Zazuu, an African remittance payment platform, has announced that it has recently completed a $2 million raise.
Founded in 2018 by Kay Akinwunmi (CEO), Korede Fanilola (COO), Tola Alade (CDO), and Tosin Ekolie (CTO), Zazuu’s mission is to provide Africans in the diaspora with smart ways to move money.
Over the two years of operation, Zazuu has evolved from a simple chatbot informing users of the daily rates in Facebook and Telegram groups, to an FCA-licensed organization in the UK with users in 8 countries across North America and Europe. Nearly a hundred thousand users have used the current iteration of its Search and Compare service to find the best rates for their corridors.
For African immigrants, life in the diaspora is fraught with inequalities, as systems are designed with biases against them. Otherwise routine activities like growing your credit rating or sending money home become herculean tasks, for immigrants who have to overcome institutional biases.
Take sending money home, for instance: according to the most recent report from the World Bank, the global cost of moving money across borders averages around 6.09% of the value of the transaction. That figure can sometimes get as high as 22% for money sent to African countries.
Zazuu’s recently completed raise represents a significant step in the startup’s mission to give Africans smart ways to move their money. The fundraising round saw participation from Launch Africa, Founders Factory Africa, Hoaq Club, Tinie Tempah, Jason Njoku, CEO IrokoTV, Babs Ogundeyi, CEO Kuda Bank, and other angel investors.
Speaking on the recently raised round, Kay Akinwunmi said,” We’re happy about the specific investors that have joined us on this journey. We’re always on the lookout for smart investors who offer more than just money; people who share in the vision of a better, fairer world for Africans. With their support, we believe we can build a more equitable financial services ecosystem.”
On why they backed Zazuu, Zach George, Managing Partner at Launch Africa had this to say, “Zazuu is building a true marketplace for financial services, starting with remittances and payments. We believe their business will bring fairer, more transparent pricing and better cross-border mobility of money across the African continent.”
Sam Sturm, Chief Venture Architect at Founders Factory Africa also added, “At FFA we look to support exceptional founders in turning great ideas into ventures that are designed to scale. The opportunity to innovate within the remittance space is massive; it’s opaque and fragmented, which means that it’s inefficient and ineffective for users. In teaming up with Zazuu, we saw an impressive team addressing a problem that’s worth solving, with a solution that has massive growth potential.”
Speaking on the roadmap following the fundraising, Korede Fanilola, the company’s COO, added, “The plan for us is growth. We want to scale our solution as quickly as possible. We’re working on getting licenses that allow us to offer our service to users in other European countries before the end of the year. We’ll also be concurrently improving the product with new features that ensure that everyone sending money to Africa gets the best money transfer experience.”
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