12 Kenyan startups to watch in 2026

Kenya’s tech ecosystem enters 2026 in a very different emotional climate than the overheated funding cycles of 2020–2022, or even the reset years that followed.

In 2025, the ecosystem was built on discipline. Layoffs slowed, valuations stabilised, and companies that prioritised fundamentals began to stand out. Founders raised capital, not in wild surges, but for sustainable business models. Hardware-plus-fintech models, such as M-KOPA, Watu, and Pesapal, have matured, while electric mobility, like BasiGo, has moved from pilot to scale. Meanwhile, deeptech innovations built on scientific breakthroughs, like Octavia Carbon—once seen as distant—have found footholds in the Rift Valley.

Against that backdrop, some of these companies, along with many other smaller players, appear poised to shape 2026. Some are already industry leaders in their own right, while others are in the early stages, working to prove the effectiveness of their models. But all are shaping the future of the country’s tech in ways that feel durable rather than speculative.

Here are 12 Kenyan startups to watch in 2026.

Turaco

Turaco walks into 2026 looking less like an “insurtech bet” and more like a continental insurance infrastructure company. The company says its embedded microinsurance model—bundled into everyday payments, such as loans and mobile money—has now covered over 5 million people, with leadership signalling a credible pathway to insuring 10 million people by 2026 across Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, and Nigeria.

Turaco stands out in Kenya’s funding environment. It broke even in Kenya around 2023 and later in Uganda and Ghana, meaning part of its expansion is funded with its revenues. The company has complemented partnerships with companies like M-KOPA and Airtel by a pan-African rollout of its services with ASA International, a non-deposit-taking microfinance institution.

Turaco’s claims faster turnaround—often same-day via WhatsApp or mobile money—is a stark contrast to legacy insurance processes that take weeks. With a likely Series B in 2026, Turaco is increasingly looking like the company that might finally crack the mass-market African insurance market.

Workpay

If African companies are becoming more pan-African, Workpay is one of the companies making that administratively possible.

Workpay claims it serves over 1,000 businesses across more than 20 countries, with a roadmap to cover 35 African markets. What started as a payroll tool has evolved into an HR, compliance, and Employer of Record (EOR) platform, helping companies hire talent anywhere on the continent without establishing local entities.

The company is integrating financial services — from insurance to earned-wage access — directly into payroll, while utilising AI to enhance performance analytics and workforce insights. With $5 million in Series A funding in 2024, backed by Visa, YC, and Norrsken22, Workpay is well-capitalised. But more importantly, it is solving a problem that hundreds of thousands of African SMEs still handle manually on Excel sheets.

As hiring becomes more remote and cross-border, expect Workpay to sit increasingly at the centre of Africa’s labour rails.

Apollo Agriculture

In a year where unpredictable weather patterns are likely to affect livelihoods across East Africa, Apollo Agriculture’s model—bundling AI-powered agronomy with inputs, credit, and insurance—feels well-suited for the times.

Apollo already supports over 350,000 farmers, with ambitions to reach 2.3 million by the end of 2026. Its technology utilises satellite imagery and machine learning to tailor advice and underwriting, enabling smallholder farmers to double or even triple their yields, with production reportedly 2.6 times the Kenyan average.

The company is expanding beyond maize into livestock and higher-value crops, while geographic expansion from Kenya into Zambia is only the beginning. With over $78 million raised to date, including SoftBank-backed Series B funding and new European investment in 2025, Apollo is becoming one of Africa’s most important agriculture platforms.

In a continent where food security remains a national-level priority, Apollo’s execution in 2026 will matter.

BasiGo

Few Kenyan startups possess the industrial-level execution that BasiGo does. The company started with a handful of electric buses in Nairobi and has now evolved into a regional manufacturer of EVs. By late 2025, BasiGo had expanded Kenya’s first high-volume electric bus assembly line at Kenya Vehicle Manufacturer (KVM) in Thika, an industrial town 50km north of Nairobi.

The startup has deployed over 70 buses across Kenya, secured reservations from public transport operators and built charging networks across Kenya’s capital.

Its “Pay-As-You-Drive” model, where operators pay per kilometre rather than absorbing upfront EV costs, is expected to remove the most significant adoption barrier. With over $60 million raised and strong policy alignment, including VAT exemptions for electric buses, BasiGo expects to assemble 20 buses per month in 2026 and targets 1,000 buses on the road by 2027.

Leta

Logistics remains one of Africa’s biggest challenges, and Leta is addressing it with AI-driven route and load optimisation on a large scale.

As 2026 begins, Leta operates in seven markets, including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Mauritius and has powered over 4.5 million deliveries. It manages more than 7,400 vehicles and has helped partners cut costs, such as reducing Twiga Foods’ truck usage by 25% at one depot.

Beyond SaaS logistics optimisation, Leta is also expanding into embedded finance, introducing fuel cards, fleet asset financing, and automated payments. This could position Leta as a logistics intelligence layer and a fintech infrastructure provider.

