CleanTech Funding In Africa: Who Is Actually Writing The Cheques

For most of the last decade, fintech was the story investors told about African technology. That story has quietly changed. Climate-focused startups now attract more capital than any other sector on the continent, and the shift has happened fast enough that many founders outside the energy space are still catching up to what it means.

The numbers are not subtle. African climate tech startups raised roughly $6.35 billion between 2016 and 2025, according to a report by Briter Bridges, with annual funding climbing from $206 million in 2016 to more than $1.5 billion in 2025. Climate tech accounted for nearly 40 per cent of all disclosed venture capital on the continent last year, overtaking fintech for the first time. The question worth asking now is not whether climate tech is attracting money. It is who is supplying it, and on what terms.

Development Finance Institutions Lead, Not Follow

Unlike the fintech boom, which was driven largely by venture capital chasing consumer growth, cleantech funding in Africa has been shaped from the start by development finance institutions. The International Finance Corporation, the European Investment Bank, and bilateral development banks are not peripheral players here. They are often the first money in.

Husk Power Systems, which builds solar hybrid mini-grids across rural Nigeria, offers a clear example. In May 2025, the IFC and the Government of Canada invested $5 million in Husk’s Nigerian subsidiary, the first disbursement under a $200 million debt facility built specifically to catalyse private-sector energy solutions across West and Central Africa. The European Investment Bank had already provided Husk with $20 million in debt financing to scale its Nigeria operations, at the time the largest corporate debt facility ever extended to a mini-grid company in Sub-Saharan…