Sudo Africa, a Nigerian Fintech that provides a card-issuing API platform, announced that it raised $3.7 million in a pre-seed funding round.
The funding round was led by San Francisco-based Global Founders Capital (GFC). Other participating companies include Picus Capital, LoftyInc Capital, Rallycap Ventures, Kepple Africa, Berrywood Capital, ZedCrest and Suya Ventures. Individuals that also invested in this round include Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, Ham Serunjogi and Odun Eweniyi.
Founded by Aminu Bakori and Kabir Shittu, Sudo Africa provides an open API platform that enables companies to control powerful financial features programmatically, build their own features, securely integrate with other services, and create new world-class experiences.
The founders said that the opportunity to build Sudo was due to a problem they faced while attempting to issue cards at their previous startup: a mobile wallet system allowed users to aggregate existing financial institutions into a single platform and perform transactions.
Sudo COO, Kabir Shittu says the company has customers spanning across a number of sectors, including fintechs, microfinance banks, non-tech enterprises, government agencies, logistics companies, commercial banks and e-commerce companies
Sudo makes money by charging interchange fees when card transactions are made on the web or POS. It also takes authorization fees when spending and location-based controls are made. Sudo collects card production and personalization fees.
Sudo claims it is currently the only player in this space that offers its virtual and physical cards service solely in Nigeria.
