Zazu Raises USD 1 M Pre-Seed To Build ‘Mercury-Style’ Bank For Africa’s SMEs

Zazu, a digital financial operating system for African SMEs, has raised USD 1 M in pre-seed funding to accelerate its rollout in South Africa and Morocco, setting the stage for a wider pan-African expansion in 2026.

The round includes Plug and Play Ventures, founders from Launch Africa, AUTO24.africa, Paymentology, Chari, Fiat Republic, and early members of fintech unicorns Qonto and Solarisbank.

Founded in 2024 by Solarisbank alumni Rinse Jacobs and Germain Bahri, Zazu is building a “Mercury-style” banking experience tailored to Africa’s 50 million SMEs, which it sees as the continent’s underserved “missing middle.”

The platform bundles banking essentials such as accounts, cards and payments with API-driven integrations across bookkeeping, tax, payroll, e-commerce, and HR tools.

Already live in beta with 50 SMEs and a waitlist of 1,000+, Zazu targets the fragmented financial workflows that force businesses across Africa to juggle multiple tools. With this pre-seed capital secured, the company plans to deepen product development and open its seed round in early 2026.