How long does a Series A raise take in Africa? Not until the cash lands

A well-prepared African Series A process can be planned over six to nine months, but AVCA data shows the wider journey from seed to Series A took 16 months at the median for companies in the 2023-2024 cohort. MarketForce’s experience, reported in fundraising lessons published by co-founder Tesh Mbaabu, shows why founders must plan around cash received rather than headline funding: $8 million of its announced equity component was never wired after investors faced failed capital calls. The practical response is to use 18-24 months of seed runway, 12-18 months remaining cash before preparation, and nine months as minimum formal-process runway as planning heuristics, not evidence-based rules or universal benchmarks.

MarketForce had the kind of headline that makes a young company look safe.

In February 2022, the Kenyan commerce company announced a $40 million debt-and-equity Series A, seven months after a $2 million pre-Series A. It said it was growing transaction volume by 40% each month and projected more than $60 million in annualised transaction volume.

Then $8 million of the $20 million equity component did not arrive. According to fundraising lessons published by MarketForce co-founder Tesh Mbaabu, investors experienced failed capital calls: they could not obtain the money expected from their own backers. MarketForce later cut staff and closed RejaReja, its business-to-business marketplace, citing thin margins, price competition and poor unit economics.

The interesting part is not that a company ran into trouble. Companies do. It is that the public version of a Series A, the number in the announcement, was not the financial reality inside the business.

MarketForce’s announced Series A shows why founders must distinguish headline funding from cash that has actually arrived. Photo: jamies.x. co / Pexels, Pexels licence (free commercial use).

That raises a more useful question than, “How quickly can I raise?”

When does a Series A actually become real?

For an African founder, that question can determine whether a funding process is a growth plan or an emergency. A round can take months to prepare, months to negotiate and further time to transfer. It can arrive in stages. It can also be announced before every commitment has turned into cash.

The number founders are given is usually too neat

The familiar advice is that a Series A takes three months once a company has enough revenue. It sounds reassuring. It is also too tidy for the evidence.

A Series A is normally the first substantial institutional equity round after a company has shown traction and is ready to scale. Equity means the investor receives ownership in return for capital. But the label covers very different transactions across African markets. One company may raise one conventional round. Another may combine equity with debt, borrowed money that must be repaid. A third may close in several stages.

AVCA, the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, found that companies in its 2023-2024 cohort took 10 months at the 25th percentile, 16 months at the median and 22 months at the 75th percentile from seed to Series A.

That is not a measure of the visible investor campaign alone. It captures the longer stretch in which companies prove demand, build relationships, prepare documents, find a lead investor and turn promises into funds.

A six-to-nine-month active process is a reasonable planning range for a prepared founder. It is not a continental median. The median seed-to-Series-A journey was 16 months.

This is where most people stop looking. They hear of a fast close and mistake the formal deal for the whole journey that made it possible.

The $8 million that changed the story

MarketForce had already learned that fundraising could be slow. Its seed round took 11 months, more than 100 conversations and 76 prospective investors, according to Mbaabu’s published account. The later financing illustrates an even harder lesson: signed commitments and announced capital are not the same as usable runway.

The $40 million Series A included $20 million of equity. Of that equity component, $8 million was never wired after investors suffered failed capital calls.

Why does this happen? A capital call is the moment an investor asks its own backers to send money it had expected to deploy. If those backers do not provide it, the investor may be unable to fund a commitment already made to a company. The founder can have investor interest, agreed terms and a public announcement, but still face a hole in the bank balance.

Delay has a simpler explanation too. An investor may still need to complete its review, secure co-investors, or wait for a staged close. Withdrawal is different again: the investor’s ability to pay has changed. These are not the same risk, though they all lengthen the cash clock.

Imagine you are planning payroll, inventory and expansion against the amount in a press release. You may believe you have 20 months of capital. In fact, you may have far less. That gap changes every decision, from hiring to pricing to whether you can wait for a better investor.

