Nigeria’s private equity (PE) market is becoming more diversified and disciplined, with investors deploying capital across 13 sectors in the first nine months of 2025, reflecting a shift toward targeted, value-driven investment.
Data from DealMakers Africa show that Nigeria recorded 23 domestic PE deals between January and September 2025. While deal values remain modest, the breadth of activity underscores a move toward risk-managed investment strategies as domestic and international investors reassess opportunities.
Energy and fintech led activity with four deals each, highlighting continued demand for distributed power solutions, digital payments, and financial inclusion. Technology, entertainment, financial services, and business services followed with two deals each, while agritech, construction, ecommerce, food and beverages, healthtech, retail, and logistics each recorded one deal. Investors are clearly spreading exposure, favouring resilience and scalability over concentration.
Wheeling, which allows independent power producers (IPPs) to deliver electricity across the grid to consumers not directly connected, offers Nigerian investors a model for strategic infrastructure investment.
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“Wheeling plays a pivotal role in advancing ESG objectives by supporting Africa’s transition to low-carbon, sustainable energy. Its cost-effective nature enables broader, affordable access to clean power, helping reduce emissions while improving energy equity,” said Nomsa Sibanyoni and Khanyisile Malebe, corporate financiers at PSG Capital.
For corporations, it represents a way to secure reliable energy while reducing reliance on unstable state utilities, a model that is gaining traction in Nigeria’s industrial and commercial sectors.
“The overall benefit of wheeling is significant, with commercial institutes gaining cleaner, reliable power, while IPPs secure bankable off-takers. For investors, particularly in private equity, wheeling creates a pipeline of long‑term, creditworthy deals that align with both returns and sustainability mandates,” Sibanyoni and Malebe added.
Recent deals in Nigeria show a preference for operational discipline and scalable business models. Investors are targeting companies with identifiable consumer bases and credible expansion plans, even as macroeconomic pressures, such as FX volatility, high operating costs, and tighter global liquidity, continue to reinforce the need for selective capital deployment.
The country’s fundamentals continue to support PE growth. Nigeria’s large, young population, urban expansion, and rising demand for healthcare, financial services, food systems, logistics, and digital connectivity make it a core market for investors from the US, France, Japan, the UAE, India, and Saudi Arabia.
As Sibanyoni and Malebe note, “Wheeling is more than a technical mechanism; it is a bridge between Africa’s power deficit and its investment opportunity. For commercial institutes, it secures a cleaner, more reliable supply. For IPPs, it creates direct demand. And for private equity, it offers a scalable play at the intersection of infrastructure, energy transition, and corporate finance.”
Nigeria’s ability to leverage such opportunities from decentralised energy to fintech, healthtech, and logistics will determine how much of the continent’s new wave of strategic PE investment it captures. The diversity of sectors represented in the first nine months of 2025 shows that investors are no longer placing indiscriminate bets but are backing companies with resilience, governance, and clear paths to scale.