With over $8 million raised, including backing from Google’s Africa Investment Fund and Speedinvest, Leta appears to be an operational partner for major brands such as KFC, EABL, Wells Fargo Courier, and Simbisa.

Sun King

Sun King enters 2026 not only as a Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) solar company, but also as a vertically integrated energy and consumer electronics player.

In 2025, Sun King opened a manufacturing facility in Nairobi capable of assembling over 700,000 units of solar-powered devices annually, with plans for a similar hub in Nigeria. The local manufacturing cuts exposure to global supply chain disruptions while leveraging Africa’s industrial capabilities.

The company also closed a KES 20 billion ($156 million) securitisation deal, backed by commercial banks led by CitiGroup, to finance another 1.4 million solar devices. Sun King claims it now serves one in five Kenyan households and holds 38% of the global PAYG solar market.

It plans to reach 200 million people with renewable power by 2030, while 2026 will see a push into productive-use appliances such as cold storage, fans, and clean-cooking tech.

M-KOPA

After more than a decade of aggressive expansion, M-KOPA finally reported its first profit in 2025, swinging from a $20 million loss to a $9.2 million gain.

M-KOPA operates one of the continent’s largest smartphone assembly facilities in Nairobi, having produced over 2 million devices. Over 4.5 million Kenyan smartphone users anchor its growing fintech ecosystem, which includes digital loans, insurance (with partners like Turaco), savings, and bill payments.

The company is also a significant force in electric mobility financing, having funded over 5,000 electric motorbikes for boda boda riders, with plans for expansion beyond major Kenyan cities.

2026 appears to mark the beginning of M-KOPA’s mature phase: profitable, industrial, and increasingly pan-African.

Watu Credit

From boda-boda financing to a multi-asset, multi-country fintech giant, Watu now sits among the most influential lenders to Africa’s informal economy.

In 2026, Watu is targeting $340 million in revenue, driven increasingly by smartphone lending via Watu Simu, which could soon make up 75% of its portfolio. At the same time, it remains a key backer of electric mobility, to finance 500,000 electric motorbikes by 2030.

Watu has also done what few Kenyan startups have: expanded beyond Africa to Latin America, entering Mexico and Brazil to serve millions of financially excluded consumers.

With over 2 million loans disbursed and 8 million users reached, Watu’s influence now extends well beyond transportation into credit inclusion on a global scale.

Kotani Pay

While much of crypto’s hype has faded, Kotani Pay is one of the few African startups building infrastructure around digital currencies.

The company connects blockchain wallets to local mobile money systems via USSD, enabling users to access their accounts without a smartphone or internet access. This enables cheaper remittances, humanitarian cash transfers, and gig workers’ pay, all within local regulations.

An investment from Tether in late 2025 gives Kotani both liquidity and validation. The company now operates in over 11 African countries, while partnerships such as FinFan are opening Asia–Africa payment rails.

Kotani stands out as one of the few licensed Crypto Asset Service Providers (CASPs) in Kenya, positioning it as a credible bridge between Web3 and everyday African finance.

Octavia Carbon

Kenya is now home to one of the world’s most ambitious Direct Air Capture (DAC) companies, and Octavia Carbon is proving that deeptech is not the exclusive domain of the Global North.

Its Project Hummingbird in the Rift Valley is scaling toward 1,000 tonnes of CO₂ removal annually by late 2026, using 100 modular air-capture units powered by waste geothermal heat, lowering costs to $100–$200 per tonne, compared to global averages of $600–$1,000.

Captured CO₂ is permanently stored underground in basalt rock via mineralisation, in partnership with Cella, making Kenya only the second country in the world, after Iceland, to deploy this form of carbon storage at scale.

With over $3 million in carbon credit contracts already secured and global corporate buyers pre-paying for removals, Octavia is transforming Kenya’s Rift Valley into a climate-tech frontier.

SunCulture

SunCulture has pioneered Africa’s first carbon-credit ecosystem for solar irrigation, allowing it to subsidise solar pump prices by 25–40%, making them cheaper than diesel alternatives for thousands of smallholder farmers.

Backed by a $27.5 million Series B and $5 million from WaterEquity, SunCulture is expanding beyond irrigation. Its new ClimateSmart Battery 2 allows farmers to power both irrigation and household needs from a single system, effectively becoming a rural energy utility in a box.

With the launch of SunCulture Protect, a parametric insurance product that automatically pays out during extreme weather, the company is integrating climate risk management directly into everyday farming tools.

And many more

Number 12 is not a single company, but the many Kenyan startups building solutions in agriculture, climate, tourism, e-mobility, AI, fintech, and manufacturing.

It is worth noting that scaling will bring strain because regulation is still moving, from digital credit and payroll compliance to crypto and carbon markets. Similarly, talent will be harder to keep as global firms recruit locally in dollars. Competition is rising too, with multinational fintechs, agribusiness groups, and EV makers pushing into East Africa.

That said, 2025 proved that capital exists, but it demands execution, not excitement, as was the case a decade ago. 2026 will reward founders who build locally relevant solutions, pair technology with distribution, demonstrate financial discipline, and scale only where the unit economics are viable.