Umba, a Nigerian digital banking startup, has raised $15 million in Series A funding to offer financial services to the underserved market.
The new funding follows a $2 million seed round in 2020 bringing the total funding received to date to $17.5 million. The funding round was led by Costanoa Ventures alongside Nubank, Tom Blomfield, the co-founder of Monzo, and previous backers Lachy Groom and ACT Ventures, Lux Capital, Palm Drive Capital, Banana Capital and Streamlined Ventures.
The new funding will allow the company to test out interoperable digital banking experience across African markets and its services in Egypt, Ghana and Kenya.
Founded by Barry O’Mahony and Tiernan Kennedy in 2018, Umba is an African digital bank, offering free bank accounts and financial services to customers. The startup provides an ecosystem of connected financial services that allows customers complete control of their finances all in one App
In a TechCrunch interview, Tiernan Kennedy said, “For us, we designed core banking systems from the ground up and can deliver a customized experience for the customer at the drop of a hat in both banking and mobile money markets.
“We can take in all that open banking data and underwrite at scale with these different fragmented payment types and data types. What that means for us, in practice, is that we’re multi-currency, we can go multi-country, we can do all different payment types. And that takes time. But then when you get your ability to move extremely fast against competitors.”
Tiernan also revealed that the startup will unveil some product features including debit cards, savings accounts, and stock trading in the next 18 months.
