Funding for African agricultural technology (Agtech) startups dropped in 2025, with total investment falling from over $200 million to under $170 million, according to new analysis from Briter.
The research, published through its agtech intelligence platform AgBase, reviewed funding activity across more than 490 African ventures and over 600 active investors tracked between 2016 and December 2025.
It shows funding fell by almost 20% last year and points to changes in how investors are financing the sector.
“Africa’s agtech sector is not in a cyclical downturn – it is being fundamentally restructured,” the report stated.
Funding and deals both declined in 2025, coming even as the African startup market recorded its first year-on-year funding increase since 2022.
The report also shows a change in who is backing the sector. Development finance institutions and impact investors reduced their participation for the first time since tracking began.
At the same time, commercial investors such as venture capital firms, corporates and banks began returning to the market, but cautiously.
Many of those investors now prefer structured financing models instead of straightforward equity deals. Debt, hybrid instruments and grants together accounted for the majority of capital deployed in 2025.
Equity funding dropped, falling from about $328 million in 2022 to approximately $80 million last year.
The report notes that deal activity still centres on farm-level solutions, usually supported by grants. However, the larger funding rounds are flowing to businesses further along the value chain.
Logistics platforms, aggregation services, marketplaces and agricultural infrastructure are drawing bigger investments because they can absorb larger capital commitments.
Early-stage funding is still common across the sector. Most deals were valued below $250,000, while the funding band between $250,000 and $2 million continues to face constraints. Sub-$1 million rounds accounted for nearly 80% of all deals recorded in 2025.
Gender participation in agtech is stronger than in many other technology sectors on the continent. Women were involved in about 7% of deals.
However, the report says the funding gap gets wider at scale, as large capital flows concentrate in asset-heavy and downstream models where women’s representation falls.
The findings are part of the State of Agtech Investment in Africa 2025, the third edition of the annual report produced by Briter and AgBase, while the study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, with support from Mercy Corps AgriFin.
The report draws on AgBase’s database tracking companies, deals and investors across Africa’s agtech and foodtech ecosystem since 2016.
