Neither Nigeria nor Kenya leads Bloomberg's African startup list

Out of the big 4- South Africa, ... having 4 startups each, Egypt fell short, having one. Bloomberg Television’s Chief Africa Correspondent and Anchor further notes this, saying, “This list shows how

Bloomberg’s 2026 Africa Startups to Watch list upends expectations that Nigeria or Kenya dominate the continent’s emerging tech scene. The second edition of the list features 25 privately held companies from 13 countries across 10 sectors, with Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa each placing four startups. Egypt registered a single entry. Bloomberg editors and Bloomberg Intelligence analysts compiled the ranking by assessing the scale of the problems the firms address, the originality of their approaches and their traction with investors and customers.

“This list shows how businesses across the continent have increasingly mobilized local capital…” — Bloomberg Television’s Chief Africa Correspondent and Anchor. The correspondent added that almost half of the funding raised by companies on this year’s list came from African investors.

Bloomberg’s list spotlights companies targeting gaps left by failing infrastructure or systems. Highlights include a mix of fintech, healthtech, logistics, climate resilience and security ventures. Below are representative entries and key facts from countries with multiple listings:

  • Nigeria
    • 10mg Health (Healthcare) — Founded 2022 by Christian Nwachukwu; provides capital access to hospitals and pharmacies using medical and behavioral data.
    • Remedial Health (Healthtech) — Founded 2021 by Samuel Okwuada and Victor Benjamin; backed by Tencent and has helped finance “tens of millions of dollars’” worth of medicines across Africa’s fragmented distribution system.
    • Sycamore (Fintech) — Founded 2019 by Babatunde Akin-Moses; digital lending and investment products, expanding into the UK to serve diaspora customers.
    • Terra Industries (Security) — Founded 2024 by Nathan Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka; develops mid-range unmanned aerial systems, has raised $34 million and is backed by 8VC (linked to Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale); building a second manufacturing facility in Ghana.
  • South Africa
    • Amesect (Waste management) — Founded 2023 by Elsje Pieterse, Brendes Gresse and Dave Stewart; converts organic waste into fertilizer and animal feed.
    • Aura (Health and Security) — Founded 2017 by Warren Myers and Ryan Green; raised $14.5 million in Series B from the Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund.
    • Jem (HR) — Founded 2020 by Simon Ellis and Caroline van der Merwe; WhatsApp-based HR tools serving ~200,000 workers across 200 companies including McDonald’s franchise operators.
    • Omnisient (Fintech) — Founded 2019 by Jon Jacobson and Anton Grutzmacher; uses AI and alternative consumer data, backed by TransUnion, Arise and Shoprite Holdings.
  • Kenya
    • BuuPass (Transport) — Founded 2016 by Sonia Kabra and Wyclife Omondi; ticket search and booking across informal travel networks, backed by Founders Factory Africa and Google Black Founders Fund.
    • Leta (Logistics) — Founded 2021 by Nick Joshi; real-time delivery planning backed by the Google Africa Investment Fund.
    • Oye (Fintech) — Founded 2022 by Kevin Mutiso; bundles accident insurance and credit with fuel purchases for boda boda drivers, backed by Britam Holdings and targeting one million driver enrolments.
    • WorkPay (HR) — Founded 2019 by Paul Kimani and Jackson Kungu; payroll-to-HR platform operating in more than 30 African countries, has raised over $10 million and is backed by Visa, Norrsken22 and Y Combinator.

Other notable entries include Egypt’s WideBot (Arabic-first conversational AI founded by Mohamed Nabil and Mohamed Mostafa), Mauritius’ AzamPay (Firas Ahmad and Abubakar Bakhresa), Tanzania’s Black Swan (Derick Kazimoto and Rwebu Mutahaba) and Madagascar’s Bôndy, which has grown without external equity. Bloomberg’s list follows a recent Financial Times ranking that also distributed recognition beyond a single national hub — the FT list had South Africa with ten entries, Nigeria nine, Kenya three and Egypt two.

With almost half of the capital reported as coming from African investors and firms like Terra Industries expanding manufacturing to Ghana, the list underscores a shift toward locally mobilised funding and on-the-ground scaling. For the startups named, the immediate outlook centres on converting investor interest into customer traction, cross-border expansion and deeper penetration of under-served markets across the continent.