Africa-focused fintech, Zazuu raises $2m to solve inconsistencies with cross-border payments

Zazuu, an Africa-focused fintech startup creating a non-biased payment platform for cross-border payment solutions for Africans in the diaspora, has raised $2 million, which will be critical in the company’s mission to minimise the inconsistency associated with remittance transactions for Africans.

The funding round had the participation of Launch Africa, Founders Factory Africa, Hoaq Club, Tinie Tempah, Jason Njoku, CEO IrokoTV, Babs Ogundeyi, CEO Kuda Bank, and other angel investors.

The company also aims to provide Africans with a smarter way to transfer money with the option to choose between multiple money transfer providers in their regions.

Read Also: How 19-year-old CEO, Njoku Emmanuel is making cross-border payment easier with Lazerpay 

About Zazuu

According to a World Bank report, Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the most expensive regions for cross-border transactions.

And, when four African-born entrepreneurs living in the diaspora, Kay Akinwunmi (CEO), Korede Fanilola (COO), Tola Alade (CDO), and Tosin Ekolie (CTO), from various professional backgrounds, noticed a similar occurrence when dealing with institutional biases such as unfair remittance practices, they decided to work together to solve the problem.

In 2018, I sent about $3000 back home to Nigeria. I thought I got the best deal on that transaction until about two weeks later when someone informed me I could have saved up to $30 in fees on that transaction if I had used a different provider. I was livid. We all have experiences like this where we only discovered in hindsight that we had lost more than we should on transactions back home simply by choosing the right provider.

Korede Fanilola, Zazuu’s Chief Operation Officer

Zazuu grew from a simple information chatbot on Facebook and Telegram groups notifying users of daily rates to an FCA-licensed organisation in the UK with users in eight countries across North America and Europe.

The startup recently introduced a Pay with Zazuu feature that allows users complete transactions within the app.

Users can use the features to search for, compare, and complete transfers with these providers without leaving the app.

Thanks to this new feature, nearly a hundred thousand users have used the current iteration of its Search and Compare service to find the best rates for their corridors.

However, at the moment, this Zazuu service is only available to senders in the United Kingdom and receivers in Nigeria and Ghana.

The plan for us is growth. We want to scale our solution as quickly as possible. We’re working on getting licenses that allow us offer our service to users in other European countries before the end of the year. We’ll also be concurrently improving the product with new features that ensure that everyone sending money to Africa gets the best money transfer experience.

Korede Fanilola, the company’s COO

Read Also: Philippines, Nigeria, Ghana are top destinations for diaspora remittances globally

Future plans for Zazuu

Nigeria has the highest remittance inflow in Sub-Saharan Africa, necessitating safe and secure cross-border payment solutions for a more efficient transaction process.

For the majority of these investors, Zazuu’s vision entails a fairer world for Nigerians, an equitable financial structure for the ecosystem, more transparent pricing, and improved cross-border money mobility across the African continent.

We’re more than a payments company. We want a build a better financial ecosystem for Africans in the diaspora. That means, more than just helping people complete transactions, we want to better help them with better access to financial instruments like credit both home and abroad in the future. The aim is to build a completely non-biased financial wellbeing for African immigrants across the world

Kay Akinwunmi, CEO of Zazuu

Despite the saturation of selections in the remittance industry, the problem of transparency and financial inclusion remains unsolved. Zazuu is aiming to solve these problems.