OPay IPO, MNT-Halan listing put Africa’s start-up exits in focus

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Read History Go to My Account Log Out Enhanced by Google Technology OPay IPO, MNT-Halan listing put Africa’s start-up exits in focus Africa’s start-up exit market is drawing renewed attention as Nigerian fintech OPay prepares for a proposed New York Stock Exchange

Listen to this article Share Africa’s start-up exit market is drawing renewed attention as Nigerian fintech OPay prepares for a proposed New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listing and Egyptian fintech MNT-Halan advances plans to list on the Egyptian Exchange, offering investors potential routes to liquidity amid a shrinking pool of funded ventures.

The transactions come as Africa’s start-up ecosystem faces a widening divide between the amount of capital raised and the number of businesses able to attract it. While total funding has remained relatively resilient, fewer start-ups are securing investment, smaller deals are declining and capital is increasingly concentrated in a handful of large transactions.

According to Africa: The Big Deal, a start-up funding tracker, 311 African start-ups raised at least $100,000 between January and September 2026, down 18 percent from 381 over the same period in 2025. The figure represents the lowest January-to-September tally since the tracker began monitoring deals in 2021.

Against that backdrop, the prospect of two prominent fintech companies accessing public markets could provide an important test of investor appetite for African technology businesses and the ability of early backers to realise returns.

The tracker recorded 34 start-up exits in the first nine months of 2026, compared with 38 in the same period last year. Although the figure is 11 percent lower year on year, it remains almost twice the 18 exits recorded in January–September 2024 and the 16 recorded in the corresponding period of 2023.

Among the publicly identified transactions in the first half of 2026 were the acquisition of Nigerian open-banking start-up Mono by Flutterwave, the purchase of Nigerian microfinance bank Ladder by Paystack, and Moniepoint’s acquisition of a controlling stake in Kenya’s Sumac Microfinance Bank.

Other transactions included Egyptian financial services company Beltone’s acquisition of pan-African lending business Baobab for $227.13 million; South African payments company Pay@’s sale of an 80 percent stake to Araxi for $62 million; and Israeli research and development company Commit’s acquisition of African technology talent business Savannah.

Nigeria’s off-grid energy company Izili also acquired Burkina Faso-based Qotto, while electric mobility company Spiro acquired motorcycle engineering business Coexlion. Other reported transactions involved Kenya’s conversational commerce platform Chpter, Morocco’s logistics start-up Cathedis, South African travel technology business Conservio and payments gateway Peach Payments.

The third quarter added further transactions, including Chpter and GTXN in Kenya, Tamweely and Eduact in Egypt, Alan Africa in Senegal, and Algosys in Uganda, according to Africa: The Big Deal’s summary of the period.

The transactions are significant because exits through acquisitions or public listings can return capital to investors, allowing them to reinvest in other businesses. They can also provide a market-based valuation for companies and demonstrate whether African technology businesses can attract buyers and public-market investors.

OPay takes Nigeria’s fintech story to Wall Street

OPay, a digital financial services company with a major presence in Nigeria, filed a registration statement with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in October for a proposed NYSE listing under the ticker symbol OPAY.

The company is targeting approximately $500 million through the proposed initial public offering and a concurrent private placement, according to reports citing people familiar with the transaction. The final offering size and pricing remain subject to the IPO process.

Standard Bank Group, Africa’s largest bank by assets, has separately signed an agreement to invest in OPay through its Stanbic Africa Holdings subsidiary. The proposed investment is capped at the lower of $200 million, a regulatory-capital-based limit and an amount equivalent to 4.99 percent of OPay’s post-transaction shares, according to the registration statement.

The investment is expected to close concurrently with or shortly after the IPO, subject to completion of the offering and applicable regulatory approvals.

Standard Bank said it also intends to explore opportunities with OPay in digital banking, payments, merchant acquiring, lending and remittances across African markets. The partnership could combine OPay’s consumer and merchant distribution network with the bank’s financial infrastructure and regional presence.

The bank’s participation is significant beyond the capital it could provide. It represents a potential strategic relationship between a major African banking group and a technology-led financial services platform seeking access to international public markets.

For OPay, a successful listing could provide additional capital to support expansion and establish a public-market valuation for a business operating in one of Africa’s most active digital payments markets. For investors, it would offer an opportunity to assess the company’s growth, profitability and prospects through a regulated public-market framework.

However, a listing alone would not establish that Africa’s wider start-up funding market has recovered. OPay is a relatively mature fintech business, and its ability to attract public-market investors may not translate into easier fundraising for younger companies with limited revenue or unproven business models.

MNT-Halan tests Egypt’s public-market appetite

In Egypt, MNT-Halan is pursuing a public listing that could become one of the country’s largest initial public offerings in recent years.

The fintech company plans to sell 320 million existing shares, representing approximately 20 percent of its Egyptian business, at EGP24.5 per share. The offering is expected to raise about EGP7.84 billion, equivalent to approximately $150 million, and values the business at roughly EGP39.2 billion, or $750 million, according to reporting by EnterpriseAM.

