For Francophone African Fintech, It’s Mobile Money Before Anything Else

In May 2019, Consolate K. Rusagara, Practice Manager at the World Bank, put out a blog post with a plain-sailing title: Francophone Africa has the most promising tech startups and they are looking for investors. 

A little over 2 years after the cause-pleading publication, American payments giant, Stripe, joined coffers with Sequoia Heritage and other investors to sink USD 200 Mn into Wave, a 4-year-old, Senegal-based fintech. Marking the biggest Series A round for any African startup, the round valued Wave at USD 1.7 Bn—birthing Francophone Africa’s first unicorn. 

In February, two-year-old fintech, Djamo, became the first Ivorian startup to get into Y Combinator. In July, another Ivorian startup, Julaya, secured USD 2 Mn in pre-Series A to expand its mobile money-based fintech platform across Francophone West Africa. 

Remember Gozem? Last week, the Francophone Africa-focused company—which started in Togo back in 2018 as a motorcycle-hailing platform—nabbed USD...