Quiet But Significant: Another Major Fintech Funding In Ethiopia

It's been raining million-dollar bills for African fintech for the past month. While Nigeria proves ownership of the venture capital lion share, Ethiopia is getting in on the act. For the second backing for a fintech in the East African country this year, Arifpay bagged USD 3.5 Mn.

Quietly

As Africa's tech ecosystem microwaves for what's already signalling to be a hot investment year, there's hardly any million-dollar backing that wouldn't make lots of press. But Arifpay's funding didn't get the amount of attention it would get were it Kenyan, South African or Nigerian. That's perhaps because the company isn't a "proper" fintech startup of sorts.

Arifpay is a payments spinoff of Zayride—an Uber-style taxi app that launched in Addis Ababa in September 2016—the very beginning of e-hailing in Ethiopia. The USD 3.5 Mn private round was raised from 31 individual investors (perhaps angels), with USD 1 Mn in paid capital, and a subscribed capital of USD 2 Mn that will be due in 2 years.