Africa Tech M&A 2025: How 66 Acquisitions And $3.24B Funding Reshape Fintech Through Consolidation

Zellow Analysis: Africa’s technology ecosystem is entering a consolidation phase where mergers and acquisitions are used for scale, regulatory access, and infrastructure control rather than as a defensive response to capital constraints. According to Briter’s 2025 Venture Pulse report, Africa recorded 489 venture deals, down from over 600 in 2022, yet total funding grew 44 percent year-on-year to 3.24 billion dollars. TechCabal Insights reports 66 acquisitions in 2025, a 69 percent increase from 39 deals in 2024. Notable deals include Flutterwave acquiring Nigerian open banking startup Mono for 25-40 million dollars in an all-stock transaction, Moove acquiring Brazil’s Kovi, expanding its fleet to 36,000 vehicles and annual revenue to 275 million dollars, and LemFi acquiring Irish currency exchange Bureau Buttercrane to secure EEA passporting rights for Europe’s 64 billion dollar remittance market.

The Macro Context: Fewer Deals, More Capital, Strategic Pressure

The African tech ecosystem has entered a phase where access to capital is more selective, regulatory scrutiny is increasing, and competitive differentiation is harder to sustain through product features alone.

The Numbers Revealing Structural Shift

According to Briter, although deal count declined to 489 in 2025, funding volumes rose to $3.24 billion, indicating capital concentrating in fewer, larger companies. TechCabal Insights data shows acquisitions rose sharply to 66 deals in 2025, with 29 M&A deals in the first half alone representing a 45% year-on-year increase.

Why this matters: Companies with scale face pressure to expand regionally without incurring long regulatory delays, secure licenses that would take years to obtain organically, control core infrastructure rather than rely on third-party providers, and build defensible moats around data, compliance, and trust.

Zellow Observation: The 69% increase in acquisitions while venture deal count declined 20% demonstrates that M&A became primary growth mechanism in capital-constrained environment. Companies choosing to buy rather than build signal market maturation where first-mover advantages are exhausted and competitive positioning requires infrastructure ownership.

Flutterwave-Mono: Payments Meets Open Banking Infrastructure

One of most significant fintech transactions in 2025 is Flutterwave's acquisition of Nigerian open banking startup Mono in all-stock transaction valued between $25 million and $40 million, with Mono continuing to operate independently under existing leadership.

Why Africa's Largest Payments Company Bought Its Data Provider

Flutterwave operates across 30+ African countries, enabling local and cross-border transactions through a single API. Mono, founded in August 2020 and backed by Y Combinator, Tiger Global, and General Catalyst, provides APIs allowing businesses to securely access bank account data, initiate direct bank payments, and verify identities.

The vertical integration rationale: Flutterwave was already a Mono customer prior to the acquisition. The transaction represents a vertical integration strategy rather than diversification, embedding banking data capability directly into the payments platform.

Mono's infrastructure value: Often described as "Africa's Plaid," Mono reports more than 8 million bank account connections and has processed billions of financial data points, becoming critical part of Nigeria's lending and fintech ecosystem where formal credit histories are limited and credit bureaus underdeveloped.

CEO strategic framing: Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga 'GB' Agboola stated, "Payments, data, and trust cannot exist in silos. Open banking provides the connective tissue." This positions open banking as core pillar of long-term infrastructure strategy rather than complementary service.

Zellow Observation: The $25-40M valuation with potential 20x returns for Mono investors demonstrates that open banking infrastructure commands premium valuations in data-scarce African markets. Flutterwave's willingness to acquire rather than continue customer relationships signals the strategic importance of controlling the data layer, not just accessing it through integration.

Stitch-ExiPay: Omnichannel Payments Through Acquisition

In South Africa, Stitch's acquisition of ExiPay reflects infrastructure consolidation logic where companies prioritize time-to-market and technology stack ownership over long development cycles.

Buy Versus Build: The 18-24 Month Calculation

Stitch, founded in 2019 with $52 million in funding, provides online payment infrastructure for large enterprises. ExiPay, founded in 2022, enables in-person payments through point-of-sale terminals. The acquisition for an undisclosed amount allows Stitch to offer a unified omnichannel payments platform integrating online and in-person transactions.

CEO strategic reasoning: Stitch CEO Kiaan Pillay noted that developing a comparable solution in-house would have taken 18 to 24 months. ExiPay's six-person team has been fully integrated and product rebranded as "Stitch In-person payments."

Market positioning: Stitch now sells an integrated solution to MTN, Cell C, MultiChoice, and Bash. ExiPay reported processing R2 million ($106,000) daily transactions in 2023 and received €5.4 million in private funding from Izwe Africa in 2024.

