Tanzania Fintech Firm NALA Raises $40 Million in Series A Funding Round
NALA, a Tanzanian-based top-notch instant money transfer platform, has announced the raise of $40 million to support its global expansion and enhance the reliability of payments to Africa.
Acrew Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital (VC) firm, led the oversubscribed Series A round with participation from DST Global, Norrsken22, and HOF Capital. The raise was also supported by several notable fintech founders including Ryan King, co-founder of Chime, and Vlad Tenev, the co-founder of Robinhood, and the founder of Klarna.
The latest funds follow a $10 million seed round in 2022, which will support the company’s ambitious global expansion plans. This includes scaling its remittance services to reach the Asian and Latin American markets.
Currently, Nala’s consumer money transfer app enables users to make secure and reliable payments from Europe, the UK, and the US to 11 African countries in seconds. The firm is also building its own B2B platform for fast payments to individuals and businesses globally on the African continent, hoping to emulate the success of dLocal in Latin America and Airwallex in Asia.
Speaking on this, Benjamin Fernandes, founder & CEO of NALA, says,
“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.”
Launched in 2017, NALA began operations to provide local money transfers in Tanzania its home country. Fast-forward to 2021, the fintech company pivoted to enable foreign remittances. The startup, which said it has already attained profitability, noted that its consumer business currently accounts for over 90% of its revenues and it’s on the path to surpass 500,000 customers.
In a bid to ease remittance to Africa, Nala is positioned to be at the forefront of this change. Its remittance offering has seen considerable growth since testing out the product in 2021.
Source: Techcrunch
