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In January, a group of African investors and executives, including Tomi Davies, the founding president of the African Business Angel Network (ABAN), and Babs Ogundeyi, CEO of Nigerian neobank Kuda, smiled for pictures at the London Stock Exchange to launch the Africa Tech 50 Index (AT50), a quarterly, rules-based benchmark measuring how prepared African startups are for public listings. The AT50 assesses companies using a six-pillar framework covering valuation momentum, revenue strength, liquidity, corporate governance maturity, expansion strategy, and broader market signals. “The goal is to make Africa’s most scaled private companies visible through a framework global capital can see, trust, and price,” said Karima El Hakim, a partner at Plug and Play and a member of the AT50 Governance Council. An independent governance council oversees the index to ensure discipline and uniform application of its rules. “It’s exciting because it gives a lot of awareness to African companies,” said Ogundeyi, adding that African startups could potentially list on the London bourse. The search for exit pathways in African tech has now set eyes on the London Stock Exchange, after a decade in which billions of dollars from U.S. and European development finance institutions and venture capital firms poured into African tech, with few comparable exits. Since 2019, over 20 African startups, including MNT-Halan, Flutterwave, Wave, and M-KOPA, have raised mega rounds and are now approaching a decade in operation without listing publicly. A benchmark such as the AT50 could help bridge that gap, giving mature startups greater visibility with later-stage investors and creating clearer pathways to growth capital or eventual exits. “If a company comes in on the AT50, they are potentially on the pathway to being able to raise capital on the private market of the London Stock Exchange,” said Sir John Lazar, the president of the Royal Academy of Engineering. “What we want is an IPO in London of an African tech company.” For this week’s Ask an Investor, I spoke to Gbite Oduneye, who chairs the AT50, via email to understand why now is a good time for the index, what African startups have missed when exiting globally, how the index requires disclosures, the business model behind the index, and what this could change for African tech. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You’ve described AT50 as market infrastructure, not hype. What specific market failure are you correcting? Africa does not have a capital shortage. It has a capital translation gap. Private companies scaled. Public markets did not receive a structured, comparable pipeline. AT50 builds the missing institutional layer between private scale and public capital. African tech companies have raised billions privately. Why do you think it hasn’t translated into public-market pathways? Private markets priced momentum. Public markets’ price discipline. Growth was funded. Governance maturity was not institutionalised early enough. AT50 introduces that discipline before listing, not after. What changed in the last 24 months that made this index necessary now? The reset exposed the difference between narrative and durability. Capital became selective. Exchanges became proactive. Secondary liquidity became structural. Infrastructure had to catch up with maturity. What is the biggest illusion in African private tech valuations today? Valuation is negotiated. Readiness is audited. That gap explains much of the friction. After investing £1 billion in Africa in 2024, BII’s Africa head explains the sectors driving its biggest bets Governance maturity is one of your pillars. How do you measure it? The AT50 measures this through observable institutional signals. The first is board structure and independence, auditing readiness and reporting cadence, committee architecture, the startup’s regulatory posture, and its disclosure behaviour. Governance is not opinion. It is structure. Will AT50 require companies to disclose metrics that they previously kept private? We do not compel disclosure, but we reward verifiable transparency. Signal strength increases with disclosure discipline. What level of financial transparency should African late-stage companies realistically be prepared for today? Audit-grade reporting. Consistent metrics. Board-level oversight. Institutional cadence. Public markets are not allergic to growth. They are allergic to opacity. You referenced credible liquidity pathways. What does ‘credible’ mean in the AT50 context? Credible means structured and defensible. IPO readiness. Dual listing feasibility. Regulated secondary liquidity. Strategic exits with institutional governance. Not aspiration. Preparation. Are you envisioning IPOs in London or dual listings, or domestic exchanges? Venue is secondary. Standards are primary. Africa’s growth story must be priced locally but recognised globally. Stronger domestic listings aligned to international comparability create long-term depth. Is there enough depth in African public markets to absorb scaled tech listings today? Depth grows with supply quality. Markets do not deepen from sentiment. They deepen from repeatable issuer readiness. What would have to change structurally for Lagos, Nairobi, or Johannesburg to host meaningful tech IPOs? Issuer preparation must begin earlier. Listing rules must accommodate growth companies. Analyst coverage