This article was originally published on TechCabal Insights and was written by Joseph Oloyede, Analyst at TechCabal Insights.
Africa’s startup ecosystem has officially raised $1.3 billion as of Wednesday, June 3. From a very busy first five months of the year, the ecosystem is showing incredible speed in just 3 days into June. This is a clear sign that even with a tough global economy, investors still have a strong interest in African innovation.
The H1 race: 2025 vs. 2026
This year is proving to be a story of resilience. At this same time last year (January-May 2025), we tracked $1.056B. This year, we are very close to that pace with $1.044B raised so far.
The most exciting part is the final stretch of the first half of the year. In the first half of 2025, startups raised a total of $1.42B. June 2026 has already kicked off with its first massive mega deal, with Spiro raising $215M on the first day of the month. This injection pushes the current 2026 total to $1.3B. With about 27 days left until the end of H1 2026, the ecosystem needs just $121M more to surpass last year’s entire first-half record.
