Payday, a neobank that issues global (USD, EUR and GBP) accounts to Africans, has raised $3 million. The funds will be used by the platform to facilitate its Future of Work initiative through borderless payment methods in major currencies.
The oversubscribed seed investment was led by Moniepoint Inc. (formerly TeamApt Inc), a US entity with Moniepoint Microfinance Bank and TeamApt Nigeria. Other investors participated, including Techstars, HoaQ, DFS Lab’s Stellar Africa Fund, Ingressive Capital Fund II, and angel investors such as MFS Africa Chief Dare Okoudjou and Norebase CEO Tola Onayemi. Existing investors such as Techstars and Angels Touch followed suit.
When Favor Ori launched Payday in June 2021, his first commitment was to build PayPal for Africa. He secured $1 million in pre-seed funding for that. Due to the business-friendly environment, customers in 11 African countries, including Rwanda, where we first established our headquarters, were able to access the platform and transfer money to each other. Fintech, which has since become the first Rwandan company to join Techstars (the Toronto program), has raised $1.2 million in pre-seed his extensions, but enabling cross-border payments is expensive. I learned something. So we closed nine corridors and focused on Nigeria. Nigeria has since witnessed huge transaction volumes and user growth.
Payday allows African remote workers and freelancers, especially in Nigeria and Rwanda, to send and receive money in USD, GBP, EUR, and 20 other currencies. This will allow them and those in the diaspora who work remotely for international organizations to get paid and withdraw money in their currency of choice. Payday also offers virtual dollar and naira cards (allowing Nigerian users to purchase goods and services on foreign platforms), currency swaps, payment links, local bill payments, and peer-to-peer transfers. These features are commonly offered by other VC-backed B2C fintech apps serving African and Diaspora customers, such as Grey, Lemonade Finance, Send by Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, respectively. in a highly competitive environment in which companies seek to outperform their peers. Speed and better charges or rates.
“We are building TransferWise for Africa. We want our customers to be able to move money faster using the bank accounts and cards we issue. The platform is focused on Africans in the diaspora, we are focused on people in Africa, but we plan to also focus on people abroad by expanding to the UK.” said Ori in an interview with TechCrunch about Payday’s positioning in Africa’s remittance and global neo-banking space. , we’ve been doing this for over 20 months, so we know what works and we know the market and the users.”
Payday has ramped up its social media marketing over the past few months to grow its market share, and it seems to be paying off. Fintech will end in 2022 with just over 100,000 users, but now offers virtual cards and other products to over 300,000 users. Payday also processes an average of 40,000 daily transactions worth more than $25 million per month, and while the fintech received his $15 million takeover offer from one of the continent’s unicorns, Ori was declined according to
Image credit: Payday
Extensive marketing has tripled the fintech burn rate. However, Ori said the company is still profitable (the CEO says he reached profitability in August 2022), and the monthly revenue he earns from charging fees on transactions will help grow his user base. He claims to have quadrupled. Similarly, the two-year-old startup has made SpaceX his Starlink payment partner, allowing users in Nigeria and Rwanda to purchase his Starlink routers. The company claims he has already helped process nearly $1 million.
“At Moniepoint, we are excited about what Favor and the team are doing with PayDay. It’s something that’s not very common, and the urge to encourage that fire made us want to be a part of it.” It is also in line with our goal of providing financial well-being by addressing the possibility of leveraging their infrastructure to further deepen their suite of financial services for merchants. I am looking forward to everything that comes next.”
Payday has raised over $5 million since inception and aims to secure UK and Canadian business licenses while building its recently established UK and Canadian operations. The Kigali- and Vancouver-based fintech plans to expand its workforce from his 35 to his 50 in the coming weeks, so it will also ramp up its marketing efforts while hiring more talent. . Payday has already added new members to its founding and management team, which includes Ori, who has been running Payday as the sole founder for 18 months. Elijah Kingson Joined global fintech Revolut as co-founder and CPO, while the company’s current COO, Yvonne Obike, who previously worked at Bank of Industry in Nigeria, now holds the title of co-founder . Sean Udeke, a former Goldman Sachs and Expedia product manager, is working as a new head of product at fintech and could oversee new services like loans and credit cards.
“We are supporting the future of work by targeting remote workers and freelancers. We want to study customer and consumer behavior and make it available for lending.” before resigning after receiving an allegation. “That will be our future. We also want to issue a credit card that allows a student going to the US to use her Payday to start building credit from Nigeria.”
