State of African Diaspora Investing 2026

Where demand concentrates

Demand is led by Nigeria, with United States the strongest market outside the continent. Local African markets account for 67.6% of registrations and the diaspora 32.4% — a reminder that demand for African assets is both domestic and global.

How much investors intend to commit

Intended ticket sizes skew toward accessible entry points, with the largest share selecting Under $1,000. This matters for product design: African capital-market access has to work at small, first-time ticket sizes, not only for high-net-worth investors.

Under $1,000

74.5%

$1,000–$10,000

21.4%

$10,000–$50,000

3.4%

Above $50,000

0.6%

The access gap

Diaspora remittances are among the largest external financial flows to Africa (World Bank), but only a fraction reaches capital markets. The friction is structural, not a lack of appetite:

• Local identity and banking requirements (e.g. BVN/NIN, resident bank accounts) that diaspora investors often cannot satisfy.
• Currency friction — converting NGN, KES, GHS, ZAR and USD across borders, with opaque FX costs.
• Fragmentation across separate exchanges (NGX (Nigeria), NSE (Kenya), JSE (South Africa), GSE (Ghana), BRVM (UEMOA), LuSE (Zambia), BSE (Botswana), ZSE (Zimbabwe)), each with its own settlement cycle and regulator.
• Few platforms that let a non-resident open, fund and settle in USD without being physically present.

Closing this gap is the thesis behind USD-settled access to African stocks for any investor with a passport — no local account required.

Catalyst: the Dangote IPO

The anticipated Dangote Refinery & Petrochemicals IPO — valued at $39.1B–$50B after a $1B private placement — is the clearest near-term test of diaspora demand. Much of the registration data in this report comes from investors preparing for exactly that listing, which is why the live Diaspora Demand Index is the most current view of where that demand sits.