Trading was expected to begin on October 20, subject to the completion of the listing process.

MNT-Halan provides digital financial services, including lending and payments, and has expanded beyond Egypt through acquisitions and regional operations. Its proposed listing would give public-market investors an opportunity to buy into an established fintech platform rather than invest through a private venture-capital fund.

Founder and chief executive Mounir Nakhla has pointed to improving economic conditions and developments in Egypt’s capital markets as reasons for the timing of the listing. In remarks reported by Reuters, he said these developments had strengthened the market’s appeal to foreign investors.

The offering has also attracted institutional commitments. Commercial International Bank has committed up to EGP2 billion, or about $37 million, as a cornerstone investor, while EnterpriseAM reported that London-based investment manager Redwheel had agreed to participate with approximately $20 million.

Such commitments can provide an important signal to prospective investors, although the ultimate success of the offering will depend on demand, pricing and the company’s performance after listing.

The transaction also illustrates that exits are not necessarily a sign that founders are abandoning their businesses. An IPO can allow existing shareholders to sell part of their holdings while the company remains listed and continues to operate, with public investors taking a stake in its future growth.

Exits remain active as funding access narrows

The two proposed listings are unfolding alongside a broader pattern in Africa’s start-up market: exit activity has remained relatively strong even as the number of companies raising capital has fallen.

The distinction between funding and exits is important. Funding figures measure new capital entering start-ups, while exits measure ownership changes or routes through which investors may recover capital. Strong activity in one category does not necessarily mean the other is improving.

The latest funding figures underline that risk. The number of start-ups raising between $100,000 and $1 million fell to 171 in January–September 2026 from 220 a year earlier, a decline of 22 percent. The number raising at least $1 million fell by a smaller 13 percent, from 161 to 140.

Meanwhile, deals worth at least $10 million accounted for 83 percent of total funding during the period, compared with 78 percent in 2025 and 69 percent in 2024. Two companies, electric mobility venture Spiro and mobility fintech Moove, accounted for 28 percent of all funding raised on the continent so far this year, according to the tracker.

The pattern suggests that capital is increasingly flowing towards businesses capable of demonstrating scale, established operations or clearer paths to returns, while smaller ventures face greater difficulty securing their first substantial cheques.

Will successful exits bring more investors back?

The broader question is whether high-profile listings and acquisitions can help reverse the decline in investor participation.

Africa: The Big Deal counted at least 334 individual investors participating in $100,000-plus transactions between January and September 2026, down 18 percent from at least 408 over the same period last year. The number of investors participating in equity rounds fell 26 percent, from at least 366 to 271.

The number of repeat investors also declined. At least 91 investors participated in two or more deals during the first nine months of the year, down 31 percent from 132 in the corresponding period of 2025.

These figures suggest that the challenge is not simply to generate more headline funding announcements. The ecosystem also needs a broader base of investors willing to finance companies at different stages of development.

Max Cuvellier Giacomelli, co-founder of Africa: The Big Deal, highlighted the tension between relatively resilient funding totals and a declining number of companies raising capital. In an analysis published in July, he noted that African start-ups raised about $1.36 billion in the first half of 2026, broadly in line with the $1.44 billion recorded in the first half of 2025, even as the number of ventures raising at least $100,000 reached its lowest level since at least 2021.

Dolapo Morgan, principal at Ventures Platform Fund said closer engagement between stock exchanges and start-ups could help companies understand listing requirements while enabling exchanges to become more familiar with technology businesses and their financing models.

That would require improvements in corporate governance, financial reporting, investor relations and the ability of exchanges to accommodate companies whose growth patterns differ from those of traditional industrial businesses.

It would also require deeper domestic institutional participation and more accessible routes for investors to buy and sell shares across African markets.

The need for better-functioning exit markets extends beyond individual venture funds. When investors recover capital from successful exits, they can return money to limited partners and deploy it into new businesses. When capital remains locked up for longer, funds may have less capacity to support new companies.

The 34 exits recorded in the first nine months of 2026 show that acquisitions and consolidation remain active across Africa. OPay’s proposed US listing and MNT-Halan’s Egyptian offering also demonstrate that public-market access is possible for businesses that reach sufficient scale.

But translating that confidence into a broader recovery will require more than a few large exits. Investors must also be willing to fund younger businesses, and founders need credible routes to scale and eventual returns.

The central test is whether public-market access for established companies can help unlock a more inclusive investment cycle, one in which capital reaches not only the continent’s largest fintech platforms, but also the next generation of start-ups seeking their first institutional investment.

Royal Ibeh is a senior journalist with years of experience reporting on Nigeria’s technology and health sectors. She currently covers the Technology and Health beats for BusinessDay newspaper, where she writes in-depth stories on digital innovation, telecom infrastructure, healthcare systems, and public health policies.