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Nigeria’s Web3 startups, including crypto, blockchain, and stablecoin-based fintechs, raised $43 million in 2025, doubling the previous year’s figure, according to a report by Hashed Emergent, an India-based venture capital firm that backs early-stage African startups. The report, Nigeria Web3 Landscape Report 2025, shows that while capital is returning, it is heavily concentrated: 89% of funding—about $38 million—went to finance products tied to stablecoin use cases, such as payments and fiat-crypto exchanges. Early-stage deals accounted for $13 million, with most activity clustered around pre-seed and seed rounds, underscoring the limited depth of growth capital. Series A funding returned modestly in 2025 after a slowdown the previous year, with its first deal in two years, according to the report. The rebound masks an ecosystem still dominated by early-stage bets and a narrow focus on stablecoin-driven payments. That imbalance points to a market still in its formative phase, where startup formation is accelerating faster than scale capital. “A wave of stablecoin-focused startups is driving increased investment activity across the ecosystem,” said Tak Lee, chief executive officer and managing partner at Hashed Emergent. “This momentum led finance to dominate. Consumer adoption has also surged, further cementing Nigeria’s position as a global stablecoin hub.” The funding concentration mirrors a wider shift in Nigeria’s crypto market away from speculation toward utility. Stablecoin adoption is driving much of the activity, with deposits growing more than 9,000% between 2018 and 2025, while on-chain transaction value rose 56% year-on-year to $92 billion, according to the report. Despite the rebound, the deal volume still tilts to traditional funding avenues, signalling that global venture capital attention has yet to fully return to Nigeria’s Web3 sector. Nigerian Web3 startups recorded 82 deals in 2025, up from 72 in 2024, according to the report. Yet, 73 of those deals were grants, with just one Series A round recorded in 2025. The remaining deals were spread across seed, pre-seed, and token sales, highlighting the early-stage skew and reliance on crypto-based funding rounds. Sector performance also fell short in 2025. While the finance sector dominated, infrastructure-first startups, including those building stablecoin rails, developer, and payment interoperability tools, raised only $4 million in 2025, down from $11 million recorded in 2024, their peak in the last five years, the report noted. Nigeria’s Web3 entertainment sector, including gaming and social apps, declined to $1 million, down by 50% from 2024. Investor interest remained concentrated around stablecoin infrastructure, cross-border payments, and crypto-fiat withdrawal services, with limited appetite for emerging categories like gaming, creator platforms, or AI-driven infrastructure. The shift to utility as trading cools Crypto usage patterns are also changing. Withdrawal and deposit volumes for both fiat and crypto declined in 2025, signalling a cooling in speculative trading activity, according to the report. More Nigerians are using digital currencies, especially stablecoins, for remittance payments. According to the report, remittance flows between Nigeria and other countries expanded rapidly across intra-African and global corridors, recording transfers to and from Ghana, Kenya, the UK, Canada, China, and parts of Europe. Stablecoins are functioning as a payment rail rather than a store of value. The report shows that Nigerians recorded an 83% withdrawal-to-deposit ratio on exchanges; out of every $100 received in wallets, about $83 is quickly withdrawn, signalling that stablecoins are becoming money in transit, as users treat them as payment and transactional means, rather than savings. 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 Regulation advances, but clarity lags Across Africa, regulators in countries like Kenya, Ghana, and Rwanda are moving toward formal oversight of digital assets. Nigeria has also shifted toward regulation after years of sidelining crypto firms from accessing the formal financial system. Yet, clarity remains uneven. Nigeria’s Investment and Securities Act, passed in March 2025, formally recognised digital assets as securities under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, a February Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) white paper introduced a broader approach for crypto oversight. Nigeria created the Virtual Asset Regulatory Council (VARC), a multi-agency coordinating body for non-security virtual assets not under the SEC’s purview, including payment tokens, exchange tokens, stablecoins, utility tokens, and other digital representations of value. The country designated the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor and the Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), the country’s tax authority, as co-chairs of the agency, overseeing payment-linked activities in the digital asset sector. On March 31, the CBN launched a supervisory pilot programme to monitor activities of stablecoin issuers, exchanges, and stablecoin-based payment processors—including Flutterwave and Paystack—for compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing standards. According to both the Investments and Securities Act (2025) and the VARA white paper, the