Foreign vs African Ownership: The Real Numbers Behind Africa’s Fintech Boom

The numbers tell a story of unprecedented growth. Africa’s fintech sector attracted $1.4 billion in funding in 2024, accounting for 60% of all equity financing across the continent. Eight of the continent’s nine unicorns — privately held companies valued at over $1 billion — operate in financial technology. Mobile money transactions have revolutionized economies from Lagos to Nairobi, with cash now accounting for approximately 90% of transactions, down from near-universal use a decade ago.

But beneath the headlines celebrating Africa’s “fintech eruption” lies a more complex reality: the vast majority of these success stories are financed, and ultimately owned, by investors from outside the continent.

According to data compiled by multiple industry sources and confirmed by venture capital firms operating across the region, approximately 80% of funding for African fintech startups comes from international sources. Local investor participation, while growing, reached only 31% in 2024, up from 19% a decade ago — a figure that sounds promising until one realizes it still means roughly two-thirds of capital decisions affecting Africa’s financial future are made in Silicon Valley, London and Singapore.

“True ecosystem ownership starts with local investment,” says Marge Ntambi, Venture Partner at Benue Capital, in an interview with industry publication Tech In Africa. “While international capital can accelerate growth, it often lacks a deep understanding of local dynamics and on-the-ground realities.”

The consequences of this foreign-dominated capital structure extend beyond questions of control. When Moniepoint achieved unicorn status in October 2024 after raising $110 million — joining fellow Nigerian giants Flutterwave, Interswitch, and OPay in the billion-dollar club — ordinary Nigerians had virtually no opportunity to participate in the wealth creation. These companies remain privately held, with their equity concentrated among international venture capital firms and a small number of local elites.

The Scale of Foreign Dominance

The ownership disparity becomes stark when examining individual companies. Flutterwave, Africa’s most valuable fintech at a $3 billion valuation, counts among its investors Y Combinator, Tiger Global Management, Visa Ventures, and Mastercard. The company raised $479 million across multiple rounds, with the lion’s share coming from U.S.-based investors. While Flutterwave was founded by Nigerian entrepreneurs and maintains significant operations in Lagos, its headquarters sit in San Francisco.

OPay presents an even more dramatic case. The $2 billion company, which provides mobile money services to millions of Nigerians, is owned by Chinese billionaire Zhou Yahui through his company Opera Software. SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 led OPay’s $400 million funding round in 2021, marking the Japanese investment giant’s entry into African tech. Despite processing transactions for everyday Nigerians, OPay’s primary ownership and strategic control emanates from Beijing and Tokyo.

The pattern repeats across the sector. Wave, the Senegal-based mobile money unicorn valued at $1.7 billion, secured its status through a $200 million Series A round led by Sequoia, Founders Fund, Stripe and Ribbit Capital — all U.S.-based firms. Chipper Cash, valued at $1.25 billion and operating across seven African countries, counts Amazon founder Jeff Bezos among its investors through Bezos Expeditions.

Even in cases where African investors participate, they often represent a small minority of the cap table. According to reports from Newsroom Kenya and other regional business publications, the trend extends beyond the marquee unicorns to early-stage companies, where foreign capital dominance is equally pronounced.

The Regional Divide

The ownership imbalance manifests differently across Africa’s key fintech markets. Nigeria, which attracted nearly $400 million of West Africa’s $587 million in startup funding in 2024, shows the starkest concentration of foreign investment. The country’s position as Africa’s largest economy and most populous nation makes it a natural magnet for international capital, but this same dynamic limits opportunities for Nigerian investors to build generational wealth through the tech sector.

Kenya presents a somewhat different picture. Often called the “Silicon Savannah,” Nairobi secured $482 million in venture capital in the first quarter of 2024 alone, exceeding all of 2023. However, the country has seen fintech’s share of equity funding drop to just 13% in 2024, down from over 40% in prior years, as investors diversify into cleantech and other sectors. This diversification has coincided with more fintech startups turning to debt financing rather than equity rounds — a shift that preserves more ownership for founders but comes with its own risks.

East Africa overall pulled in $725 million in funding in 2024, making up about 33% of continental totals and marking a noticeable lead over West Africa. Kenya accounted for $638 million of this total, representing 88% of East Africa’s funding. Yet even in this relatively strong environment, the challenge of local ownership persists.

South Africa, with the continent’s most mature financial sector, has seen fintech funding drop 36% in 2024, with the region contributing 99% of Southern Africa’s total. The country’s established banking infrastructure presents both opportunities and challenges for fintech disruption, but ownership patterns remain heavily tilted toward international investors.

The Wealth Creation Gap

The concentration of fintech ownership outside Africa creates what analysts call a “wealth creation gap.” When these companies eventually exit through acquisitions or initial public offerings, the bulk of returns flow to foreign investors rather than being retained on the continent.

Flutterwave’s recent acquisition of Mono, a Nigerian open banking infrastructure provider, illustrates both the maturation of the ecosystem and the missed opportunities for local wealth building. The all-stock deal, valued between $25 million and $40 million, allowed Mono’s investors to recoup their capital, with some early backers realizing returns of up to 20 times their investment. However, those investors were predominantly international firms including Tiger Global, General Catalyst, and Target Global.

