Tanzanian-born fintech, Nala, has announced that it has raised $40 million in a series A funding round led by Acrew Capital with the participation of DST Global, Norrsken22, and HOF Capital.
Nala allows individuals in UK, US and EU to send money to 249 banks and 26 mobile money services in 11 African countries. The startup initially offered local money transfers in Tanzania before pivoting to offering foreign remittances in 2021.
According to the company’s founder and CEO Benjamin Fernandes, the funding will be used to accelerate Nala’s ambitions by building two things:
- Expanding NALA’s consumer business beyond Africa to build services for the global migrant diaspora.
- Building Rafiki, our B2B payments platform designed to lay the payment rails for the next billion users, ensuring reliability, managing treasury directly, improving error mapping, reducing user costs, and streamlining payouts and collections. Similar to how dLocal revolutionized payments in Latin America and AirWallex transformed the Asian market, Rafiki is set to build a robust payment infrastructure for Africa.
He added, “This $40 million funding round marks a pivotal moment for Nala. It will enable us to go beyond remittances and extend our reach beyond Africa, building a robust payments ecosystem. We’re reinvesting this money to enhance our infrastructure, ensuring reliable, low-cost payments for all. With the launch of our own payment rails and the expansion of our B2B platform Rafiki, we’re not just talking about change, we’re building it. We’ve got some bold, ambitious plans, give us a couple of years.”
Nala is one of the most promising startups across the region. The startup is already profitable and its consumer business accounts for over 90% of its revenue. The startup has also said it is close to crossing the 500,000 customers milestone and the new funding might just help with that.
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