Mono, a Nigerian fintech API startup, has raised $2 million in seed funding to help Africa’s internet economy develop.
Mono, which was launched in 2020, assists digital companies in Africa in gaining access to their customers’ financial accounts for data and payments.
Open finance has shown that open APIs provide new ways for the underbanked to transfer money, access financial information, and make borrowing decisions, lowering the barriers and costs of entry.
Entrée Capital, Kuda’s co-founder and CEO, Babs Ogundeyi; Gbenga Oyebode, partner at TCVP; Eric Idiahi, co-founder and partner at Verod Capital; and VC Lateral Capital are among the investors in this seed round.
This investment comes just nine months after Mono received $125,000 from Ycombinator and $500,000 in pre-seed funding last September. A total of $2.625 million has been invested in the business.
Open finance players like Mono are working to boost financial inclusion and connectivity in an area where more than half of the population is unbanked or underbanked.
“We are very excited to be working with Abdul, Prakhar, and the entire Mono team as they continue to build out the rails for African banking to allow the delivery of financial services to hundreds of millions of people across the African continent,” said Avil Eyal, managing partner and co-founder of Entrée Capital.
“Our expansion is mainly inspired by our customers looking to expand to other markets, same with some of our products,” said Abdul Hassan, CEO of Mono. Hassan said, “We work with our customers to provide them with the resources they need to create new experiences for their customers.”
In Nigeria, Mono has collaborated with over 16 financial institutions and over a hundred companies.
Read more on Tech Gist Africa:
Mono, Nigerian API fintech startup gets backing from Y Combinator
BFREE, a Nigerian fintech startup, has raised a seed round to tackle Africa’s mounting consumer debt