Zellow Observation: The 18-24 month development timeline avoided through acquisition represents strategic advantage in fast-moving market where competitors could capture enterprise customers during organic build period. Acquisition economics favor buying when development time plus opportunity cost exceeds purchase price.

Moove-Kovi: African Company Acquiring Globally

Moove's acquisition of Brazilian car rental startup Kovi represents a different M&A trend: African startups expanding abroad through acquisition rather than partnerships or organic market entry.

The All-Stock Deal Creating $275M Revenue Company

The all-stock transaction makes Kovi's investors shareholders in Moove, aligning long-term incentives. Kovi, founded in 2018 in Y Combinator W19 batch, raised $145+ million from Accel, Valor Capital, Prosus Ventures, and Quona Capital. Moove, backed by Uber, Mubadala, BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and IFC, has raised approximately $500 million in debt and equity, with Uber-led Series B valuing the company at $750 million.

Scale implications: The acquisition increases Moove's annual revenue to $275 million and expands the fleet to 36,000 vehicles operating across 19 cities on five continents. Moove already operated in Colombia and Mexico; Kovi strengthens its footprint in Latin America, the world's largest ride-hailing market.

Strategic capabilities: Beyond geographic expansion, the deal supports Moove's AI mobility strategy. Kovi's proprietary algorithms, IoT capabilities, and driver behavior models will be integrated into Moove's platform for optimizing fleet management.

Zellow Observation: This transaction challenges the traditional narrative of African startups being acquisition targets rather than acquirers. Moove's $750M valuation and ability to execute complex cross-border M&A demonstrates that African companies increasingly compete globally through acquisition-led expansion strategies, accessing markets, capabilities, and scale unavailable through organic growth.

LemFi-Buttercrane: Buying Regulatory Access To Europe

LemFi's acquisition of Irish currency exchange platform Bureau Buttercrane illustrates how M&A overcomes regulatory barriers through license acquisition rather than multi-year application processes.

The Post-Brexit EEA Access Strategy

Approved by Central Bank of Ireland, the deal grants LemFi Irish license enabling operation across entire European Economic Area through passporting. Previously, LemFi relied on a UK license obtained through the 2021 RightCard acquisition, but post-Brexit, that license no longer allowed direct European market access.

Regulatory arbitrage: LemFi already possessed the technical infrastructure to operate in Europe and had partnered with Dutch firm Modulr Finance while awaiting regulatory approval. The acquisition served as legal and regulatory accelerator rather than a product expansion.

Market opportunity: With $1 billion in monthly payment volume and operations across 22 countries, LemFi now positions itself to compete in Europe's $64 billion remittance market. The company is establishing European headquarters in Dublin and hiring locally.

Zellow Observation: The regulatory M&A category demonstrates that in highly regulated sectors like financial services, acquisition becomes a faster and more certain path to market entry than application processes taking 18-36 months with uncertain approval outcomes. Buying existing licensed entities converts regulatory uncertainty into a known acquisition cost.

The Five Strategic Themes Driving African M&A

Infrastructure ownership over integration: Companies increasingly acquire core infrastructure, including data, licenses, and payment rails, rather than integrating third-party providers, controlling the value chain rather than depending on external relationships.

Speed as competitive advantage: Acquisitions compress timelines for expansion, allowing companies to bypass multi-year development or regulatory processes, converting 18-24 month organic timelines into immediate capability acquisition.

Regulatory arbitrage through M&A: Deals like LemFi-Buttercrane highlight how acquisitions unlock market access rather than building new products, purchasing regulatory permissions unobtainable through organic processes.

Africa as acquirer, not just target: Moove's expansion into Latin America demonstrates outbound ambition and operational maturity, reversing the traditional narrative where African companies primarily serve as acquisition targets for international buyers.

Consolidation in capital-constrained markets: As venture funding becomes more selective, scale and defensibility are increasingly achieved through consolidation rather than competing venture-backed entities burning capital for market share.

Actionable Insights For Stakeholders

For Tech Operators: Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions using an 18-24 month development timeline as a benchmark. When the acquisition price is lower than the development cost plus the opportunity cost of delayed market entry, it favours the acquisition.

For Investors: The 66 acquisitions in 2025 create exit opportunities for early-stage investors in infrastructure, licensing, and capability companies that larger players need for strategic positioning rather than standalone financial returns.

For Founders: Position startups as acquisition targets by building infrastructure, licenses, or capabilities that scaled companies need but cannot efficiently build in-house. Focus on becoming a critical infrastructure rather than a direct competitor.

As data from Briter and TechCabal Insights shows, consolidation is structural, not cyclical. In Africa's next phase, winners will be those who can not only build but also acquire, integrate, and govern systems through which money, data, and trust flow.