and liquidity support must improve. Governance enforcement must be consistent. Preparation cannot begin at filing. It must begin years earlier. International investors often price Africa with a structural risk premium. Can an index realistically reduce that? An index does not eliminate risk. It reduces uncertainty. Uncertainty is what inflates pricing friction. Repeated comparability reduces uncertainty over time. AT50 is governed under the IOSCO-aligned benchmark discipline. That matters because global allocators understand those standards. Image source: Africa Tech 50 Index (AT50). How do you compare fintech in Nigeria to SaaS in Egypt to mobility in Kenya within one index? We do not compare sectors. We compare readiness architecture. Revenue strength, governance maturity, liquidity visibility, strategic expansion, valuation momentum, and market signal. Sector nuance is contextualised, not flattened. What is the long-term business model behind Indexa Exchange Group? Indexa Exchange Group operates as a benchmark infrastructure platform. Our revenue streams include institutional subscriptions, index licensing, and exchange and capital markets partnerships. Commercial scaling follows institutional credibility. What revenue threshold makes a company realistically IPO-ready in this environment? There is no magic number. IPO readiness is the convergence of durable revenue, governance maturity, audit discipline, and market timing. Revenue without structure does not
Read MoreLoftyInc Capital, a pan-African venture capital firm, has co-led a $4 million seed round in Moroccan fintech startup WafR, one of the first investments from its newly launched Alpha Fund, signaling a stronger bet on North Africa. The round was co-led alongside Attijariwafa Ventures and Almada Ventures, with participation from UM6P Ventures and First Circle Capital. The funding highlights Morocco’s rising profile in Africa’s venture landscape; the country’s startups raised $58 million in 2025, placing seventh on the continent for capital raised. It also signals a broader shift in fintech strategy. As capital begins flowing more deliberately across regional boundaries, investors like LoftyInc are backing infrastructure-focused startups that embed financial services into informal retail networks. Founded in 2021 to digitise Morocco’s neighbourhood corner stores, known locally as hanouts, WafR enables merchants to offer services such as airtime sales and bill payments through a digital platform. The company plans to expand into peer-to-peer transfers and domestic remittances, positioning small retailers as financial access points in a market where informal commerce remains central to daily life. “We are proud to co-lead this round and champion WafR’s bold mission,” said Mariam Kamel, partner at LoftyInc Capital. “This investment exemplifies our commitment to backing strong founders in high-potential markets who are solving foundational challenges.” With nearly 20,000 corner stores active on its platform, WafR is building one of Morocco’s largest merchant-based fintech networks. The backing of regional investors is expected to support further product expansion and geographic scale. “The entry of LoftyInc Capital, Attijariwafa Ventures, and Almada Ventures is a pivotal milestone,” said Ismail Bargach, WafR’s chief executive and co-founder. “Their support brings not just capital, but deep fintech experience and strong regional networks that will be instrumental as we scale our impact.” LoftyInc said its Alpha Fund focuses on late-seed and Series A startups that have demonstrated traction but face limited access to growth capital, which the firm describes as Africa’s “graduation gap.” The firm has previously backed fintech companies, including Flutterwave, Moove, and Wave. In North Africa, LoftyInc has also backed startups such as the Egyptian AI company WideBot, as well as Odiggo and Illa, reflecting its ongoing expansion in the region. Get The Best African Tech Newsletters In Your Inbox Select your country Nigeria Ghana Kenya South Africa Egypt Morocco Tunisia Algeria Libya Sudan Ethiopia Somalia Djibouti Eritrea Uganda Tanzania Rwanda Burundi Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Central African Republic Chad Cameroon Gabon Equatorial Guinea São Tomé and Príncipe Angola Zambia Zimbabwe Botswana Namibia Lesotho Eswatini Mozambique Madagascar Mauritius Seychelles Comoros Cape Verde Guinea-Bissau Senegal The Gambia Guinea Sierra Leone Liberia Côte d’Ivoire Burkina Faso Mali Niger Benin Togo Other Select your gender Male Female Others TC Daily TC Events Next wave Entering Tech Subscribe
Read MoreMarcello Schermer, who leads international expansion at Yoco, a South African digital payments startup, wants African fintechs to create products that nudge customers toward smarter decisions in real time. For him, fintechs should be more of a financial partner. Conversations about African startups today almost always circle back to fintech, a “leapfrog effect” that has reshaped how the world views the continent’s innovation. That shift is happening at scale. Africa now hosts more than 5,000 startups, a sharp rise in just a few years. Even as global venture capital cooled in 2024, the continent proved resilient, and fintech attracted over 40% of funding, about $1.37 billion. Thanks to investors who continued to bet on a young, urbanising population and digital infrastructure. Traditional banks, once the main