African-founded technology companies are increasingly building businesses that operate across borders, connecting customers and suppliers with the capital, talent and infrastructure in the United Kingdom.
For some, London is a fundraising and regulatory base. For others, the UK is a market with an established diaspora and demand for services already mainstream on the African continent. Hence, there is no single model for African-founded businesses scaling in the UK.
LemFi, for instance, is building a global financial platform in London with a £100 million commitment. Moniepoint has used its experience in African markets to develop products for customers in Britain, while Moove illustrates how a business model developed in Lagos can expand internationally.
For founders, the UK can provide access to investors, specialist talent and international business networks. But scaling beyond Africa still depends on local execution: understanding customers, navigating regulation and building the partnerships needed to operate across different markets.
Across fintech, mobility, logistics and other sectors, here are 10 African-founded companies to watch across this UK–Africa business corridor.
LemFi
Country: Nigeria
Sector: Fintech
Founded: 2021
Founders: Ridwan Olalere and Rian Cochran
LemFi began by addressing a familiar problem for people living outside their home countries: moving money across borders without excessive fees, delays or complicated processes. The Nigerian-founded company built a remittance platform serving diaspora communities and has now grown to over 2 million customers across 27 markets, moving between $1 billion and $2 billion in monthly volume to more than 30 destination countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, India, China and Pakistan.
The company has raised over $85 million to date, including a $53 million Series B in January 2025 led by Highland Europe and a €30 million extension in 2026. In April 2026 it announced London as its global headquarters and committed to invest £100 million in the UK over five years in technology, compliance and hiring.
The company has since moved beyond transfers. Its product expansion has included savings and credit offerings, reflecting a broader ambition to become a financial services platform for people whose lives and earnings span countries.
Today its UK footprint includes an FCA-regulated entity, products for savings and credit built first for the UK, and the acquisition of British credit fintech Pillar and FCA-approved Wealth8, making the UK both its largest send market and its regulatory base.
Moove
Country: Nigeria
Sector: Mobility; Fintech
Founded: 2020
Founders: Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi
Moove was founded in Lagos to address a problem faced by mobility workers: access to vehicle financing without conventional credit history. Instead of relying on bank statements, it uses productivity and revenue data from platforms like Uber to underwrite drivers. That model has scaled to 42,000 vehicles across 29 cities in 13 countries, from Accra and Cape Town to London and Dubai, with more than 9,000 drivers in Nigeria already moving to full vehicle ownership. Financially, the business has become one of Africa’s most capitalised.
It has raised over $710 million in combined debt and equity, including a $100 million Series B in March 2024 led by Uber at a $750 million valuation and a $250 million Series C in August 2026 that valued the company at $2.1 billion and made it a unicorn.
With annualised revenue reported at $360 million and backing from Mubadala, BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and MUFG, its UK operations now include a live EV fleet in London and a platform that underpins its wider expansion into autonomous fleet management with Waymo in the US.
Moniepoint
Country: Nigeria
Sector: Fintech
Founded: 2015
Founder: Tosin Eniolorunda
Moniepoint built its business around the financial needs of Nigerian merchants and small businesses, starting as backend infrastructure for banks before becoming a full business banking platform. It now processes over 1 billion transactions monthly worth more than $22 billion, powering 8 in 10 in-person digital payments in Nigeria, serving 10 million businesses and individuals and reporting $600 million in revenue in 2025. That scale attracted major capital, with a $110 million Series C in October 2024 at a $1 billion valuation making it a unicorn, followed by a $90 million extension in 2025 bringing the round to $200 million from investors including DPI, Google’s Africa Investment Fund, Visa, LeapFrog and the IFC.
In April 2025, it launched MonieWorld, its first UK product that lets UK residents send money to Nigeria via UK bank cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay. This followed its acquisition of Bancom Europe in July 2025, an FCA-authorised electronic money institution. With over 290,000 Nigerians in the UK and the UK-Nigeria corridor worth £2.76 billion in remittances alone, the UK is now its first market outside Africa.
Kuda
Country: Nigeria
Sector: Fintech
Founded: 2019
Co-founder: Babs Ogundeyi and Musty Mustapha
Kuda emerged in Nigeria with a digital-first banking model that offered free accounts through an app rather than a branch network, a proposition that has since attracted over 7 million customers. The company has raised over $90 million, including a $55 million Series B in 2021 at a $500 million valuation led by Valar Ventures and Target Global.
While its customer base remains primarily Nigerian, its UK entity, Kuda EMI Ltd, is fully licensed by the FCA and represents a deliberate second base. It is building for the diaspora market in Britain, specifically for new arrivals who need a UK account, debit card and remittance tools but lack a UK credit history, positioning itself as a landing bank account for Nigerians and other Africans living in the UK.
