Founder, @propel_africa: where African founders and investors find each other. Father, husband, traveller, builder.
United Kingdom
Joined October 2010
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Eight years of African venture, on one record: $21.4 billion disclosed across 4,100+ funding rounds since 2019.
Acquisitions and IPOs stay out. Buying a company is not investing in one.
Every startup and fund has a page. Go and find your competitors. Or your next investor.
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Some of the best-known funds in African venture appear on Propel's record once or twice in two years. Funds have cycles. The hard part is that founders rarely get to see where a fund is in its cycle. Thread.
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If you're raising: start with activity, not brand. Who has invested in companies like yours since 2024? Forty names, not four thousand. Read a fund's rounds in order before you ask for the intro.
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Every investor page on Propel shows the rounds behind the name, newest first, with sources. Ask who backed companies like yours recently: propel.africa/ask
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1. Some of the best-known funds in African venture appear on Propel's record once or twice in two years. Funds have cycles. The hard part is that founders rarely get to see where a fund is in its cycle. Thread.
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4. If you're raising: start with activity, not brand. Who has invested in companies like yours since 2024? Forty names, not four thousand. Read a fund's rounds in order before you ask for the intro.
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5. Every investor page on Propel shows the rounds behind the name, newest first, with sources. Ask who backed companies like yours recently: propel.africa/ask
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Abdulrahman retweeted
84 of the 302 African startup deals recorded between January and August 2026 went to companies with at least one woman co-founder.
That is about 28%: up on 2025, below 2023 and 2024.
propel.africa/news/africa-st…
Fintech: 81 African startup deals from January to August 2026, the most of any sector.
Its money fell to about $525M from about $690M, and more of it is borrowed: ValU $63.6M from National Bank of Egypt, @NALAmoney up to $50M.
Is fintech equity getting harder to raise?
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Abdulrahman retweeted
Raise spotlight 🇳🇬
Aeon builds cybersecurity tools for networks, cloud, code and endpoints in Africa and the Global South.
In September it raised a $1M pre-seed led by Terra Industries, itself a Nigerian defence tech startup.
propel.africa/org/aeon
Abdulrahman retweeted
Who buys African startups? 🧵
Propel's records hold 212 acquisitions of 210 African startups, from January 2019 to February 2026.
Six in ten had a buyer based in Africa. One in three was bought by another startup.
Abdulrahman retweeted
🇪🇬 @Tactfulai has new backing from Hatem Dowidar, former group CEO of e&, extending its pre-Series A. Amount undisclosed.
Not a usual path: bought by Dstny in 2022, bought back by its founders in 2025, then $1M pre-Series A in February.
propel.africa/org/tactful
Egypt’s Tactful AI gets backing from former e& CEO Hatem Dowidar disruptafrica.com/2026/10/20…
Abdulrahman retweeted
Three Nigerian startups, one backer, all in naira 🇳🇬
In June, @CascadorNigeria provided debt to:
@agriarche $1.8M (₦2.5bn)
Koolboks $1.5M (₦2bn)
Powerstove $1.3M (₦1.8bn)
Farm supply, solar cooling and clean cooking.
propel.africa/org/cascador
Weekend question:
Which African startup is the most underrated right now?
Best answers might just get a Propel feature 👀
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Since 2023, @Techstars has backed 41 Nigerian startups on Propel's records. Next: @vplatformhub 14, 54 Collective 13, @ycombinator 12.
But Techstars went from 54 African first cheques in 2023 to two in 2025.
Who writes Nigeria's pre-seed cheques in 2027?
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Propel Africa went quiet last December.
Here's why: the old site was a directory, and the data aged the moment we published it.
So I rebuilt it. Every startup, every investor and every round between them, kept fresh.
Raised recently? DM me. I'd love to feature you.
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