Africa’s Top 10 Fintech Startups to Watch in 2024

The African fintech revolution is more than a fleeting trend; it is a fundamental restructuring of the continent’s economic fabric. From mobile money, a domain where Africa has been a global pioneer, to the burgeoning realms of embedded finance, blockchain, and neobanking, fintech is solving deep-seated challenges related to financial inclusion, cross-border trade, and access to capital. With projections from McKinsey & Company estimating that Africa’s financial-services market could grow at roughly 10 percent per annum, reaching about $230 billion in revenues by 2025, the sector is a beacon of innovation and economic promise.

This dynamism is not confined to a single hub. While Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt—the Big Four—continue to dominate funding rounds, a second wave of innovation is emerging from Francophone West Africa, Southern Africa, and the Horn, creating a more diverse and resilient ecosystem. This article profiles ten of the most compelling fintech startups across the continent that are not just riding this wave but are actively creating it, poised for significant impact in 2024 and beyond.

The African Fintech Landscape: More Than Just Mobile Money

The story of African fintech began with M-Pesa in Kenya in 2007, which taught the world the power of mobile-first financial solutions. However, the ecosystem has dramatically evolved. Today’s startups are layering advanced technologies onto this foundational infrastructure, creating solutions in:

• Payments and Remittances: Facilitating cheaper, faster domestic and cross-border transactions.
• Lending: Using alternative data for credit scoring to serve individuals and SMEs historically excluded from formal banking.
• WealthTech/Investment: Providing access to capital markets, cryptocurrencies, and other investment vehicles.
• InsurTech: Delivering micro-insurance products tailored to specific needs and income flows.
• Neobanking: Offering digital-first banking experiences without the legacy infrastructure.

The next phase of African fintech is about depth, not just breadth. It’s moving from payments into embedded finance, where financial services become seamlessly integrated into every economic activity, from agriculture to e-commerce, notes Benedicta Edet, a fintech analyst at TechCabal Insights.

Methodology: How We Selected the Startups to Watch

Our selection criteria for this list were multifaceted, focusing on:

• Innovation: Unique technology or business model solving a critical problem.
• Scale and Traction: Demonstrable user growth, transaction volume, or geographical expansion.
• Impact: Contribution to financial inclusion and economic development.
• Funding and Investor Confidence: Recent capital raises from reputable investors.
• Resilience: Ability to navigate a challenging global funding climate in 2023-2024.
• Regional Diversity: Highlighting innovation across Anglophone and Francophone Africa.

Africa’s Top 10 Fintech Startups to Watch in 2024

1. MNT-Halan (Egypt) – The Egyptian Unicorn Digitizing the Informal Economy

Born from the merger of ride-haling and delivery app Halan and digital lender MNT, MNT-Halan has become Egypt’s first fintech unicorn. It targets the nation’s vast informal sector and unbanked population, offering a suite of services including digital wallets, consumer loans, BNPL, and microfinance.

• Why Watch in 2024: Its success in digitizing Egypt’s informal economy is a blueprint for similar markets in North Africa and the Middle East. Its lending portfolio has seen explosive growth, demonstrating a scalable model for credit in emerging markets.

2. M-Kopa (Kenya) – Pioneering Asset Financing via Pay-As-You-Go

A veteran innovator, M-Kopa’s pay-as-you-go model has provided over 3 million customers in East Africa with access to solar power systems, smartphones, and other vital assets. Customers make a small deposit and unlock the product through daily micropayments via mobile money.

• Why Watch in 2024: Having secured over $250 million in debt and equity in 2023, M-Kopa is aggressively expanding its product lines and geographical footprint. It represents the powerful convergence of fintech and climate tech.

3. Flutterwave (Nigeria) – The Pan-African Payments Giant

Flutterwave is a bedrock of the African digital economy, providing the payment infrastructure that allows businesses to accept local and international payments seamlessly across the continent. It has weathered operational and PR challenges but remains a central player.

• Why Watch in 2024: Its pursuit of payments licenses in key markets like Kenya and India signals its ambition to become a truly global payments bridge connecting Africa to the world.

4. Chipper Cash (Pan-African) – Simplifying Cross-Border Transfers

Chipper Cash built its reputation on fee-free, instant P2P cross-border payments across Africa. Despite facing significant headwinds including crypto market volatility and layoffs, it maintains a strong user base and has pivoted to focus on core profitable products.

• Why Watch in 2024: Its resilience and strategic pivot will be a test case for how venture-backed African unicorns can adapt to a new macroeconomic reality of profitability over growth-at-all-costs.

5. Yoco (South Africa) – Empowering SMEs with Digital Tools

Yoco provides South African small businesses with card readers and a suite of software tools to manage sales, inventory, and customer engagement. It goes beyond payments to become an operating system for SMEs.

