Fintech Startup Nala Raises USD 40 M Series A Round

Nala, a remittance startup that is now widening its portfolio through a new B2B payments platform, has raised USD 40 M equity in a rare deal that becomes one of the largest Series A transactions in Africa. The oversubscribed round was led by San Francisco-based VC firm Acrew Capital, with participation from DST Global, Norrsken22, HOF Capital, and existing investors including Amplo and NYCA Partners. A number of angel investors, including fintech founders Ryan King of Chime and Vlad Tenev of Robinhood made investments too. The new capital injection, which follows a USD 10 M seed in 2022, will fuel the company’s global growth plans that involve scaling its remittance business to serve the Asian and Latin America markets.

Nala, launched in 2017, initially offered local money transfers in Tanzania but pivoted to enable foreign remittances in 2021. NALA has developed an app that allows users to make payments from the United Kingdom (UK) to Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Ghana. The startup’s new B2B platform, Rafiki, also powers Nala’s consumer app. Through Rafiki, which directly integrates with banks and mobile money providers, Nala says it is able to guarantee service availability for its consumer service.