Nigerian Fintech Startup ImaliPay secures $3M Seed Funding for expansion
ImaliPay, a fintech startup that bills itself as a one-stop shop for financial services, recently received a loan and equity investment of $3 million.
In 2020, the fintech received a $800,000 pre-seed investment.
Tatenda Furusa and Oluwasanmi Akinmusire founded it in late 2020 after Furusa witnessed the difficulties ride-hailing drivers faced in obtaining working capital and dealing with events such as running out of fuel in Nairobi.
ImaliPay’s pilot was inspired by Furusa’s experience: a buy now, pay later (BNPL) gas product for two-wheeler gig platforms, which the company provided to SafeBoda riders through a partnership with a few petrol stations in Ibadan, Nigeria.
The company then created a partner ecosystem, with some partners providing new consumer access and others maintaining the ecosystem and marketplace.
Sycamore, which was founded in 2019 by Babatunde Akin-Moses, Onyinye Okonji, and Mayowa Adeosun, uses proprietary risk assessment tools to award business loans on the same day via its website and recently launched mobile app.
According to Furusa, ImaliPay has expanded its offerings to include spare parts, smartphones, power banks, savings and investments, and insurance packaged with those products.
The company has woven these products together, as it did with accident insurance and income protection loss insurance, so that gig workers can qualify for each based on their transactional activity.
The first is primarily due to flaws in the gig platforms. Bolt, Glovo, SWVL, Amitruck, Safeboda, Gokada, and Max.ng are among the 15 partners in this category.
ImaliPay has collaborated with platforms in Kenya and South Africa to offer additional financial services like health and income protection insurance, savings, and collaboration with other gig platforms.
Lami, Cowrywise, Ola Energy, Total Energies, HiFi Corporation, and Britam are among the 35 companies represented. It connects its APIs to partner companies or directly provides these financial services to gig workers on this platform via an independent app, chatbot, or USSD.
ImaliPay’s customer base has grown 60 times in just 15 months. The startup’s services are used by “tens of thousands” of gig workers via 4,500 vendor partners, according to the company.
Over 200,000 transactions have been completed on the ImaliPay platform. The pan-African integrated financing provider earns money through transaction and referral fees.
COO Akinmusire and Furusa met while working at Cellulant prior to founding ImaliPay. Before closing this seed round, they received funding from the Google Black Founders Fund in October of last year.
Follow-on investors in the round included Ten 13, Uncovered Fund, MyAsia VC, Jedar Capital, Logos Ventures, Plug N Play Ventures, Untapped Global, Latam Ventures, Cliff Angels, Chandaria Capital, and Changecom. Keisuke Honda of KSK Angels participated, as did other angel investors from Serbia, Kenya, and Norway.
According to the founders, the funds will be used to expand the company’s 50-person workforce, improve technology, and expand into other markets such as Ghana and Egypt.
