FUNDING | Tanzanian Fintech, Nala, Raises $40 Million in Series A Following 10x Revenue Growth and ~500K User Growth

In one of the largest Series A in African tech history, pan-African remittances company, Nala, has raised $40 million in a series A round, CEO, Benjamin Fernandes, has announced.

The round was led by San Francisco-based VC firm Acrew Capital, with participation from:

• DST Global
• Norrsken22
• HOF Capital,

and existing investors including:

• Amplo
• NYCA Partners

A number of angel investors, including fintech founders:

• Ryan King of Chime and
• Vlad Tenev

of Robinhood made investments too.

Nala, which raised $10 million in 2022, plans to use the funds to enhance its existing infrastructure amid plans to expand its remittance services globally, in particular to other emerging markets such as Asia and Latin America.

“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,” Fernandes said in an interview.

“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.”

In January 2024, the fintech introduced Rafiki, a single API for global businesses to make payments into Africa. According to Nala, the B2B platform was designed to:

• Ensure reliability
• Manage treasury directly
• Better error mapping
• Reduce user costs, and
• Streamline payouts

“For Rafiki, live customers on Nala range from global payroll providers such as Cadana to global remittance companies such as TransferGo and global banks doing cross border payments. The focus is enabling financial institutions and services to make cross border payments,” said Fernandes.

According to Fernandes, guaranteeing service delivery has been the fuel behind the growth of the startup’s consumer business, which accounts for over 90% of its revenues currently.

Nala is on the path to cross 500,000 customers and has already attained profitability.