GI Network's view: A Series A forecast needs three separate dates: the expected first close, the expected final close and the date cash is expected to arrive. Only the third date pays salaries.

MarketForce does not prove that announced rounds are unreliable as a rule. It does prove that founders should test the funding capacity of investors, not simply their interest. It also shows why transaction volume is not enough. The company cited thin margins, price competition and poor unit economics when it later closed RejaReja.

A large number can conceal a fragile engine.

This is why founders should read what can still stop funds after investment documents are signed before treating a signed round as available cash.

Yoco went out too early

MarketForce is a story about money promised but not fully transferred. Yoco, the South African payments company that helps merchants accept card payments, is a story about a company seeking capital before it had found the proof investors wanted.

Yoco began seeking Series A capital after operating with live customers for only about two months. Chief executive Katlego Maphai later said the search took two years. At points, the company had just one month of cash left.

The founders initially went after larger clients, hoping this would create fundraising momentum. It did not. Rejection and unattractive pricing pushed them back to smaller merchants. There, Yoco found a more defensible measure of its value: first-time card acceptors. Its eventual round was led by Quona Capital and Velocity Capital.

Yoco’s two-year Series A search shows why customer proof and runway matter more than company age. Photo: Husskeyy / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

At first glance, this looks like a timing problem. It was really a proof problem intensified by a timing problem.

Yoco had existed long enough to call itself operational. But company age is not traction. Investors wanted evidence that its core customer proposition worked and could scale. Once the company could show that, it had a sharper story than “we have been operating for two years”.

Put Yoco and MarketForce side by side and a pattern appears that neither story states plainly: founders can be caught on both sides of the same mistake. They can start fundraising before the business has earned belief. Or they can assume belief has become cash before the bank balance confirms it.

ReelFruit did not use a software template

Affiong Williams founded ReelFruit, a Nigerian company producing dried fruit snacks, in 2012. It did not raise its $3 million Series A until 2021. Williams said she had worked towards the round for five years, sometimes spending three or four full days each week fundraising.

Her original vision involved a factory. Investors would not fund the whole vision at once. So ReelFruit raised smaller amounts tied to achievable milestones, used contract manufacturers and built evidence step by step.

By the time of its Alitheia IDF-led Series A, revenue had increased by more than 200% in 2021 and its distribution had grown from 350 to nearly 600 stores.

ReelFruit built its $3 million Series A case through operating milestones rather than a software revenue template. Photo: Barnabas Sani / Pexels, Pexels licence (free commercial use).

That is not a failure to raise quickly. It is a company discovering what investors needed to see before financing production capacity.

Software founders often talk about annual recurring revenue, predictable yearly customer payments. For ReelFruit, the relevant proof was different: sales, sourcing, processing, distribution and export demand. The company had to demonstrate that fruit could move through a real operating system, not merely that customers liked the idea.

The average African Series A round was $7 million in 2025, according to Partech, which recorded 95 Series A deals. That average is useful context. It is not a target.

ReelFruit’s story is the antidote to copying it. Raise enough to prove the next thing that must be true, not enough to imitate another company’s headline round.

The fast close is real, but it starts earlier than you think

There is a counterexample. Swvl, the Egypt-founded transport company, launched in April 2017. Careem, the regional ride-hailing company, had observed Swvl locally and invested $500,000 four months later. Founder Mostafa Kandil said the transaction took only a few days once Careem approached.

Swvl later raised an $8 million Series A and a $25 million-$35 million Series B during 2018, co-led by BECO Capital, DiGAME and Silicon Badia.

Swvl shows how an investor that has already observed execution can compress a funding process dramatically. Photo: Swvl Inc. / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

So yes, an African funding deal can close in days. But Careem was not meeting Swvl through a cold email. It had already watched the company execute.

Norrsken22 partner Lexi Novitske made the same point from the investor side. The Africa-focused fund, which normally writes initial cheques of $4 million to $10 million, can close individual deals in one to three months when it already knows the founder or the company’s performance is compelling. Norrsken22 often becomes ready to invest when a company reaches $1 million to $2 million in annual revenue.