gatekeepers of money, are steadily giving way to mobile wallets, digital kiosks, and all-in-one super-apps that now power everyday commerce from street markets to small businesses built around fintech. Nowhere is that transformation more visible than in the fintech sector itself. In Lagos and other commercial hubs, smartphones are the engines of trade. Fintech remains the heavyweight, accounting for over 30% of startups on the continent. “A few years ago, instant cross-border trade wasn’t possible,” Schermer told TechCabal in an interview. “ We relied on cash. Now, half of all transactions run on digital rails.” After a decade of startups digitising payments and expanding financial access, he believes the next phase is to become a true financial partner, with tools that not only record transactions but also guide smarter decisions in real time. “These changes may shift how fintechs do their business and how customers think about money and opportunity,” Schermer said. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. How would you describe the state of Africa’s fintech ecosystem right now? It’s a pretty exciting place to be. We’ve got one of the most mature financial services industries, particularly in the big four markets: Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. At the same time, we’re seeing a wave of new fintechs putting fresh spins on old models and finding real traction. Fintech is foundational infrastructure for the economy and for society. If people don’t have ways to earn, save, invest, and spend safely, a lot of other things break, because so much of life is tied to how you make and manage money. What’s beautiful is seeing fintechs across the continent build that foundational layer in their local contexts. In some markets, that means giving people access to crypto because it’s more stable than the local currency. In others, it’s aggregating multiple mobile money wallets so users can see everything in one place. Remittances are another big one: helping people send money home or across borders more efficiently. All of this gives people better tools to improve their lives, to fund education, live better, invest, and that’s high‑impact work. Both the mature players and the new players are innovating, and that creates a very interesting dynamic. In 2026, what do you think is a must‑have for fintech startups in Africa? A must‑have is building proactive tools instead of reactive ones. For a long time, most financial tools have been backward-looking. Your spend‑management app told you what you spent last month, your investment app showed you how your portfolio performed last month, and your banking app told you what your balance ended up. What’s really interesting today is that a lot of financial services applications can become more partners and start nudging founders and customers toward better financial decisions in real time. Imagine your banking app saying, ‘If you save a little more here, you can afford that December holiday,’ instead of just showing you that you overspent. Or your investment app pinging you when a stock you’re tracking dips and saying, This might be a good entry point, instead of only reporting performance after the move. A lot of these capabilities used to be available only to people who could build them themselves, but now the underlying technology is accessible enough that they can work for everyone. That’s what’s exciting: tools that proactively help you live better financially rather than just documenting what already happened. Looking back at 2025, what happened in fintech that you think will matter in 2026? Africa’s reserve or central bank’s payments ecosystem modernisation is a big move. It’s an effort to update the national payment systems, make them more inclusive for fintechs, more technologically advanced, and more inclusive for society. These are regulatory projects, so they move at a regulatory pace, but once they land, they are going to unlock a lot for Africa’s fintech ecosystem. How do you feel about the fintech regulatory environment in African markets? As a starting point, payments should be regulated. We’re dealing with people’s money, financial crime risks, and the stability of the wider economy, so there has to be a framework and a level playing field where everyone knows the rules. In South Africa, the regulators have taken measured steps: for example, there are now licences for crypto providers and for different payment activities, which gives clarity on what’s allowed. Could they move faster? Probably, but their primary job is to protect the financial system, and that’s more complicated than it looks from the outside. You sit in the payment space. What should we be watching there in 2026? Payments in Africa are in a very interesting state because the space is so competitive. We’ve got many different offerings, with traditional banks and new players all active, and that competition is translating into more choice and better value for customers; that’s what we have to keep watching. For consumers and merchants, that means more choice and better quality, better pricing, better experiences, and more tailored products. That’s what we want to see in a healthy market. What patterns do you see fintechs struggle with as they build? The biggest challenge is how to balance partnering and building. It’s easier than ever to partner and stitch together solutions from different
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