SEC retains authority over tokenised securities. Yet, the capital markets regulator has also raised minimum capital requirements for Digital Asset exchanges (DAXs), which operate businesses tied to fiat-crypto withdrawals and payments, and now have to meet a ₦2 billion ($1.4 million) capital threshold. Digital Asset Custodians responsible for safeguarding users’ crypto assets are also subject to the same ₦2 billion ($1.4 million) capital requirement, raising entry barriers and deepening uncertainty around fragmented policies and the scope of regulatory oversight. “While progress on regulation has been slower than expected, the foundation of the ecosystem remains strong, driven by resilient founders and builders who continue to create, adapt, and push the space forward,” said Lee. “There are clear signs of progress, with increased engagement between stakeholders and regulators. One thing is clear: Nigeria remains an anchor for Web3 and
Read MoreKenyan regulators will now require lenders to prove borrowers can repay before issuing loans, a major shift in a market defined by instant loan approvals through mobile apps and automated scoring systems. The new rules are contained in a March 2026 Financial Consumer Protection Framework draft backed by the Central Bank of Kenya, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) and the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), and would apply across banks, fintechs and mobile money providers. The proposed rules would fundamentally change how credit works in one of Africa’s most active digital lending markets. Kenya has more than 227 licenced digital credit providers, but default rates have drawn sustained regulatory concern. The framework is the regulators’ attempt to address a market that expanded faster than the rules governing it. It would require lenders to check income, expenses and existing debt and document whether a borrower can afford a loan before issuing it, applying the same requirement across banks, fintechs and mobile money providers. Presently, lenders increase borrowing limits based on a customer’s repayment history, without fully assessing their ability to take on additional debt. “A Financial Services Provider (FSP) shall not provide a credit product… unless they have first undertaken a reasonable assessment to confirm the retail consumer’s ability to repay the credit without financial hardship,” the draft noted. Lenders must base that assessment on “appropriately reliable information” about a borrower’s financial position, including income, expenses and existing obligations. The requirement sets a baseline for how credit is issued, limiting the use of models that rely primarily on behavioural data or predictive scoring. Kenya’s credit market spans a wide range of providers. Banks such as KCB Bank Kenya, Equity Bank Kenya and Co-operative Bank of Kenya offer digital loans through mobile channels while operating under prudential regulation and established credit assessment processes. Alongside them are telecom-led products like Safaricom’s M-Shwari and Fuliza, which extend credit directly through mobile money platforms. Standalone digital lenders such as Tala and Branch MFB rely on app-based onboarding and automated decision-making. The lending market has expanded rapidly, but regulatory oversight has not kept pace. The Central Bank has so far licenced 227 digital credit providers following a clean-up of previously unregulated apps. As of February 2026, licenced lenders had disbursed 7.5 million loans worth KES 133.5 billion ($1.03 billion), reflecting the scale of mobile-based credit uptake. Default rates, particularly on small loans, have drawn regulatory concern. Data from the Central Bank shows that loans below KES 1,000 recorded default rates of more than 80%, while loans between KES 1,000 and KES 5,000 recorded default rates of about 69%. Larger digital loans perform better, but overall default rates for digital lenders have been reported as high as 40%, more than double those in the banking sector. The draft framework moves to standardise expectations across these providers by introducing a common requirement for affordability and suitability. Digital lenders typically approve loans using alternative data such as mobile money transactions, airtime usage and device metadata, with decisions made in seconds and little verification of income or expenses. Under the proposed rules, lenders would need to document how each loan aligns with a borrower’s financial capacity and assess whether the product is appropriate for that borrower. The framework also highlighted concerns around over-indebtedness, hidden fees, misuse of data and uneven consumer safeguards. It seeks to limit the build-up of unsustainable debt rather than manage defaults after the fact by requiring affordability checks at origination. The proposal also links loan origination to lenders’ handling of repayment difficulties. Firms would be expected to engage borrowers who show signs of distress and consider options such as restructuring or deferred payments before taking enforcement action. The framework applies across the financial sector, covering banks, mobile money operators and digital lenders. It sets common standards on disclosure, complaint handling, product design and digital platforms. If adopted, the rules would require lenders to not only justify loan issuance, but also the decision driving it.
