Afrigather Zepz, the mum or dad firm of African cross-border fee firms World Remit and Sendwave, has raised $267 million. This comes two years after the fintech reported reaching profitability for the primary time.
The corporate didn’t disclose its valuation on this spherical, however it was valued at $5 billion when it beforehand raised $232 million in 2021.
New and present buyers invested within the spherical led by enterprise capital agency Accel. Leapfrog, TCV, and Coller Capital additionally participated. The Worldwide Monetary Company, a member of the World Financial institution Group has additionally pledged to take a position as much as $20 million.
The fintech will use the funding to increase its attain in Africa. It at present operates in over 150 international locations together with South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and South Africa.
This new elevate punctuates the lengthy pause of Zepz’s IPO plans. In 2022, the London-based firm paused plans to go public because of accounting points. The unicorn’s buyers are “in no rush” for a public itemizing, Harry Nelis, accomplice at Accel one of many lead buyers on this recent spherical instructed Bloomberg.
It additionally follows the layoff of 26% of the workforce in Might 2023 and 30 individuals in November 2023 citing redundancy and duplication of roles.
Based in 2010 by Ismail Ahmed, WorldRemit allows customers to ship cash from varied international locations to totally different locations globally, with choices for financial institution deposits, cell cash, and money pickups.
WorldRemit grew to become the UK’s first Black-founded fintech to realize unicorn standing with a valuation of $1 billion. It acquired Sendwave in February 2021 and now each function as fee manufacturers below the group, Zepz.
Mark Lenhard, Zepz’s CEO, believes there may be extra progress on the horizon for the corporate particularly as a result of persevering with unrest the world over. “We actually noticed it throughout Covid. We’ll see it when there’s an earthquake. We’ll see it when there’s geopolitical unrest within the nation,” Lenhard mentioned. “More cash will movement in as a result of individuals get involved about their households, about their communities and that’s their time of want.”
