There is good news and awkward news in the latest count of Southern African venture capital, and which one you hear depends on whether you already have an investor. The Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SAVCA) says its members put R2.48 billion (about $153 million) into more than 200 funding rounds in 2025. The number of companies receiving that money shrank.
The figures come from SAVCA’s 2026 Venture Capital Industry Survey, which covers the 2025 calendar year and was reported by Disrupt Africa on 15 September. SAVCA publishes its surveys on its data and research page.
Same number of deals, fewer companies
The survey counted 212 deals across 91 companies in 2025. In 2024 it counted 222 deals across 110 companies. Deal volume barely moved, but it went to 19 fewer businesses. On average, each funded company raised 2.3 rounds.
That is the signature of a market doing follow-on investment (putting more money into companies it already owns) rather than taking new bets. “What we’re seeing is a concentration of capital towards fewer deals and more follow-on investment rounds,” said Stephen Lamprecht of VS Nova, one of the investors quoted in the survey coverage. For a startup that already has a venture investor on its shareholder register, that is reassuring: the backers are staying in. For a founder trying to raise a first institutional round, it means the queue is longer and the bar is higher.
The industry’s active portfolio has grown to 1 529 investments, and assets under management reached about R15.45bn. Technology-enabled businesses made up about two-thirds of deals, with fintech the largest category and ICT security and agritech drawing strong interest.
The exits, which are the part investors actually live on
Venture capital funds make their returns on exits, when a company is sold or lists and the fund cashes out. That has long been the weak point of the local market, and it is where this survey has its most encouraging number. Investors reported 10 exits in 2025, six of them profitable. Those six returned R281.2 million on R99.3 million invested in the same transactions, about 2.8 times the money.
Ten exits is still a small sample, and a single strong sale can move a figure like that a long way. But for the pension funds, development finance institutions and corporates who put money into venture funds, realised returns matter more than paper valuations. Every profitable exit makes the next fund easier to raise, which eventually means more money for first-time founders too.
“We’re moving beyond measuring capital raised and deals completed to see increasing evidence of companies scaling,” said SAVCA chief executive Anusha Naidu. The survey adds some weight to that claim on jobs: 71% of portfolio companies increased their headcount.
What this means if you are raising
The concentration of capital changes the practical advice for founders. When investors are writing follow-on cheques into companies they know, a new company has to look like one of those: clear revenue, a customer base that is growing on its own, and an investor case that does not depend on a single big contract. Pre-revenue startups will find a crowded field.
That makes the money that comes before venture capital more important, not less. Grant programmes, development finance and accelerators with no equity attached can carry a company to the point where a venture investor will take it seriously. Google’s accelerator, for one, is backing 15 South African AI startups with R1m each and no equity taken, and 22 On Sloane has launched a R1bn fund and AI platform aimed at the early end of the market. Our guide to government funding for small businesses covers the state options, and the Government Funding Finder matches a business to the programmes it qualifies for.
Before any of those conversations, it is worth knowing what giving up a share of the company actually costs compared with borrowing. The equity versus debt calculator puts a number on it.
What the survey does not tell us
The survey reflects what SAVCA’s participating members report, so it is not a count of every rand invested in local startups: offshore funds investing directly and angel investors acting alone will not all appear. The coverage also does not break out the stage mix of the 212 deals or how the exits happened, whether trade sales, secondary sales or listings. Those would show whether the money is reaching early-stage companies at all, or mostly topping up the ones already past that point.
What it does show is a market that has stopped growing wider and started growing deeper. That is healthy for the companies already in it. The companies not yet in it will have to arrive with more to show.
