July 2026
Unicorns of Africa — July 2026
Last updated on 08 July 2026·Fintech·Africa
There are over 10 unicorns in Africa
As of July 2026, there are now over 10 tech and tech-enabled companies valued at over $1B that originated from Africa.
- Valued at $40.2B, Naspers is the most valuable African tech company, followed by OKX ($25.0B) and MTN Group Fintech ($5.3B) .
- Most African unicorns were founded in Nigeria or South Africa
- Many successful African companies, in particular from Nigeria, left the "mother continent" and relocated HQ to London or the US
African unicorns list is overwhelmingly financial infrastructure (over 70% = fintech or payments companies). This mirrors what happened in Latin America over the past decade, where Nubank, Mercado Pago, Ualá, and others built their businesses on the same thesis: hundreds of millions of unbanked people + smartphone penetration = a generational opportunity.
Africa is now running that same playbook, arguably with even more runway — sub-Saharan Africa's banked population sits around 55%, compared to Latin America's ~74%. The companies building that plumbing are capturing enormous value, and the biggest ones are still private.
What are the unicorns of Africa?
This ranking includes tech companies in Africa valued above $1 billion. It includes private, public and acquired companies. Most private valuations are last reported or recently rumoured.
We exclude Egypt from this ranking. While geographically part of Africa, Egypt is most commonly classified as a Middle East in business rankings.
On ZIRP-era (2020-2022) valuations: we exclude companies that latest reported valuation would be enough to hit the list, but it is expected that the company is now valued significantly lower.
# | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 |  | $40.2B | $10.8B | 4.0x | Public | |
2 |  | $25.0B | $1.9B | 13.2x | Private | |
3 | | $5.3B | $83M | 63.5x | Private | |
4 |  | $3.3B | – | – | Private | |
5 | | $2.8B | $38M | 73.7x | Private | |
6 | | $1.9B | $336M | 5.8x | Public | |
7 |  | $1.7B | – | – | Private | |
8 | | $1.5B | $168M | 8.9x | Private | |
9 | | $1.5B | – | – | Private | |
10 | | $1.3B | $3.7B | 0.3x | Public | |
11 | | $1.0B | $300M | 3.3x | Private | |
12 | | $1.0B | $265M | 3.8x | Private |
Data and methodology
Underlying data
Public markets data is powered by FactSet (consensus analyst estimates), and Morningstar (historical data). Data points are calendarized to December where relevant: retrieved data on financial year ends (e.g. FY, FY+1 etc.) are mapped to calendar years (2025A, 2026E etc.) before the appropriate month weights are then applied to prior/future fundamentals.
Private transaction data is multi-sourced, aggregated from harvesting public information, 3rd party APIs, and data engineering. All data is verified and provided with an extensive manual process. If data permits, we apply our own logic to get to the EV. For example, for a large M&A deal with available information on the target's net debt, we might adjust a valuation to fully reflect an accurate EV. In all other cases, we take the reported valuation as the numerator. Financials: we source LTM revenue and LTM EBITDA data from company filings, press releases, or other verified sources. If LTM data is unavailable, we take the 'next best-fit' period (run-rate or calendar year), provided it makes sense in a given case. For example, if a deal closed in November 2025, we might take full-year 2025 revenue as a revenue benchmark.
Any raw figures are harmonised to USD for comparison purposes.
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