African female startup founders entered 2025 with unwavering drive, continuing to shape the continent’s innovation landscape despite tightening capital and fluctuating investor sentiment. Their successes may be quiet, but they remain consistent, powerful, and increasingly hard to overlook.
According to Africa: The Big Deal, female-led companies attracted $45.4 million in funding between January and September 2025. In Q1 2025, women founders secured only 2% of total funding, amounting to $10 million out of $460 million, demonstrating both progress and the persistent funding imbalance across Africa’s tech ecosystem.
Below is a breakdown of the women founders who secured $1 million and above by September 2025, and the ventures they are scaling across Africa.
1. Dabchy (Tunisia) — $1 Million Pre-Series A
Founder: Ameni Mansouri (Co-founder)
Industry: E-commerce / Fashion Marketplace
Dabchy is a Tunisian peer-to-peer fashion platform enabling users to buy and sell new and pre-loved clothing, accessories, and beauty items. Co-founded by Ameni Mansouri, Ghazi Ketata, and Oussama Mahjoub, the startup is simplifying e-commerce while tackling logistics and accessibility issues in North Africa.
The company raised $1 million in a Pre-Series A round in February 2025, supported by Janngo Capital, Renew Capital, and angel investors. The investment will fuel market expansion, diversify offerings, and enhance user experience.
2. Salpha Energy (Nigeria) — $1.3 Million Debt Funding
Founder: Sandra Chukwudozie
Industry: Clean Energy / Solar Solutions
Salpha Energy, founded by Sandra Chukwudozie, provides affordable solar energy systems to underserved and off-grid communities across Nigeria. Its products range from small home kits to large commercial systems bundled with storage and inverters.
The company secured $1.3 million in debt financing from All On, a Shell-backed impact investor. The capital will support the scaling of its solar deployments, strengthen operations, and extend energy access to additional communities nationwide.
3. Liquify (Ghana) — $1.5 Million Seed Investment
Founders: Nadya Yaremenko (CEO), Alberta Asafo-Asamoah
Industry: Fintech / Export Invoice Financing
Liquify helps exporters across Africa unlock immediate working capital by converting unpaid export invoices into fast financing. The platform handles onboarding, compliance checks, credit assessments, and settlement digitally.
Since its late-2024 beta launch, Liquify has processed over 150 transactions totalling around $4 million. In 2025, it raised $1.5 million in an oversubscribed seed round led by Future Africa, with participation from Launch Africa, 54 Collective, Digital Africa, Equitable Ventures, and angel investors. The funds will support market expansion across Anglophone and Francophone Africa and strengthen its AI-driven risk tools.
4. Farm to Feed (Kenya) — $1.6 Million Seed Round
Founder: Claire van Enk, with Anouk Boertien and Zara Benosa
Industry: Agritech / Food Waste Reduction
Farm to Feed tackles food waste by sourcing surplus or imperfect produce from farmers and redistributing it to buyers such as restaurants, schools, food processors, and institutional clients.
The company raised $1.6 million in seed funding from Delta40, Catalyst Fund, DEG, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Holocene, 54 Collective, Marula Square, and angels. The investment will power operational expansion, farmer onboarding, logistics optimization, and product diversification.
5. Altera Biosciences (South Africa) — $1.6 Million Pre-Seed
Founder: Alexandra Miszewski (CEO), with Prof. Michael Pepper
Industry: Biotech / Cell & Gene Therapy
Altera Biosciences is developing a breakthrough “universal donor cell” technology aimed at enabling off-the-shelf cell and gene therapies that bypass immune rejection. The platform uses advanced gene-editing and cell-engineering techniques to erase compatibility barriers.
The startup raised $1.6 million in a pre-seed round in July 2025, led by OneBio Venture Studio and E Squared Investments. Funding will support lab R&D, scientific talent acquisition, and early validation of its core cell-engineering platform.
6. WeThinkCode (South Africa) — $2 Million Grant
Founder: Nyari Samushonga (Co-founder)
Industry: Edtech / AI & Software Skills Development
WeThinkCode is a tuition-free tech academy training young Africans, especially underserved groups, in software engineering. Led by co-founder Nyari Samushonga, the organisation equips students with practical, employable digital skills.
In June 2025, the academy received a $2 million grant from Google.org to expand into AI skills training. The programme aims to equip 12,000 youth in South Africa and Kenya with foundational and intermediate AI competencies by 2026.
7. Neopenda (Uganda) — $2.6 Million Venture Round
Founder: Sona Shah (CEO), with Teresa Cauvel
Industry: Healthtech / Neonatal Monitoring
Neopenda designs wearable devices that monitor vital signs of newborns in low-resource hospitals, helping healthcare workers detect complications early and improve survival outcomes.
The company raised $2.6 million through a WeFunder venture crowdfunding round. The funding will support large-scale production, distribution, and expansion into more hospitals and clinics across Africa.
A Steady and Transformative Rise
Although women founders still receive a disproportionately small share of Africa’s investment capital, their 2025 achievements reflect tenacity, innovation, and growing influence. These women-led startups are not only securing investment, they are building impactful solutions, driving sector transformation, and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible within Africa’s tech landscape.
Their collective progress underscores a simple truth: African women are powering some of the continent’s most meaningful and resilient innovation stories.
