Africa fintech funding round-up: Pezesha, Duplo, SubsBase, Grey and Anchor

A handy round-up of the recent funding endeavours of fintech companies across Africa. Featuring Pezesha, Duplo, SubsBase, Grey and Anchor.

Kenyan embedded finance start-up Pezesha has raised $11 million in a pre-Series A funding round, a mix of $6 million in equity and $5 million in debt.

The round was led by Women’s World Banking Capital Partners II with participation from Verdant Frontiers Fintech Fund, cFund, IOG, Talanton and Verdant Capital Specialist Funds.

Pezesha says the funding will be used to scale its operations in its core markets and expand into new markets within Sub-Saharan Africa.

Founded in 2017 by Hilda Moraa, Pezesha offers a B2B lending infrastructure with the aim to provide “affordable” working capital to financially excluded small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Africa.

Pezesha also offers financial literacy courses and debt counselling for firms that don’t qualify for loans “in order to improve their credit scoring and ensure responsible borrowing”.

B2B paytech start-up Duplo has landed $4.3 million in seed funding, with a total of 45 investors participating in the round.

Duplo raises $4.3m

Some of the investors include Liquid2 Ventures, Soma Capital, Tribe Capital, Commerce Ventures, Basecamp Fund and Y Combinator, along with existing investor Oui Capital.

Launched in January 2022 and based in Lagos, Nigeria, Duplo’s platform helps “digitise and simplify” the way money moves between businesses and their partners.

African businesses can onboard their retailers onto the platform to collect payments digitally and automate payments to vendors.

The Nigerian fintech also offers back-office services such as invoice generating and processing, receiving and approving bills, collecting and disbursing funds and account reconciliation.

Egyptian subscription and recurring revenue management platform SubsBase has secured $2.4 million in a seed funding round led by Global Ventures.

Also participating were HALA Ventures, P1 Ventures, Plus Venture Capital, Plug and Play Tech Center, Ingressive Capital, Camel Ventures, Falak Startups and Arzan Venture Capital.

Claiming to be the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s “first and only” subscription management platform, SubsBase says it plans to use its “first mover advantage” to expand across the region.

“Our platform empowers subscription and recurring-based businesses with the collection, operational, analytics, and billing tools to efficiently manage their clients – freeing them up to concentrate on growing their businesses,” the start-up says.

Founded in 2020 and based in Cairo, SubsBase makes use of cloud technology to run its no/low-code platform. It intends to use the new money to hire more staff and market its brand.

Nigerian fintech start-up Grey has raised $2 million in seed funding.

The round saw participation from Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Heirloom Fund and True Culture Fund, as well as angel investors Alan Rutledge, Samvit Ramadurgam and Karthik Ramakrishnan, among others.

Grey enables cross-border payments for Africans

Founded in 2020, Grey enables Africans to create a foreign USD, GBP and EUR bank account for free, send money to the UK and Europe and receive payments from over 88 countries.

With the new infusion of capital, Grey says it plans to launch into new markets and extend its product offerings to both remittances and person-to-person and B2B payments, “so every African can enjoy seamless cross-border payments with low fees”.

The start-up also enables users to convert funds to their local currency to spend through the app.

Along with the funding, Grey also announced its expansion into East Africa, starting with Kenya, as well as partnerships with African payments giant Cellulant and ed-tech Moringa.

Anchor, a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) and embedded finance platform for Africa, has come out of stealth in public beta and bagged $1 million in pre-seed funding.

Anchor has received funding from Y Combinator, Byld Ventures, Niche Capital, Mountain Peak Capital, Luno Expeditions and other angel investors.

Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Lagos, the Nigerian fintech offers APIs and tools for businesses to build, embed and launch banking products including bank accounts, fund transfer services, savings products and card issuance, among others.

Since launching its private beta three months ago, Anchor claims to have transacted “several millions” for a number of companies and boasts over 40 businesses on its waitlist.