MFS Africa, the pan-African cross-border payments startup, is not a venture capital firm. However, in recent times, it has acquired or invested in other African fintech startups.
In June last year, it announced the acquisition of Beyonic, a digital payments management provider of business services to SMEs, fintech, and social impact entities across Africa.
It also recently led a $2.3 million seed investment in Ugandan fintech startup, Numida. The funding round was joined by DRK Foundation, Equilibria Capital, and Segal Family Foundation alongside angel investors.
Today, MFS Africa has invested $3 million in equity financing in Maviance, a Cameroon-based company providing digital financial services like agency banking and bulk bill payments.
Maviance was founded in Germany in 2008 by Jerry Cheambe and Michael Flach and expanded to Cameroon in 2012.
Maviance’s flagship product is Smobilpay, a platform that integrates payments solutions from banks, mobile money operators and telecoms operators. Smobilpay is connected to GIMAC, the interoperability switch of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) – the central bank of the Central African region.
With this seed funding, Maviance will expand Smobilpay’s national footprint in Cameroon to serve more consumers and to move into Gabon and the Republic of Congo. Maviance will be building new products but they won’t go to market within the next 12 months.
“Our journey now is to become a regional company, providing cross-border services within the CEMAC region. We want to be a catalyst for interoperability,” Cheambe says.
He adds that Maviance chose to go with MFS Africa because they bring money, industry knowledge, a product suite and a pan-African network of fintechs and businesses of various sizes to the table. The deal took over a year, from contact to close.
The plan for both companies is to collaborate on building digital financial services in the Central African economic region’s 6 countries: Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Chad and Cameroon.
