Stablecoins dominate as African startups raise $53 million in May

African startups raised $228 million across 12 deals in May 2026. This shows a drop from $254 million across 36 disclosed deals in May 2025.

A closer look at the deals reveals that Paymentology, the South African-origin card payments processor that raised $175 million in May, accounts for the bulk of that headline figure. The company operates globally and has foreign branches.

Remove it, and May’s actual disclosed total drops to $53 million — the lightest month of the year. What May did have, concentrated within a single week, was a stablecoin cluster that accounted for 70% of all real funding activity that month.

Last updated: June 2, 2026