equity accounted for $291 million and debt $304 million, spread across 83 companies.
That structure marks a sharp contrast with the first quarter of 2025, when total funding was lower at $469 million but equity dominated at $397 million (nearly 89% of the total), with only $52 million in debt. The number of funded companies was also higher a year ago, at 130 startups.
