Breaze raises $1.2 million to make delivery easier for SMES; May figures show startups' growing reliance on debt.
The Africa B2B Tech Report, Africa-Middle East B2B tech news & insights for 8 June 2026.
Welcome to issue 45 of the Africa B2B Tech Report Daily. We bring you a daily digest of the news that matters to The Business of African Tech.
The Africa B2B Tech Report is published by BigFive Digital, an African tech media and events firm that produces the annual BigFive Summit in Cape Town. The report is produced and edited by Charles Laughlin, BigFive Digital’s Co-founder &Chief Content Officer. Charles is a globally experienced tech journalist, podcaster, & conference producer.
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Here are some recent stories that matter to The Business of African Tech.
South Africa’s Breaze Delivery raises $1.2M to scale SME logistics
South African logistics startup Breaze Delivery has raised $1.2 million from the Vumela Enterprise Development Fund, a partnership between FNB Business Banking and Edge Growth.
Founded in 2021 by Avi Maja and Braden Snyman. Breaze offers on-demand and same-day delivery solutions specifically designed for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The capital injection will be deployed to upgrade Breaze’s proprietary technology infrastructure, expand its flexible driver ecosystem, and accelerate its nationwide expansion across South Africa.
Breaze is out to make e-commerce more attainable to SMEs by combining real-time tracking with a scalable last-mile fleet. The platform helps local retailers and digital merchants fulfill orders efficiently without the likely prohibitive cost and burden of maintaining an in-house logistics infrastructure.
Blnk secures $37.1M to scale point-of-sale lending in Egypt
Egyptian fintech Blnk has raised $37.1 million in a combined equity and debt funding round to scale its point-of-sale (PoS) consumer financing platform. The transaction breaks down as follows: $12.5 million Series A equity round (led by Algebra Ventures) alongside a $24.6 million in local debt facilities secured from several Egyptian banks and non-bank financial institutions.
Blnk was founded in 2021 to use its proprietary AI-driven underwriting algorithms to evaluate unbanked consumers at checkout counters in under three minutes using alternative, hyper-local data.
This data-driven framework has allowed the startup to build an onboarding footprint of more than one million customers. And of these, 75% were previously underserved by formal credit networks.
Blnk achieved profitability in 2025 with the help of 173% year-on-year revenue growth. The startup will deploy the fresh capital to expand its tech capabilities, explore regional expansion, and launch a dedicated credit card program.
Debt financing drives MENA’s $454.7M May funding surge
Startups across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) raised a combined $454.7 million across 33 deals in May 2026, marking a significant 202% month-on-month rebound.
However, a deeper dive reveals that the growth was overwhelmingly driven by debt financing, which accounted for 66% ($300.5 million) of the total capital deployed.
The UAE remains the region’s most-funded hub, capturing $379 million. This volume was heavily skewed by logistics giant Trukker’s massive $300 million debt facility. Saudi Arabia followed in second place with $70 million, while Egypt ranked third, raising $5 million across three transactions.
And B2B still dominates. B2B platforms commanded $371.5 million of the total monthly capital. Despite geopolitical headwinds, total year-to-date funding for the MENA ecosystem has now reached approximately $1.5 billion.
We regularly share infographics telling important stories about The Business of African Tech.
A closer look at Africa’s stablecoin stack
We found today’s Sector Spotlight on LinkedIn, courtesy of Victor Yaromin.
This chart (original source Brian Adams) lays out the key players in each of the important layers in Africa’s stablecoin ecosystem.
As Yaromin notes in his post, “An entire infrastructure layer is taking shape around stablecoins: wallets, payment providers, on/off ramps, compliance platforms, liquidity providers, treasury solutions, and even card programs. In other words, we're moving from isolated products to a functioning ecosystem.”
We have also written extensively about how stablecoins are transforming the processing of remittances, the lifeblood of many African economies that are heavily dependent on remittance revenue.
ICYMI: The BIG5D Podcast
Our most recent episodes of the BIG5D Podcast have brought you into the room at the 2026 BigFive Summit at Innovation City Cape Town, where the conversations about The Business of African Tech were smart, candid, and insightful.
Here is a rundown, in case you missed any of these great conversations. We have more great episodes coming soon.
E60: Women in Tech Leadership featuring Jill Curr & Laura Thomas
Episode 60 is a must-listen for female founders, of course, but also for anyone who wonders why such a small percentage of African venture funding goes to female founders. This episode is also for anyone who wants to understand how different entrepreneurship feels for women than it does for men.
The episode was recorded at the Summit as a panel discussion on Women in Tech Leadership. It features Jill Curr, one of the founders of MsFit Ventures, a debt fund backing “real economy” female entrepreneurs, and Laura Thomas, founder of edtech startup The Aligned Woman.
Yet some truths about running businesses are truly universal. As Laura says during the episode, the best test of whether you are a natural entrepreneur is “how insane you are”.