Click to watchEach year, the Norrsken Foundation curates the Impact/100, a collection of the world’s most promising early-stage impact startups. The list shines a spotlight on companies building solutions with social and environmental good at the heart of their businesses.
According to Norrsken Foundation, the 2025 Impact/100 was compiled from over 1,400 nominations sourced from 50 nominators, which included investment funds, academic institutions and NGOs.
Twelve African startups made the cut, reflecting the continent’s growing strength in fintech, cleantech, and agritech. Unsurprisingly, there were five fintechs (40% of the 12), which correlates with the share of funding they receive. Surprisingly, the list did not feature any Nigerian fintech, and it’s not clear if Senegal’s Wave should still be considered an early-stage startup.
Without further ado, here is the list, in no particular order:
Wave (Senegal) — Fintech
Wave offers mobile-based financial services across West Africa, providing people with an affordable way to send, receive, and store money. Its platform is designed to reach rural and underserved communities that traditional banks often overlook.
Click to viewIn 2025, the company secured about $137 million in debt financing to support working capital and fuel expansion into new markets. Wave now operates in eight West African countries, serving over 20 million users monthly through a network of 150,000 agents and a team of approximately 3,000 employees.
Octavia Carbon (Kenya) — Cleantech
Octavia Carbon uses local geology to capture carbon dioxide from the air and store it underground. The startup is building technology that can help reduce emissions while creating a sustainable model through carbon credits.
In October 2024, the company raised $5 million in seed funding to scale its operations and advance its technology. It also secured about $1.1 million in non-dilutive financing through pre-sales of carbon credits.
VunaPay (Kenya) — Fintech
VunaPay is tackling the persistent challenge of delayed payments for smallholder farmers in Kenya. By working with cooperatives in value chains such as coffee, maize and dairy, the platform ensures farmers are paid almost immediately after delivering their produce.
So far, VunaPay has registered more than 20,000 farmers across 30 cooperatives and processed payments worth over KES 70 million (approximately $550,000). Another 100,000 farmers are already on its waitlist. The startup is backed by investors, including 54 Collective and Lifetime Ventures, alongside grants from organisations such as Heifer International.
Stitch (South Africa) – Fintech
Stitch operates in the payments infrastructure space. It provides APIs that enable businesses to accept diverse payment methods, streamline transactions, and integrate financial services directly into their platforms. The company has gained traction among African businesses that need reliable and flexible payment options across both online and in-person environments.
Earlier in 2025, Stitch closed a $55 million Series B round led by QED Investors, with participation from Norrsken22 and other global backers. The funding is fuelling expansion into card acquiring and scaling in-person payments.
Sabi (Nigeria) — B2B e-commerce
Sabi builds digital tools and a marketplace that links informal retailers with wholesalers, giving small businesses easier access to inventory, payments and logistics.
Earlier this year, the company restructured its operations and reduced its staff by around 20% as it shifted its full attention to TRACE, a digital platform designed to track African commodities. With support from Norrsken22, Sabi is now focused on helping global buyers trace minerals and crops back to their source, using transparency tools built for modern ESG rules and export standards.
By mid-2023, the company reported more than 300,000 merchants and an annualised gross merchandise value of $1 billion.
Nala (Kenya / Tanzania) — Fintech
Nala is a Tanzanian-founded fintech startup building cross-border remittance services. Over time, it has expanded from remittance to building a B2B payments and infrastructure platform called Rafiki, which connects directly to banks and mobile money providers.
In 2024, Nala raised $40 million in a Series A round led by Acrew Capital, with participation from DST Global, Norrsken22, HOF Capital and others. The company continued its growth in 2025 by entering Kenya through a partnership with Equity Bank and PesaLink.
Nile (South Africa) — Agritech
South Africa-based Nile runs a digital marketplace that streamlines interactions between farmers, suppliers and buyers. By cutting out layers of middlemen, the platform allows farmers to negotiate fairer prices for their produce and reach customers more quickly.
In June 2025, Nile raised ZAR200 million (approximately $11.3 million) to accelerate its expansion across Southern Africa. This followed an earlier funding round of $5.1 million in 2022, which helped lay the groundwork for its regional growth.
Amini (Kenya) — Climatetech
Amini is tackling Africa’s data gap by using AI and satellite technology to map climate, environmental and land use patterns. Its insights support decision-making in agriculture, climate adaptation, carbon markets and supply chains.
The startup, backed at pre-seed stage by climate-focused fund Pale Blue Dot, uses public satellite data from sources such as ESA Sentinel and NASA Landsat. With this, it generates environmental intelligence for smallholder farmers, focusing on challenges like drought, flooding, soil health and crop stress.
Gigmile (Nigeria) – Mobility Fintech
Gigmile is a mobility fintech designed for gig and informal workers. It provides vehicle subscriptions, asset leasing for items like phones and vehicles, as well as short-term business financing tailored to workers’ earnings.
The company also partners with e-commerce platforms to supply a pool of gig workers for deliveries. By the second quarter of 2025, Gigmile had raised $1.6 million in equity and more than $16 million in debt. It employs around 100 people across Ghana and Nigeria and operates in 10 cities.
Oze (Ghana) — Fintech
Oze develops digital infrastructure for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), helping them manage sales, expenses, receivables and payables through its app. The company also operates a Lending Management System (LMS) that utilises machine learning credit models, enabling banks and fintechs to offer unsecured loans to small businesses.
In February 2025, Oze received an undisclosed investment from Visa and German development finance institution DEG. This followed a $3 million funding round in 2022.
FarmWorks (Kenya) — Agritech
FarmWorks runs an integrated agrifood ecosystem that supports smallholder farmers with financing, inputs, training and access to markets. It also manages distribution and aggregation infrastructure to ensure a reliable supply of fresh produce while reducing food waste.
In 2023, the company raised $4.1 million in a pre-Series A round led by the Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund, bringing its total equity raised to about $5.6 million. In March 2025, FarmWorks received undisclosed funding from DOB Equity to help expand its sourcing network, strengthen its tech platform and broaden its product offerings, with the goal of reducing food loss and boosting farmer incomes.
Arnergy (Nigeria) — CleanTech
Arnergy delivers solar energy solutions for small businesses in regions where grid power is unreliable. Its systems replace diesel generators, providing a cleaner and more consistent source of electricity.
The company recently closed an $18 million Series B round, which included a $15 million extension following a $3 million raise the previous year. Arnergy has also attracted long-term support from investors such as Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which led its $9 million Series A in 2019, as well as Norfund.
Here’s the full list of startups featured on the Norrsken Impact/100.
Click to watch
