Ghana’s Zeepay completes $7.9m Series A round to expand across Africa and the Caribbeans

Ghanaian fintech startup, Zeepay, has completed a $7.5 million Series A funding round, touted to be one of Africa’s largest-ever Series A round. This latest funding would be deployed into expanding its mobile payment services across Africa and into the Caribbeans, according to the startup.

The funding round was led by the impact investment group, I&P, and supported by ARK Holdings, an Africa-focused early-stage venture capital firm, GOODsoil VC, Verdant Capital and JLD & MB Legal Consultancy.

Remittances and diaspora payments remain a major source of foreign exchange and household income in low-income countries around the world. According to the World Bank, remittance inflows into low and middle income countries defied the Covid-19 pandemic to hit $540 billion in 2020.

Although sub-Saharan Africa suffered a 12.5% decline, this was largely due to the Nigerian decline. Taking Nigeria away from the equation, the region enjoyed a 2.3% rise in remittance inflows, defying the World Bank’s prediction of a huge decline for the year.

And Zeepay, a mobile financial services company that processes remittance payment transactions for over 150 million mobile money subscribers across 20 countries in Africa, has been a part of this defiant rise in diaspora payments on the continent.

Speaking on the raise, Chairman of Zeepay, Paa Kwasi Yankey said part of the fund would go into closing a number of strategic acquisitions before the end of 2021. He also said the company is also looking to expand its operations beyond the 20 countries it currently services.

“We look forward to being able to expand our operations beyond our current 20 countries and increase our active 30-day business from 13 markets to 20 plus markets across Africa. Our strategy remains to drive our remittance to digital assets agenda across Africa and the Caribbean and we are excited by the rate of expansion.”

Paa Kwasi Yankey, Chairman of Zeepay

He also lauded the government of Ghana for passing the Payment Systems Act of 2019, noting that the raise could not have been possible without the piece of regulation which he described as a very progressive Government initiative.

Speaking on the raise, Founder and Managing Director of Zeepay, Andrew Takyi-Appiah said the Series A.0 raise gives the startup a strong capital base ahead of closing its Series A.5 in the coming months. He also expressed delight that the raise came at a time when the fintech has successfully moved into its new property in Accra. 

See also: Visa Partners Ghana’s Zeepay to Ease Diaspora Payments Through Direct Money Transfer

Zeepay runs a mobile money remittance platform called INSTNTMNY, which focuses on international payments. More than 1 million transactions have reportedly been processed via this platform so far. The startup currently operates in 23 African countries including Ghana, Uganda, Cameroon, Guinea, Mozambique, Rwanda, Kenya, and Malawi.