The acquisition also highlighted another dimension of the ownership question: infrastructure control. Mono’s APIs power critical functions for major fintechs including Moniepoint and PalmPay. With Flutterwave now owning this infrastructure while simultaneously competing with those same companies, questions arise about market concentration and competitive dynamics in a sector that will shape Africa’s economic future.

Why Foreign Capital Dominates

Several structural factors explain the predominance of foreign investment in African fintech. The absence of a robust local equity financing market tops the list. Pension funds and institutional investors in most African countries face regulatory restrictions on private equity and venture capital investments, cutting off potential sources of patient, local capital.

Ghana and Nigeria have begun updating regulations to allow pension funds to invest in private equity and venture capital, creating what policymakers hope will be steady, local funding sources less vulnerable to global economic downturns. However, these changes remain nascent, and the pools of available capital pale in comparison to what international venture firms can deploy.

Risk perception also plays a significant role. International investors often view African markets through a lens colored by currency volatility, political instability and regulatory uncertainty. While these concerns are sometimes overstated, they lead to higher required returns and more onerous terms for African founders — terms that further concentrate ownership among foreign investors who can demand better deals.

The success stories themselves create a self-reinforcing cycle. When investors like SoftBank, Sequoia or Tiger Global back African companies, their involvement signals validation to other international investors while simultaneously raising the bar for local funds that cannot match their check sizes. The average investment in African startups rose 31% year-over-year to $7.7 million in early 2025, a figure beyond the reach of most Africa-based venture funds.

The Case for Local Capital

Despite the challenges, advocates for increased local ownership argue that African investors bring irreplaceable value beyond just capital. They possess deeper understanding of local market dynamics, regulatory environments and cultural nuances that can mean the difference between success and failure in markets where formal credit histories barely exist and cash remains king for 90% of transactions.

Local investors also tend to take a longer-term view. While international funds typically operate on 10-year time horizons and face pressure to return capital to limited partners, African investors building generational wealth or supporting their countries’ development may accept slower but more sustainable growth trajectories.

The rise of local investor participation from 19% to 31% over the past decade demonstrates that change is possible. Corporate venture capital from African companies has increased dramatically, with first-half 2025 seeing 26 corporate-backed deals close — the highest since 2021-2022. Total funding reached $1.4 billion in that period, a 78% increase from the first half of 2024.

New players from India, Japan and the Middle East have also entered the market, diversifying the sources of international capital beyond traditional U.S. and European investors. Countries like Tunisia, Ghana and Ethiopia secured their first corporate-backed deals in early 2025, suggesting that geographic diversification of both companies and investors is underway.

The Regulatory Response

Regulators across Africa are beginning to grapple with the implications of foreign-dominated fintech ownership. Nigeria’s Central Bank granted Flutterwave the country’s highest payment processing license in September 2022, a switch processing license that allows the company to process transactions between banks and cards without intermediaries. This autonomy across the payments ecosystem value chain effectively positions Flutterwave as critical infrastructure.

Kenya released operational guidelines for Open Banking in March 2023, with full implementation in August 2025. These rules promote competition and standardized APIs but say relatively little about ownership concentration or what happens when a central piece of infrastructure is acquired by a dominant player. Some analysts wonder whether central banks will eventually treat open banking providers as systemically important infrastructure, subject to special rules on ownership, pricing and data portability.

The regulatory landscape also affects ownership patterns in subtler ways. The Central Bank of Nigeria fined Paystack 250 million naira in 2024 over its consumer wallet product, Zap. The issue wasn’t innovation but licensing — Paystack operates under a switching and processing license, which permits facilitating transactions but not holding customer funds. To address this limitation, Paystack acquired Ladder Microfinance Bank, a move that mirrors Flutterwave’s strategy of vertical integration through acquisitions.

These regulatory maneuvers require capital, legal expertise and political connections that often favor companies backed by deep-pocketed international investors over purely local startups.

Success Stories and Warning Signs

Not all African fintech stories follow the foreign-dominated script. Tyme Group, valued at $1.5 billion, achieved unicorn status in December 2024 after a $250 million capital raise. Its digital bank, TymeBank, became the first in Africa to achieve profitability and now serves over 10 million customers. While the company has international investors, South African institutional capital plays a more significant role in its ownership structure.

Egypt’s MNT-Halan, the country’s largest lender to the unbanked, reached a $1 billion valuation with a $400 million funding round that included both equity and debt. While still majority foreign-funded, the company’s structure shows how blended financing can diversify ownership and reduce dilution of founding stakes.

However, these exceptions prove the rule. Of Africa’s eight fintech unicorns, all but one rely predominantly on international capital. The continent accounts for barely 1% of global unicorns despite rapid growth and innovation, a figure that reflects both the nascent state of the ecosystem and the challenges African founders face in accessing local growth capital.

The funding downturn between 2022 and 2024, when overall funding dropped 52% and fintech funding specifically shrank 37%, exposed the vulnerability of relying on international capital. When global economic conditions tightened and Silicon Valley pulled back, African startups saw funding evaporate regardless of their fundamentals or local market traction.

