Klasha, a cross-border technology company based in San Francisco, said today that it has raised $2.4 million in seed funding to develop digital infrastructure for cross-border trade in Africa. Greycroft led the investment round, which included Seedcamp, Berrywood Capital, AVG Basecamp Fund, Practical VC, Plug and Play, First Fund, Expert Dojo, 2.12 Angels, MiLA Capital, and angel investors such as Joe Cross, ex-Marketing Head at Wise (formerly TransferWise), Santosh Ankola, ex-Head of Product at TechCrunch, and Michael Pennington, co-founder of Gumtree.
Klasha’s fundamental technology enables African consumers to pay foreign online and offline businesses in African currencies while receiving reimbursements in their preferred currencies, such as USD, GBP, and EUR. Klasha is now available in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, and the company plans to invest in increasing revenue, boosting its current 10,000 user base, and expanding into additional markets in the fourth quarter of this year.
Klasha has implemented WooCommerce, OpenCart, and BigCommerce plugin integrations. Wix, Ecwid, Magneto, and Commerce Cloud are among the platforms supported by its integration library, which is continually expanding. With an official agreement with BigCommerce, the Klasha Checkout will be available to thousands of e-commerce shops throughout the world, allowing them to accept payments from African customers online.
“By 2025, half of the world’s population will live in Africa,” stated Jess Anuna, founder and CEO of Klasha. Through our API, we’re building the technology that will allow worldwide enterprises to scale effortlessly into Africa and support frictionless cross-border payments. Similarly, we’re providing African consumers with the same level of access to the global e-commerce sector as consumers on other continents. It is critical for African consumers to be able to compete in the global market, which includes having access to the things they desire without payment or delivery constraints.”
“Klasha’s technology provides for frictionless cross-border transactions at a time when Africa is quickly booming and needs both payment and logistics solutions for online commerce,” Alison Lange Engel, Partner at Greycroft, stated. We’re thrilled to be able to help Klasha and their mission of making borderless payments for African trade a reality.”
With this funding, Klasha will be able to develop its technology to assist worldwide B2B and B2C businesses such as ASOS, Zara, Amazon, and Zoom in receiving payments in African currencies from customers all over the continent.
Read more on Tech Gist Africa:
Ejara, a Cameroonian financial services platform, has raised $2 million in seed funding
Chari, a Moroccan B2B e-commerce startup, has raised $5 million in a seed round to fund its growth
Amenli raises $2.3 million in order to provide insurance services to Egyptians
