African startups do not have a branding or vision problem. And, contrary to popular belief, they don't have a pure funding problem. They have a number problem. I began thinking seriously about this after reporting on conflicting public metrics around Moniepoint, one of Nigeria’s most celebrated fintechs. Depending on where you looked, Moniepoint was processing 800 million transactions, over one billion transactions, or a staggering 1.67 billion transactions monthly. Each number told a slightly different story about scale and growth. Following the publication of this analysis, Moniepoint updated its ‘About Us’ page to cite $250 billion processed in over 12 billion transactions. Yet, this ‘correction’ only served to highlight the depth of the discrepancy. Just days earlier, the company’s own official 2025 Year in Review proudly disclosed ₦412 trillion (approximately $270 billion) in 14 billion transactions. In the span of a single report, $20 billion in value and 2 billion transactions simply vanished. This is a fundamental breakdown in transparency. When a unicorn’s marketing department and its reporting department cannot agree on a figure the size of a small nation's GDP, the number problem becomes a crisis of credibility. If one of Africa’s flagship unicorns cannot present internally consistent public numbers, what does that say about the broader startup ecosystem and the metrics we rely on to judge its health? When big numbers hide small realities Across Africa, startups routinely flaunt impressive figures, only for many to shut down abruptly months later. Okra, once positioned as the indispensable plumbing of African open banking, raised over $16 million and seemed inevitable before shutting down in 2025. Lidya claimed millions in loans and European expansion, yet volume masked fragile unit economics. Edukoya raised massive rounds and reportedly served tens of thousands, but engagement couldn't buy a path to revenue. Bento Africa, Lipa Later, and Medsaf all followed a similar trajectory. These were the darlings of ecosystem reports and Africa-rising slide decks until the math stopped working. The problem is not the impressive numbers; it’s what they hide. We treat scale metrics like total processed value (TPV) and user counts as proxies for health. They are not. The Moniepoint analysis highlighted a double squeeze that these big numbers often obscure. While the company reportedly processed a massive 14 billion transactions in 2025, the average ticket value shriveled to just $13.50, a 61% drop from its 2023 baseline. This signals a network getting busier but carrying less value per ping as currency devalues and consumer power wanes. This is not to say Moniepoint isn't a success. The drop in ticket value could mean that more Nigerians are discovering digital payment and using it for everyday transactions. Moniepoint’s claim of disbursing over ₦1 trillion in business loans is also an impressive prospect for local credit infrastructure. But we deserve to know the truth about the companies we celebrate. Several structural factors contribute to this number problem. Headlines scream "$X billion raised" but ignore that 80% of that capital might be flowing to just two or three late-stage fintechs. We apply Silicon Valley’s liquid-market logic to fragmented, infrastructure-constrained African markets. When the numbers don't translate, we massage them. If African startups want credibility, the ecosystem must celebrate harder truths: Who is actually coming back? Is this money flowing through you, or staying with you? Numbers shape decisions. Investors allocate capital, policymakers design interventions, and founders model strategies based on them. When the numbers are shaky, everyone builds on unstable ground. The Moniepoint investigation was not about singling out one company. It simply asked: do the numbers add up? For African tech to mature, it must learn to respect numbers as instruments of truth. Reliability is currently in short supply, and in 2026, it is the only currency that should matter.
