Another Year of Kenyan Startups’ Dominance

Hello 👋🏽 It's Brian from The Kenyan Wall Street.

In today's newsletter, new data reveals that Kenyan startups raised more capital than any other country in Africa. What does this mean?

Also, EPRA cut fuel prices again. But does a shilling less mean much for Kenyan households?

This and more in today's newsletter edition…

Another Year of Kenyan Startups’ Dominance 

By Brian Nzomo

Kenya finished 2025 as Africa’s largest startup funding market, outpacing Egypt, South Africa, and Nigeria for the second consecutive year. Nearly US$1 billion flowed into Kenyan startups, much of it as debt for energy and asset-backed firms that promise steady cash flows rather than exponential growth. The result is a market that looks less like a venture playground and more like a hybrid of infrastructure finance and private credit. Kenya’s lead, in this sense, reflects investor caution as much as confidence. It is winning not because risk has returned, but because risk has been redesigned.

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Fuel Cuts that don't ease burdens

By Fred Obura

The latest fuel price cut looks generous only on paper. A shilling here and two there vanish quickly inside a pump price built more from taxes than oil. Even after the reduction, diesel remains expensive enough to keep transport costs, food prices, and electricity under steady pressure. For low-income households relying on kerosene, the cut registers more as a statistic than a change in daily life. The adjustment offers reassurance that prices can fall, while quietly confirming how little room there is for them to do so.

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Kenya Ducks the American Axe 

By TKWS Reporter

The United States’ latest visa suspension redraws East Africa’s borders in an unexpected way, stopping abruptly at Kenya. Every country around it including Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan…now faces a freeze on immigrant visas, leaving Kenya conspicuously outside the penalty box. The policy frames migration not as movement but as a balance sheet, ranking nations by their perceived cost to the American state. For the region, it quietly signals which countries are seen as risks and which as tolerable partners.

Read the article here »»»»»

OPINION : Africa’s Upstream Future 

By N.J Ayuk

Africa’s upstream oil and gas revival is real, but it is unfolding under unusually tight financial supervision. Major discoveries and frontier basins have restored geological confidence, yet investors now treat capital as something to be protected rather than deployed exuberantly. Technology may be reducing subsurface uncertainty, but it has not softened above-ground concerns about politics, security, and monetization. Africa’s opportunity lies not in its resources, which are abundant, but in persuading disciplined capital that development will be predictable and worth the patience.

Read this opinion article here >>>>>

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