Investment analysts Endeavor South Africa has highlighted fintech acquisitions worth billions and rising exit momentum across Africa as a proof point for a maturing ecosystem.
The company says a string of high-profile exits in South Africa’s tech and fintech sectors is sending a clear signal to investors: liquidity is back on the table, adding that these deals are the missing piece that will help unlock fresh capital for the region’s scale-ups – long hampered by a shortage of exit opportunities.
Over the past 18 months, five South African fintech companies including DocFox, Adumo, Ratality, Bank Zero, and iKhokha have been acquired for billions of rands. These transactions are not isolated: across Africa, 21 exits were recorded in the first half of 2025 alone – matching or exceeding annual totals from both 2023 and 2024.
Other notable South African exits over this recent period include Havaic’s sale of RapidDeploy to US-listed Motorola Solutions; Knife Capital’s exit from event ticketing platform Quicket to Ticketmaster; and, most recently, Syft Analytics – a bootstrapped Johannesburg-founded SaaS startup – acquired by New Zealand-listed Xero in a $70-million deal.
This surge comes against the backdrop of a slowly reopening global IPO market underscored by US fintech Chime’s recent listing and the July IPO of design platform Figma, which soared 250% on debut.
This month, Klarna – after 20 years as a private company – successfully landed on the New York Stock Exchange, raising $1,4-billion and valuing the business at roughly $15-billion. Other pending or recent listings, including StubHub (ticketing marketplace) and Netskope (cloud cybersecurity), further demonstrate a resurgence in global tech appetite.
For investors, these signs of liquidity are critical: with global corporates diverting cash into AI and data infrastructure rather than venture capital, exits remain the primary lever to prove returns and recycle capital back into funds.
“Exits are the cornerstone of a healthy venture ecosystem,” says Alison Collier, MD of Endeavor South Africa. “Investors only commit if they know they can also exit – and South Africa is finally seeing that proof point. Recent acquisitions across fintech and other sectors show that liquidity is returning, reassuring investors that African scale-ups can deliver strong returns. This momentum will be critical to unlocking the next wave of growth capital into the ecosystem.”
The trend extends beyond South Africa.
Karim Beguir, a Tunisian entrepreneur selected as an Endeavor investment seven years ago, achieved one of Africa’s largest exits when his AI company InstaDeep was acquired by BioNTech in 2023 for approximately $700-million. Inspired by South African engineering talent, Beguir established a local office in Cape Town and continues to give back to the ecosystem.
Historically, African entrepreneurs have faced greater hurdles in attracting institutional capital due to the scarcity of exits. Without liquidity events even high-growth companies struggled to prove their investability. The recent uptick in acquisitions demonstrates a turning point, reinforcing Africa’s appeal at a time when global markets are searching for new growth frontiers.
“Exits don’t just reward investors,” says Collier. “They recycle capital back into the ecosystem which is essential for South Africa’s economic growth. When founders succeed, they attract new capital, build global companies and create thousands of jobs locally.
“The wave of exits we are now seeing signals that South Africa’s scale-up economy is maturing in a way that will benefit not just investors, but the country’s workforce and society at large,” she says.