Q2 2023: Debt Steps Forward
The African growth capital quarter in review — funding flows, instruments, and what it meant for founders and investors, from the Caban research desk.
1. The instrument shift begins
M-KOPA's $250 million-plus raise in May — overwhelmingly debt — was the quarter's signature deal and the clearest early signal of African venture's structural pivot toward credit.
2. Roughly a third of 2023's capital was debt
Venture debt would account for about 35% of the year's flows: asset-backed, revenue-tested businesses could borrow when they could no longer price equity.
3. Discipline gets funded
Capital concentrated on unit economics — energy access, embedded finance, logistics with hard assets.
Reading this as a founder? The through-line of every quarter since 2022 is that preparation, not timing, decides who raises. See how investors would read your business today. As an investor? Our pipeline is built on exactly these dynamics.