Kuda, a digital challenger bank in Nigeria, has raised $10 million, led by Target Global, with Entrée Capital, SBI Investment (once part of SoftBank, now no longer) and others joining. Kuda was founded in 2018 by Babs Ogundeyi and Musty Mustapha and was formerly known as Kudimoney. Ogundeyi was an ex-PwC auditor and a former special adviser on finance in a state Government while Mustapha was a software engineer at Stanbic IBTC Bank (this bank is mass producing entrepreneurs in Nigeria!). Kuda is “designed for your smartphone, free of ridiculous charges and great at helping you budget, spend smartly and save more.”
Why this constant funding success in the Nigerian fintech sub-sector? Here is the answer as at Feb 2018 – “According to research done by The Fletcher School and Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, of the $301 billion of funds flows from consumers to businesses in Nigeria, 98 percent is still based on cash.” Yes, lots of room to redesign cash-based payment in Nigeria
In the latest development, Kuda, a startup out of Nigeria that operates a popular mobile-first challenger bank for consumers and (soon) small businesses, is announcing that it has raised $10 million — the biggest seed round ever to be raised in Africa. The funding comes on the back of strong demand for its services and its ambitions — according CEO Babs Ogundeyi — to become the go-to bank not just for those living on the continent, but for the African diaspora.
“We want to bank every African on the planet, wherever you are in the world,” he said in an interview. It’s starting first in its home market: since launching in September 2019, it has picked up around 300,000 customers — first consumers and now also small businesses — and on average processes over $500 million of transactions each month.
The $10 million is being led by Target Global, the giant VC out of Europe, with Entrée Capital and SBI Investment (once part of SoftBank, now no longer) also participating, along with a number of other notable individual fintech founders and angels.
This is really amazing as early this morning, I woke up to sign a Board agreement for one of our startups which raised money from an American firm. And this afternoon, another is on a call to speak with investors. People, Nigerian startup ecosystem is on a roll. If you have not gotten in, this is the time to get in.
Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 16 (Feb 10 – May 3, 2025) opens registrations; register today for early bird discounts.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations here.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and invest in Africa’s finest startups here.
Fintech remains a very bright spot in African startup funding as this data from TC Daily shows.
---
Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA (Feb 10 - May 3, 2025), and join Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe and our global faculty; click here.
As long as it remains a Nigerian company while the dollars keep pouring in, I will be fine. If we cannot win here, where else can we win?
If less than five percent of three billion dollars worth of transactions is electronically processed, what happens if our output becomes six hundred billion dollars, or are we settling for the former?
That should get us thinking, we don’t just fintech companies who can process funds, but also to substantially increase the amount of transactions done in the economy; for now it’s still too small for our size and form.
Kuda is on a roll.