African payments firm PawaPay has raised $9m from a seed funding round led by MSA and UK investment fund 88mph.
The seed round also saw participation from Vunani Capital, Zagadat Capital and Kepple Ventures.
Established in 2020, PawaPay claims it helps global companies accept payment on ‘African consumers’ terms’. The company helps simplify international payment transfers to Africa and said that its platform is made for remittance companies and other firms that need to get money ‘smoothly and fast’ to African businesses or consumers.
The majority of PawaPay’s customers are large African merchants and companies that need to make payments to the accounts of African consumers. PawaPay said that it has positioned itself as an industry leader in high volume mobile money payments and focuses on delivering ‘reliability and transparency’ for merchants.
PawaPay claims it is currently handling millions of transactions successfully on its rails every week and has operations in 10 countries.
According to PawaPay, the newly raised funding will be used to scale the company’s operational presence, find more talent to join the team and expand into new geographical markets in Africa.
PawaPay CEO Nikolai Barnwell said, “Africa’s alternative financial infrastructure is in an exciting phase with double digits CAGR everywhere. And mobile money has come out as the de facto money infrastructure for hundreds of millions of people on the continent. A quarter of the adult population is an active mobile money user. A third of all wallet holders have their salaries paid into them.
“We’re making a bet that this infrastructure will continue to grow and offer a superior experience than traditional financial infrastructures such as card and banking. With more than 500 million registered users on the continent – 200 million of which are active frequent users, this isn’t a fringe fad or a stepping stone to cards and swift payments.
“This is an example for the rest of the world of how payments could – and should look. Most of our competitors are largely focused on bank and card payments, but over the past many years, we have been laser-focused on addressing the unique set of challenges that accompanies specializing in mobile money. I think this gives us a good position to explore the opportunities that are coming up as this alternative financial infrastructure continues to grow.
“We are excited to have world-class investors supporting our vision to connect every mobile money wallet in Africa to each other, and the rest of the world, as we continue to make it simpler to do payments”.
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