By Eric OSIAKWAN
As 2025 concludes, the performance of the Africa tech ecosystem is under scrutiny, prompting various projections for 2026. I largely agree with Ido Sum’s comprehensive, data-driven review, “Early. Not Broken,” which analyzes the ecosystem I helped build. His analysis conclusion specifically highlights the landscape of exits, noting: “Nearly half of those exits are South African, with Nigeria and Egypt following and a scattering from Kenya, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal and Ghana – which maps neatly to where corporate balance sheets and Merger and Acquisition (M&A) infrastructure are deeper. Roughly three-quarters of these exits are strategic M&A, Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) are still rare (one US, one Egypt, one SPAC-type), and most outcomes sit in the $50m–$150m range, with a few better-known outliers like Paystack, DPO and InstaDeep.”
November affirmed this with Optasia, a global leader in AI-powered fintech, going public on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in a landmark listing that resulted in one of it’s early investors, exiting some of their positions. Ahead of the IPO, FirstRand, a South African financial institution, acquired a strategic 20.1% stake in Optasia through an off-market transaction. This was followed at the end of the month by Cell C, one of South Africa’s mobile operators also going public on the JSE after a successful delivery of the company’s multi-year transformation strategy, reinforcing the company’s position. That is two IPOs on the JSE in one month – not surprising as the JSE has come out as a top performing market in the last 25 years.
In a clear signal of market resurgence, November saw a notable return of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in the African market, aligning with a global trend following a significant drought. Headlining this activity was South Africa, followed by Morocco, where Cash Plus made history by becoming the first fintech company to list on the Casablanca Stock Exchange, successfully closing its IPO on November 25th. This transaction valued the money transfer and payments startup at approximately $550 million (5 billion MAD), instantly positioning it as a significant mid-cap player in the North African landscape. The IPO successfully raised a total of $82.5 million (750 million MAD) and was strategically structured to provide both growth capital for the company and liquidity for shareholders, allowing the private equity firm Mediterrania Capital Partners (MCP) to realize a partial exit, while the company’s founding families maintained their entire shareholding.
Concurrently, in Zambia, Dot Com Zambia PLC launched its own IPO on the Lusaka Securities Exchange, running from November 17th through December 12th, 2025. This offering aims to raise up to ZMW 12.3 million by issuing one million shares priced at ZMW 12.3 each, giving both retail and institutional investors a preliminary opportunity to acquire stake ahead of the company’s planned listing on December 22nd. These two listings brought the total number of IPOs for the month to four in Africa, confirming that these regional events are part of a larger, global awakening in new public offerings.
In Kenya, KCB Group PLC has agreed to acquire a minority stake in Pesapal, a fintech company that runs payment processing for online and point-of-sale transactions, used by thousands of businesses across the region, in a deal that was announced on 31 October 2025 and is awaiting Central Bank of Kenya approval. It followed KCB’s acquisition of 75% of Riverbank Solutions in March 2025 for about KSh 2 billion, which brought core digital payments infrastructure into the group. Two acquisitions by one Kenyan corporate in 2025 – this signals a market for M&A in the coming years. Back in South Africa, the Competition Tribunal has unconditionally approved Lesaka Technologies’ acquisition of Bank Zero.
Lesaka announced its intention to acquire Bank Zero for R1.1 billion in June 2025. After the transaction is finalised, Lesaka will directly control Zero Research, the parent company of Bank Zero. These M&A activities are important for market maturation and capital formation as the African tech and investment ecosystem moves from an early stage into maturity. This movement toward maturity is not all rosy; sometimes, developments emerge that call for deep introspection into governance and legal frameworks. One such case is a recent judicial intervention that has raised concerns about contract enforcement and IP protection in the Kenyan market.
On November 6th, 2025, a Kenyan High Court ruled to quash an arbitration award of $8.5 million previously granted to Popote Innovations Ltd against Safaricom PLC in a breach of contract case. Popote had approached Safaricom with its mobile money app concept to enhance mpesa for business users. After Safaricom investigated the concept’s viability, it drafted a partnership agreement, which Popote signed.
Popote went on to fulfill its obligations by delivering the product for integration and Safaricom’s market launch, but Safaricom failed to countersign the final agreement, and subsequently excluded Popote from the concept’s advancement to the market. Despite the arbitration tribunal’s findings in 2024 that Safaricom was in breach of an implied contract—given Popote’s performance—the High Court set aside the award, arguing that the lack of Safaricom’s signature rendered the contract legally invalid.
This outcome, where an initial openness to M&A was replaced by years of litigation and lost opportunity, highlights a critical risk for founders: the potential for large corporates to benefit from a startup’s Intellectual Property while shielding themselves from accountability through technicalities, resulting in stifled innovations. This experience, if handled differently, could have seen Kenyan businesses benefit from a more advanced and useful mpesa solution than Safaricom offers, and both parties derive the massive, anticipated commercial benefits over the period.
In an independent legal review, Collam Law Advocates LLP, outlined six cases to back the view that “Consent can be written…even when the contract is not”. They submitted that in “Nyutu vrs Airtel (2019). The Supreme Court restored an award wrongly set aside and warned courts not to overturn arbitration “through the back door.” They concluded that this case is not about a missing signature. It is about how Kenya treats its innovators. If corporations can absorb startup IP, benefit from it, and escape accountability through technicalities, then justice collapses, and innovation collapses with it. It is important to outline that, this is not an isolated or first case, Safaricom the country’s largest telco and fintech platform, has repeatedly been accused of a “fast-follower” strategy – swiftly replicating ideas pitched by smaller innovators, often without partnership or credit.
This hold up in November is diametrically opposed to all the IPOs and M&A stories outlined in this essay. Unlike KCB Group in Kenya who have made two acquisitions this year, Safaricom has done none but rather is in litigations, in some cases with other corporates like Kibo Capital Group, Genghis Capital, etc which begs the question Mike Macharia asked in African founders “why do corporates leverage founders’ ideas yet shield themselves from downsides?” And the courts uphold it?
NB: The author is an investor and board member of Popote.
References
- https://techfinancials-co-za.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/techfinancials.co.za/2025/11/04/optasia-debuts-on-jse-fuels-fintech-inclusion/?amp=1&mc_cid=45011c3a05&mc_eid=40087f4350
- https://techafricanews.com/2025/11/27/cell-c-enters-jse-strengthening-market-position-and-driving-digital-access-in-south-africa/?mc_cid=5d2be0e5e4&mc_eid=40087f4350
- https://mybroadband.co.za/news/banking/620314-end-of-an-era-at-bank-zero.html?utm_source=techsafari.beehiiv.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=this-week-in-african-tech&_bhlid=dccd643b9bb373958b2e20518ca07505c4ed3d8c
- https://new.kenyalaw.org/akn/ke/judgment/kehc/2025/16225/eng@2025-11-06
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/collam-law-llp_safaricom-plc-vs-popote-innovations-ltd-activity-7396097399309479936-qmMn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAC78WEBD6q8veFKkTONpc-oiQGzoGk_vb8
- https://www.itedgenews.africa/innovation-on-trial-in-kenyas-tech-ecosystem/
- https://nation.africa/kenya/business/safaricom-fintech-firm-fight-over-mpesa-bill-manager–5003558
- https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/markets/capital-markets/safaricom-genghis-capital-fight-over-m-pesa-unit-trusts-4863806
- https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/opinion-analysis/columnists/why-african-founders-bear-weight-of-bad-system-5278246#google_vignette
The post The Africa Tech Ecosystem in November 2025: Record Exits, Cautionary Tales appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.
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