ImaliPay, a startup that assists African freelancers reach their financial goals, announced that it has raised $3million seed funding in a debt and equity round to increase its financial services offering to gig workers. It raised an undisclosed pre-seed investment led by the Australian venture capital firm TEN13 in 2021.
Founded in 2020 by Tatenda Furusa and Oluwasanmi Akinmusire, ImaliPay provides an embedded finance platform that provides tailored financial products that promote the inclusion of gig economy platforms and workers in this sector across the continent. Zimbabwean Tatenda and Nigerian Oluwasanmi met whilst working at leading payments company Cellulant.
ImaliPay received funding from Google Black Founders Fund and Leonnis Investments.
The round also received follow-on investors from VCs such as Ten 13, Uncovered Fund, MyAsia VC, Jedar Capital, Logos Ventures, Plug N Play Ventures, Untapped Global, Latam Ventures, Cliff Angels, Chandaria Capital and Changecom. Other participants include angel investors like Keisuke Honda of KSK Angels and others from Serbia, Kenya and Norway.
The company says it wants to use the funds to expand its 50-man team, ramp up its technology and explore new markets like Ghana and Egypt.
ImaliPay is currently available in three countries – Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and since its launch, its userbase has grown by 60x. Tens of thousands of gig workers have accessed the company’s services across 4,500 vendor points, carrying out over 200,000 transactions on its platform. Revenues come from transaction and referral fees.
The company recently partnered with Cellulant and Stitch to to improve Financial Services for Africa’s Gig Workers
