In a tough business landscape with multiple challenges that are seldom faced by companies on other continents, there have been some amazing business success stories on African soil.
These companies include business Unicorns (a startup company valued at $1 billion or more) and other innovative fintech start-ups that have become a big growth and investment sector in Africa.
African entrepreneurs are not only concentrated in the Fintech arena and are showing remarkable innovations to solve African challenges such as mobility and energy solutions.
We take a look at the top performing Start up success stories in the past year. These success stories highlight resilience, innovation, and growth of African start-up’s despite a challenging funding landscape, where total start up funding in Africa plunged by 25% from $2.9 billion in 2023 to $2.2 billion in 2024.
Fintech Successes – Last Year In Africa:
Following on in the footsteps of major African Start-ups such as Flutterwave and Interswitch, its no surprise that the top two start-up success stories in the last year has been fintech groups. African is still struggling to get its payment systems and digital banking up to speed, leaving a wide gap for innovators in this sector.
Tyme Group (South Africa)
Tyme Group, a multi-country digital banking firm, emerged as a standout success in 2024, raising $250 million in a Series-D funding round. This investment, led by Nubank with a $150 million investment and supported by M&G’s Catalyst Fund and others, propelled Tyme to unicorn status with a $1.5 billion valuation.
Its flagship company, TymeBank, currently boasts over 10 million account holders in South Africa, while its operations in the Philippines (GoTyme) have attracted 5 million users since 2022. With plans for an IPO to be floated by 2028.
Moniepoint (Nigeria)
Nigerian fintech Moniepoint, another new African Unicorn, secured $110 million in equity funding, achieving a valuation exceeding $1 billion and joining the unicorn club. The company sits with the prestige of powering most point-of-sale transactions in Nigeria, with a value of more than $17 billion in transactions processed monthly.
The additional funding round is set to be used in expanding Moniepoint across Africa, offering an all-in-one platform for payments, banking, credit, and business management tools, and looking to cementing its role in building and transforming financial services for African businesses.
Moove (Nigeria)
Moove, a mobility fintech startup, raised $100 million in 2024, led by Uber and Mubadala Investment Company. This funding will look to support its mission to provide vehicle financing for ride-hailing and delivery drivers, using alternative credit scoring. Traditional banking and credit providers have fairly stringent but also inflexible criteria for loan approvals and again left the door wide open to new fintech innovators.
Moove’s expansion into new global markets is an indication of its highly successful and innovative approach to transportation financing, making use of metrics other than traditional credit rating scores to determine risk profiles for hail-riding drivers. This has elevated the start-up, making it a key player in Nigeria’s financing ecosystem.
d.light (Kenya)
This Kenyan-based solar solutions company closed a $176 million securitization facility in July 2024. This financing was backed by African Frontier Capital with the view to enable d.light to scale its operations in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The unique positioning of the company is aimed at providing solar products to low-income households. With stable and secure energy supply still a major hurdle throughout much of Africa, there is massive demand for energy solutions that don’t rely on the national grid or regional power supply utilities that are often unreliable.
For many low to middle income households who either manufacture goods or work from home, this is a winning solution for them to be able to grow income. Their current supply exceeds 30 million households, underscoring the growing demand for clean energy solutions and d.light’s successful growth in Africa.
Other Start-up Successes
BasiGo (Kenya)
BasiGo, an electric bus manufacturer and mobility solutions provider, secured $42 million in 2024. The raise includes $24 million in Series-A equity and $17.5 million in equity debt from British International Investment and the U.S. Development Finance Corporation. Aiming to deliver 1,000 electric buses in East Africa within three years. They had assembled and deployed 21 buses in Kenya by early 2024 and was at the time the largest fleet of electric buses in East Africa at the time. By March 2024, BasiGo’s buses in Kenya had driven over 1.5 million kilometres and carried over 2.1 million passengers In March 2025, BasiGo announced plans to deliver 28 new electric buses to Rwanda between April and May, marking the first phase of a 100-bus supply plan for the country by the end of 2025.
The company has received reservations for 600 buses (500 in Nairobi and 100 in Kigali), indicating production is ramping up to meet demand.
BasiGo’s growth reflects a remarkable African mobility success story and with the rising focus on sustainable transport solutions is likely to hold a positive growth curve for the foreseeable future.
These success stories span fintech, cleantech, and mobility sectors, with significant activity concentrated in the “Big Four” markets—Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa—which accounted for 84% of Africa’s startup funding in 2024. Despite a funding downturn, these startups demonstrate Africa’s entrepreneurial dynamism, leveraging technology to address local challenges and attract global investment.