• Why Watch in 2024: Yoco’s deep focus on a single, high-potential market (South Africa) and its expansion into software and capital provision offers a masterclass in serving the SME segment, which is the backbone of most African economies.

6. PalmPay (Nigeria with Pan-African reach) – The Neobank Challenger

With a massive user base acquired through aggressive marketing and cashback incentives, PalmPay has established itself as a major neobank in Nigeria, Ghana, and beyond. It offers a super-app experience with payments, savings, and merchant services.

• Why Watch in 2024: The key question is whether PalmPay can successfully monetize its vast user base by cross-selling higher-margin financial products like credit and wealth management, transitioning from a marketing-driven to a value-driven growth model.

7. Ejara (Cameroon/Côte d’Ivoire) – Democratizing Investment for Francophone Africa

Ejara is a blockchain-powered investment platform that allows users in Francophone Africa to buy fractions of stocks, cryptocurrencies, and other assets with local mobile money. It tackles the dual problem of investment access and currency instability.

• Why Watch in 2024: Ejara is at the forefront of the nascent Francophone fintech explosion. Its focus on a historically underserved region and its innovative use of blockchain for fractional investing make it a standout.

8. Maad (Senegal) – Streamlining B2B Retail for Francophone Africa

Maad operates a B2B platform connecting informal retailers (small shops) directly to major brands and distributors. It also offers embedded financial services, including credit, based on the sales data it collects.

• Why Watch in 2024: Maad exemplifies the fintech + model, where financial services are embedded into a core non-financial product (e-commerce logistics). Its success could unlock efficiency in Africa’s fragmented informal retail sector.

9. Grey (Nigeria) – Enabling Borderless Financial Identities for Africans

Grey allows Africans to create foreign currency accounts (USD, GBP) and receive international payments directly, making it a favourite freelancers, remote workers, and students. It simplifies the process of earning and holding foreign currency.

• Why Watch in 2024: As Africa’s gig economy and remote work sector grows, Grey’s solution for managing cross-border earnings is increasingly critical. It empowers African digital professionals to participate fully in the global digital economy.

10. PayHippo (Nigeria) – Providing Rapid Credit to African SMEs

Using its proprietary AI-driven credit engine, PayHippo provides instant lending decisions and disburses working capital loans to small and medium-sized businesses within hours, using their transaction history as collateral.

• Why Watch in 2024: The SME funding gap in Africa is estimated at over $330 billion. PayHippo’s data-driven approach to solving this problem is a model that, if proven, can be scaled across the continent.

Regional Analysis: Key Fintech Hubs and Their Specializations

Region	Key Hubs	Primary Specializations	Notable Trends
West Africa (Anglophone)	Nigeria, Ghana	Payments, Lending, Neobanking	Market size dominance, intense competition, regulatory evolution.
East Africa	Kenya, Uganda	Mobile Money, Lending, InsurTech	M-Pesa ecosystem, Pay-As-You-Go models, strong agent networks.
Southern Africa	South Africa, Zambia	InsurTech, WealthTech, B2B Fintech	Advanced financial markets, focus on formal SMEs and insurance.
North Africa	Egypt, Tunisia	BNPL, Lending, Digital Banking	Large unbanked populations, growing smartphone penetration.
Francophone West Africa	Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire	B2B E-commerce, Mobile Money Interoperability	Rapid growth from a lower base, solving unique regional challenges.

Challenges and the Road Ahead for African Fintech

The path forward is not without obstacles. Key challenges include:

• Regulatory Fragmentation: Varying regulations across 54 countries complicate pan-African expansion.
• Funding Winter: Global venture capital contraction has forced startups to focus on unit economics and profitability.
• Infrastructure Gaps: Unreliable internet and electricity in some regions can hinder adoption.
• Digital Literacy: Ensuring users can safely and effectively use digital financial tools remains a hurdle.

The response to these challenges will define the next decade. We expect increased consolidation, tighter regulator-startup collaboration, and a stronger focus on building sustainable businesses rather than merely chasing user growth.

The Future is Inclusive, Integrated, and Intelligent

The ten companies profiled here are a testament to the ingenuity and resilience of African entrepreneurship. They are moving beyond imitation to create truly context-aware solutions for African markets. The future of African fintech lies in deeper integration—where financial services become invisible, embedded into the apps and platforms used for everyday commerce and life.

The continent’s journey from mobile money pioneer to a full-spectrum fintech innovator is well underway. As these startups show, the focus is squarely on building a financial system that is more inclusive, efficient, and capable of unlocking the immense economic potential of Africa’s people and businesses. For the global diaspora, engaging with and investing in this ecosystem represents not just an economic opportunity, but a chance to participate in shaping Africa’s digital destiny.