Read MoreBenjamin Toulouze, the head of corporate venture capital (CVC) at Axian Group, a multinational conglomerate, spent most of his career as a banker at Société Générale, France’s third-largest bank by total assets, working across France and several African markets. These days, he runs the CVC arm at AXIAN Investment, the investment arm of the Madagascar-headquartered AXIAN Group. Based in Dubai, his team of four is split between the UAE and Antananarivo. Toulouze got the green light to launch the corporate VC unit in late 2021, making it one of the first CVC vehicles from an African group. Four years in, AXIAN Investment has invested in 33 startups directly and holds stakes in 38 funds. Its direct portfolio includes MaxAB in Egypt, LipaLater in East Africa, Djamo in Côte d’Ivoire, Curacel, Anda in Angola, WideBot AI, and Nucleon Security in Morocco. Cheque sizes range from $50,000 for very early ideas up to $1.5 million in total exposure per company. AXIAN Group might not be a household name in African tech, but its footprint is significant. The pan-African conglomerate, founded half a century ago by the Hiridjee family, operates in 32 countries across Africa and the Indian Ocean, with interests in telecoms, financial services, energy, real estate, and innovation. Its telecoms arm was ranked 74th on the Financial Times’ 2025 list of Africa’s fastest-growing companies. The firm takes minority stakes of 1% to 5%, deliberately small, Toulouze says, to avoid conflicts with AXIAN’s operating businesses and to keep trust with founders and co-investors. It has not yet had an exit, but as the parent group builds out data centre infrastructure through its STELLAR-IX brand across four markets, the CVC is leaning heavily into AI, cybersecurity, digital assets, and what Toulouze calls the “sovereignty issue”; African countries controlling their own data. In our conversation, Toulouze explains why his team chose Dubai and Madagascar over Lagos or Nairobi, how he pitches against the “CVCs move slowly” objection, why he thinks 1–5% stakes are an important feature, how he sources in North Africa after living there, and what he looks for in founders. This interview has been edited lightly for clarity and length. You started your career as a banker in France before moving into venture capital. How did that transition happen? I actually wanted to be an investor before being a banker. I started my career in France, in Paris, at a big audit firm doing acquisition due diligence, standard CPA work at the time for big French groups listed on the CAC 40. I worked for a fund that wanted to acquire a startup in France. That was in 2004. From then on, I wanted to be an investor. But for different reasons, I got very good opportunities as a banker, first in France and then in different countries. But the dream of being close to the entrepreneur was already there. I came to AXIAN in 2019 with this idea, but it was a bit early. At the end of 2021, we got a green light internally to launch one of the very first corporate VCs from an African group. I enjoy it a lot. You’re based in Dubai, AXIAN is in Madagascar. Those aren’t typical tech markets. Why not operate from Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo, or Johannesburg? We are four at the corporate VC. Two of my teammates are still based in Madagascar, and we are two in Dubai. The point is, we are close to all the markets, including the big operational tech ecosystems in Africa. But the goal is to be everywhere, to be in touch with the entire ecosystem. That’s entrepreneurs, but also venture capitalists locally and internationally. The big tech companies and we have good examples like Flutterwave in Lagos, Moniepoint, FairMoney, or in Egypt, MNT-Halan, are based in their own countries, but they go beyond. That’s what we do. We’re ready to go and be as close as possible to different companies. All these big countries are our major zones of investment: Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, West Africa, and South Africa. We stay close to all these ecosystems, and we go on-site as soon as possible. We don’t see any issue with not being there permanently. We have a big network in different countries now, so it’s fine. A lot of corporate VC professionals I’ve spoken to say CVCs don’t move as fast as typical VCs or that there can be strings attached. How do you convince a founder that AXIAN is the best partner? We’ve already got these kinds of objections. The first part of my answer is that at AXIAN, we have a very strong entrepreneurship mindset. We are ready to decide quite quickly. Sometimes we move faster than the regular VCs. I don’t have any internal barriers to moving forward. If I need to get all my investment committee members for a decision, I can get one very quickly. Most of the time, when we take time, it’s because we are still questioning the business model and want to go deeper. In terms of governance and decision-making, we don’t have any issues. On convincing the entrepreneur, interestingly, entrepreneurs are really keen to add corporate VCs to their cap tables. Because we have a complementary value proposition to regular VCs. We know the operations, and most of the time we come from the operations themselves. We know the challenges of launching a company, of keeping it striving, of day-to-day operations, HR, accounting, organisation, and strategic vision. One of the values we bring is our experience as intrapreneurs or entrepreneurs who have led either divisions or departments within a very large group. The second thing is, as a corporate VC, we can bring potential new markets for the startup. It’s not a commitment, but when we invest in a company, we try to push for a solid partnership between the startup and the AXIAN Group—synergies, working together, going in the same direction. That’s why entrepreneurs are interested in working with us. We have a complementary value proposition,
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