That is not a universal Series A threshold. It is one investor’s gate.

The lesson is less glamorous than “raise in days”, but much more useful: the quickest formal process is often built through months of prior observation. Relationships are part of the financing timetable, whether the spreadsheet admits it or not.

When one round is really several rounds

Zeepay, the Ghanaian mobile money company, announced a $7.9 million “Series A.0” in 2021, including follow-on investment from GOODsoil. It explicitly planned a Series A.5.

The labels may sound like startup theatre. They describe a practical reality. Smaller tickets and syndication can divide one intended financing into sequential closes.

For founders, that means a Series A plan should never use one line called “funding received”. It should distinguish the minimum amount needed at first close, the additional capital expected later and the money already in the bank.

This matters especially where geography narrows the investor pool. Nigeria and Egypt accounted for 40% of African Series A transactions between 2021 and 2025, and captured 43% of Series A capital, according to Partech. A deeper concentration of investors can make it easier to find a lead, the investor who anchors terms and brings others into the round. It does not remove the need to prove the business or get money transferred.

BIC Africa’s guide estimates that Series A through Series C fundraising may take 12-18 months and warns that dozens or hundreds of investor conversations may be required. But it is a guide produced for founders in Ethiopia. It is useful evidence of how long a process can stretch, not a timeline that should be imposed on every African market.

Build the plan around proof, not hope

The practical implication is straightforward, with one important caveat.

Finance the seed plan for 18-24 months where possible. Start Series A preparation with roughly 12-18 months of cash left. Avoid entering the formal process with fewer than nine months.

These are planning heuristics, not rules established by a continental study. They are a way to give a founder room to prove a milestone, find the right investors and withstand delays between commitment and transfer. The 22-month upper-quartile seed-to-Series-A journey in AVCA’s data explains why a 24-month seed plan is not obviously excessive. It does not prove every company needs one.

A company that begins investor outreach with six months of cash is not simply under time pressure. It is likely negotiating with a deadline everyone can see.

For operators, three actions matter.

First, identify the next fundable milestone. For Yoco, it was proof among small merchants. For ReelFruit, it was operating evidence across production and distribution. For a fintech, it may involve revenue, retention, margins and reliable transaction performance.

Second, map investors before the cash crisis begins. A list of funds is not a relationship. The problem is explored in where investors actually come from: relevant access tends to be built before a company urgently needs it.

Third, separate investor interest from investor capacity. Ask what must happen between an agreed deal and transferred funds. Has the investor already secured the money it plans to invest? Is the cheque dependent on a later capital call? Is the first close enough to deliver the immediate operating plan if a later close slips? A founder does not need to be cynical. They need to be precise.

For investors, the corresponding discipline is to look past the round label. Does the amount sought match the operating plan? Is the claimed runway based on cash received? Does the business have the evidence its model demands? MarketForce is a reminder that growth figures can coexist with weak economics. ReelFruit is a reminder that the right evidence may not resemble software metrics at all.

GI Network would begin by testing the gap between the company’s cash runway and a realistic closing timetable. We would map the operating milestones that make the business fundable, distinguish the minimum viable first close from the full target round, review the route from commitment to funds received, and rehearse the questions an investment committee will ask about the evidence underneath the headline.

Use the Three Clocks test

Before starting a Series A, put three clocks on one page.

The proof clock: How long until the company can show the one milestone investors need to believe?

The investor clock: How long will it take to build conviction, complete review and assemble a lead plus any co-investors?

The cash clock: How long until money is actually transferred, not announced, signed or verbally promised?

If the cash clock expires before the proof and investor clocks have done their work, the company is fundraising from weakness. Yoco lived that tension. If the cash clock is based on a headline rather than banked funds, MarketForce shows what can follow.

The Three Clocks test is not a prediction tool. It is a decision tool. It tells a founder whether to start the raise now, extend runway, narrow the milestone, seek a staged close or change the plan before the deadline chooses for them.