Afriex, an African remittance startup has raised a $1.2 million seed funding to expand its services across. The startup provides instant, zero-fee transfers to Africans.
The funding was led by Launch Africa VC with the participants of Y Combinator, SoftBank Opportunity Fund, Future Africa, Brightstone VC, Processus Capital, Uncommon Ventures, A$AP Capital, Precursor Ventures, and Ivernet Holdings.
Angel investors like Russell Smith, Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon, Furqan Rydhan, and Andrea Vaccari also took part.
The company founded by Tope Alabi and John Obirije in 2019 allows users to deposit cash on the app, send money to a bank account or another user, and withdraw money to a connected bank or debit card.
Afriex is present in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and the US. And with this funding, it hopes to expand its footprint across Africa.
Commenting on the funding, Alabi said: “We would go back home every two years and even then, I would always take note of what was missing and what could be improved. I would find myself having to pay for foreign expenses with money that was sitting in a US bank account.”
“Traditional remittance companies were so slow and expensive that I knew I could do it better with crypto. Remittance is the best and most important use case for crypto. Our goal is to build the world’s largest remittance company, starting with emerging markets.”