Looking Ahead

Industry observers see 2025 as a potential inflection point. Corporate venture capital activity hit a three-year high in the first half of the year, with fintech dominating at $639 million across 14 deals. Nigeria led this surge, though countries like Senegal made headlines with Wave’s $137 million debt financing in June 2025, the strongest month for debt deals in over two years.

The shift toward debt financing, while preserving more equity for founders, introduces different risks. Debt must be serviced regardless of revenue fluctuations, and many African currencies’ volatility makes dollar-denominated debt particularly treacherous. Companies raising debt typically must demonstrate proven business models and hard-currency revenues — criteria that may exclude innovative but early-stage ventures.

McKinsey projects that Africa’s financial services market could expand by 10% annually, potentially reaching $230 billion in revenues by 2025 if fintech penetration reaches Kenya-like levels across the continent. The same research suggests Africa’s fintech revenues could grow eightfold if current trajectories continue. This enormous opportunity will undoubtedly attract more capital, but the question remains: whose capital, and on whose terms?

Some analysts advocate for mandatory local ownership requirements, similar to regulations in sectors like telecommunications and banking in various African countries. Others warn that such rules could scare away foreign investment entirely, leaving companies starved for growth capital. The tension between attracting needed investment and building local ownership remains unresolved.

Development finance institutions and impact investors have begun positioning themselves as bridges between these poles. Organizations like the European Investment Bank, which made significant investments in African fintech in 2024, structure deals to balance commercial returns with developmental impact. Whether this model can scale sufficiently to shift ownership patterns remains uncertain.

The Infrastructure Question

Flutterwave’s January 2026 acquisition of Mono raised a question that extends beyond individual company ownership: who should control the infrastructure that underpins Africa’s digital economy? Mono’s open banking APIs connect to over 50 banks and power millions of transactions for lenders and fintechs across Nigeria. With Flutterwave — itself majority foreign-owned — now controlling this infrastructure, the lines between private company and public utility blur.

“We’re entering a more mature exit environment for seed-stage investments,” notes Uwem Uwemakpan, Head of Investment at Launch Africa Ventures. “The companies getting funded aren’t competing in basic payments or lending anymore; they’re building regtech, embedded finance, B2B trade finance infrastructure that benefits from fintech’s maturation.”

This infrastructure layer — the APIs, payment rails, data pipes and verification systems that everything else builds upon — may ultimately matter more than individual applications. If foreign investors own this infrastructure through companies like Flutterwave, then African countries may find themselves in a position analogous to those that failed to invest in telecommunications infrastructure decades ago, forced to pay rents to foreign-controlled systems for accessing their own digital economies.

Global payment giants are also making their moves. Revolut appointed a CEO for Morocco operations in 2025, planning to begin as a payment operator before securing full licenses. Blockchain.com opened its first physical office on the continent, while dLocal strengthened its African footprint through the acquisition of AZA Finance. These established international players bring deep pockets and proven technology, but also the potential to extract profits rather than building local ecosystems.

The Path Forward

For African fintech to achieve true maturation while building local wealth, several shifts appear necessary. Regulatory reforms allowing institutional capital — particularly pension funds — to invest in venture capital could create significant local funding pools. Ghana and Nigeria’s recent moves in this direction show promise, but implementation across the continent remains patchy.

Strengthening local venture capital firms through capacity building, co-investment structures with international funds, and regulatory support could help level the playing field. Organizations like Silverbacks Holdings, which writes checks up to $30 million for top-performing companies, demonstrate that African capital can compete at scale when properly structured.

The fintech passporting agreement between Ghana and Rwanda, signed in 2025, represents another promising development. If cross-border regulatory harmonization reduces the need for country-by-country licensing and compliance, companies can achieve scale more efficiently, potentially reducing dependence on massive international funding rounds.

Public listings offer another potential pathway. Flutterwave announced plans for an initial public offering in April 2024, though no timeline has been set. A successful IPO on an African stock exchange could allow retail and institutional African investors to participate in ownership, though previous attempts at African tech IPOs have produced mixed results.

Ultimately, the question of ownership in African fintech touches on larger issues of economic sovereignty, wealth creation and who benefits from technological transformation. The sector has undeniably improved financial access for millions, with 475 million mobile internet users projected by 2025 and fintech revenues approaching $47 billion by 2028 according to McKinsey estimates.

Whether the wealth created by this transformation stays on the continent or flows primarily to investors in Silicon Valley, London and Singapore will shape Africa’s economic trajectory for generations. The current 80-20 split in favor of foreign capital represents not just an investment statistic but a decision about who will own Africa’s financial future.

As one Kenyan fintech founder, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid alienating potential investors, put it: “We’re building the rails for Africa’s digital economy, but we’re building them with other people’s money, on other people’s terms. Twenty years from now, will we own this infrastructure, or will we be renting access to our own financial system?”

That question remains unanswered. But with $1.4 billion flowing into the sector in just the first half of 2025, and major companies like Moniepoint, OPay and Flutterwave processing billions in monthly transactions, the stakes have never been higher. The fintech boom is real. The only question is: whose boom is it?