Complete Farmer
Country: Ghana
Sector: Agritech; Supply Chain
Founded: 2017
Co-founder: Desmond Koney
Complete Farmer is a Ghanaian agritech platform that connects smallholder farmers to global buyers using data-driven cultivation protocols and end-to-end traceability. The platform now works with more than 12,000 farmers and has traded thousands of metric tonnes of commodities including soybean, chilli and cassava. It has raised $10.4 million to date, including a $7 million pre-Series A in 2023 led by Acumen with participation from Alitheia Capital and Endeavor.
Complete Farmer’s expansion to the UK was about trade infrastructure. London serves as its commercial hub for European wholesale buyers who want Ghanaian commodities with EU-grade compliance, contracts and GBP settlement, effectively creating a UK-Ghana agriculture corridor where orders are placed in the UK and fulfilled directly from its Ghanaian grower network.
M-KOPA
Country: Kenya
Sector: Cleantech; Fintech
Founded: 2011
Co-founder: Jesse Moore, Chad Larson, and Nick Hughes
Starting in Nairobi, M-KOPA pioneered a pay-as-you-go model that lets customers who earn daily access smartphones, solar systems and electric motorcycles through small daily payments, building a credit record from that repayment behaviour. That model has scaled to over 5 million customers across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa, with the company reporting more than $1.5 billion in credit disbursed to date and adding 2 million customers in just the last 15 months.
The capital behind that growth has been substantial, with a $250 million debt and equity round in 2023 — $55 million in equity from Sumitomo Corporation, Lightrock and Blue Haven, and over $200 million in sustainability-linked debt led by Standard Bank, IFC, British International Investment and FMO.
Although its customers are in Africa, its holding company, M-KOPA Holdings Ltd, is headquartered in London, where the UK office leads all fundraising, investor relations and partnerships with institutions like Standard Bank and BII.
Aerobotics
Country: South Africa
Sector: Agritech; AI
Founded: 2014
Founder: James Paterson
Cape Town-based Aerobotics uses drone imagery and machine learning to help farmers detect pests, disease and stress before it spreads. Its Aeroview platform now processes imagery for more than 100 million trees, covering over 200,000 hectares across 18 countries. The company raised a $17 million Series B in 2022 led by Naspers and the Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund and has built a client base that includes large commercial farms and insurers in the US, Spain and Australia.
A UK-registered entity now serves British fruit growers, agri-insurers and supermarkets that need yield forecasting and pest detection, making the UK the entry point for precision agriculture deals across the EU.
mPharma
Country: Ghana
Sector: HealthTech; Logistics
Founded: 2013
Founder: Gregory Rockson
mPharma built a pan-African drug distribution network that makes prescription medicines more affordable and available by managing inventory and financing for pharmacies and hospitals. The company now manages drug inventory for over 1,000 facilities across nine African countries, serves more than 2 million patients and oversees over $40 million in pharmaceutical stock. It has raised more than $65 million, including a $35 million Series D in 2022.
mPharma maintains a UK entity that handles pharmaceutical sourcing from UK manufacturers, regulatory partnerships and procurement of UK-manufactured drugs that are then re-exported to Africa, with London serving as its hub for quality assurance and diaspora health access initiatives.
InstaDeep
Country: Tunisia
Sector: DeepTech; AI
Founded: 2014
Founders: Karim Beguir and Zohra Slim
Tunisia-founded InstaDeep builds AI decision-making systems for biotech, logistics and semiconductors using reinforcement learning and was built as a dual Tunis and London company from inception. The company grew to 240 highly skilled staff and developed products, including an Early Warning System for COVID variants used by BioNTech, publishing 13 papers at NeurIPS 2023 alone.
After raising $100 million in Series B funding in 2022, it became Africa’s largest AI exit when it was acquired by German biotech BioNTech in January 2023 for up to £562 million, about $680 million, including £362 million upfront. Today it maintains major R&D and commercial operations in London, with its AI supercomputing hub based in the UK, operating as BioNTech UK while retaining its African roots.
Carry1st
Country: South Africa
Sector: Gaming; E-commerce
Founded: 2018
Founders: Cordel Robbin-Coker, Lucy Hoffman and Tinotenda Mundangepfupfu
Carry1st is a South African mobile gaming publisher solving distribution and payments for global gaming in Africa. It localises games from studios like Activision and EA and monetises them through its payments platform Pay1st. The company now has over 30 million users and more than 100 games published. It has raised over $50 million, including a $27 million Series A in 2022 led by BITKRAFT Ventures with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Google.
London serves as Carry1st’s fundraising and licensing hub where global gaming IP deals are negotiated and where its investor base is anchored, allowing it to bring global titles into African markets while settling in GBP and USD.
