Tanzanian fintech NALA announced that it has raised $40 million in a Series A funding round to accelerate its global growth by focusing on two key areas: the expansion of its consumer business and the development of Rafiki, its B2B payments platform. This is NALA’s second round of fundraising in 2 years, having raised $10 million in 2022, bringing the company’s funding to over $50 million.
This funding round was led by the San Francisco-based venture capital firm Acrew Capital, with contributions from DST Global, Norrsken22, HOF Capital, and existing investors like Amplo and NYCA Partners. Additionally, angel investors, including fintech founders Ryan King of Chime and Vlad Tenev of Robinhood, also participated.
Founded by CEO Benjamin Fernandes in 2017 initially to offer local money transfers in Tanzania, it pivoted in 2021 to enable foreign remittances. NALA’s consumer app allows individuals residing in the EU, UK, and US to transfer money to 249 banks and 26 mobile money services across 11 African markets. In regions where NALA has integrated with mobile money services, such as Kenya’s M-Pesa, users can directly pay bills into local mobile wallets.
Nala stated that it will be building Rafiki to establish reliable payment infrastructure for the next billion users. Launched in March 2024, Rafiki will manage treasury directly, improve error mapping, reduce costs, and streamline payouts and collections, similar to dLocal’s impact in Latin America and AirWallex’s in Asia.
Over the last couple of months, NALA have had a lot of successes, however not without some challenges. It currently serves nearly 500,000 customers worldwide and has increased its transaction volume by 34 times over the last 20 months. Revenue has grown tenfold in the last 12 months and it just became profitable and cash flow positive.
In August 2023, Nala launched payment from the UK and Europe to Nigeria.
