Nigerian fintech startup, Kudi has raised a $5 million Series A funding round to grow its team, increase the size of its bank agent network, and launch new financial products. The funding round led by Partech Partners and Y Combinator’s CEO, Michael Siebel, featured Khosla Ventures, an existing investor. The General Partner and Africa Fund Co-lead of Partech, Tidjane Dème, will join Kudi ‘s board.
Founded by Yinka Adewale and Pelumi Aboluwarin in 2016, Kudi enables underbanked and unbanked Nigerians to access basic financial services such as money transfers, bill payments, and cash withdrawals through its network of agents. It is focused on providing access to electronic banking and financial services by leveraging conversational interfaces, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence to provide faster access, frictionless experience, and ultimately boost financial inclusion in emerging markets. The startup already has an agent network comprising over 4,500 merchants, which processes over $30 million payments each month.
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Kudi will use the funding to expand its agent network and recruit 15 new team members. It also intends to partner with commercial banks and other financial services providers to launch new products that include offering insurance, loans, and savings. Adewale said that the startup was excited about the growth it has experienced over the last 12 months.
“We’re excited about the growth we’ve experienced over the last 12 months. We literally grew from processing $1.1 million to $30 million monthly with the same team. Going forward, we’ll be hiring engineers, product managers and product designers to ensure our product is 10 times better than what’s on the market today even as we grow our network of agents,” said Adewale, the CEO.
The General Partner and co-lead of the Partech Africa Fund, Tidjane Dème, said agent networks were the backbone of African digitization as they offer an effective way of distributing digital services. “We believe that Yinka and Pelumi have the right vision to build the best platform for agent networks. The Kudi team has built an excellent product that their agents love to use. As a result, Kudi has demonstrated an impressive growth since its inception,” he said. Partech also revealed that the round brings Kudi’s total investment since inception to $6.7 million.
“For an economy that largely depends on cash, the growth of digital payments in Nigeria will be accelerated by Kudi as they provide a gateway between cash and digital, and we think that’s a huge opportunity,” said Michael Seibel from Y Combinator.
Last year, Kudi was among the 12 startups selected to join the first Google Launchpad Accelerator Africa class. It was also selected as a finalist in both the 2017 Ecobank Fintech Challenge and 2017 AppsAfrica Innovation Awards.
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