NALA Raises $40Mn to build Cross-Border Payments

NALA raises $40m to build cross-border payments for emerging markets.  

• NALA raises $40m to fuel international expansion and launch its own payment rails for Africa and beyond.

• The US fintech building global payments for emerging markets. 
• $40m Series A for NALA, the fintech that took Africa’s payment problems personally. 

Summary:

NALA, one of Africas largest Fintech companies, has announced raising $40 million in Series A funding. This investment will fuel NALA’s global expansion and enhance the reliability of payments to Africa through the development of its own payment rails.

NALA’s offerings include a consumer app that enables secure and instant money transfers from Europe, the UK, and the US to 11 African countries and a new B2B platform, Rafiki, designed to provide lightning-fast payments for businesses and individuals across the African continent. With significant growth in revenue, transaction volume, and team size, NALA is poised to revolutionize payment technology in Africa and beyond.

Nala, a leading Tanzanian fintech company, announced that it has raised $40 million in Series A funding to support its global expansion and enhance the reliability of payments to Africa by developing its payment rails.

The past 12 months have been transformative for NALA.The company achieved a 10x increase in revenue, reached profitability, and had positive cash flow. In the past 20 months, NALA saw a 34x increase in transaction volume. The NALA team has grown from just 7 members to a robust team of over 100. Finally, today, NALA proudly serves 500,000 customers.

The $40 million funding round was led by Lauren Kolodny of Acrew Capital, who was featured in Forbes Midas list in both 2023 and 2024.

With participation from DST Global, Amplo, represented by Sheel Tyle, additionally, the majority of previous investors increased their stakes by taking super pro-rata investment in the round. New investors participating include: Norrsken22, HOF Capital and notable fintech founders investing in this round include Ryan King, co-founder of Chime, Vlad Tenev, the co-founder of Robinhood and the founder of Klarna. 

The new funding will accelerate NALA’s global ambitions focusing on two things:

1. NALA consumer business expanding beyond Africa, building services for the global migrant diaspora. 
2. Building Rafiki, its new B2B payments platform. Rafiki is designed to lay the payment rails for the next billion users, ensuring reliability, managing treasury directly, improving error mapping, reducing user costs, and streamlining payouts and collections. Similar to how dLocal revolutionized payments in Latin America and AirWallex transformed the Asian market, Rafiki is set to build a robust payment infrastructure for Africa. 

This is NALA’s second round of fundraising in 20 months, having raised $10m through Accel, Amplo, and Bessemer Partners in 2022. Other notable angels who are investors include Jonas, the co-founder & CTO of Monzo, Robinhood founder Vlad Tenev. Laura, the co-founder of Alloy, Deel founder Alex Boaziz, early employees at Revolut and Wise.

“This $40 million funding round marks a pivotal moment for NALA. It will enable us to go beyond remittances and extend our reach beyond Africa, building a robust payments ecosystem.

We’re reinvesting this money to enhance our infrastructure, ensuring reliable, low-cost payments for all. With the launch of our own payment rails and the expansion of our B2B platform Rafiki, we’re not just talking about change – we’re building it. We’ve got some bold, ambitious plans, give us a couple of years.” said Benjamin Fernandes, Founder & CEO of NALA.

Leadership team at NALA:

NALA was founded by Benjamin Fernandes, CEO, who holds an MBA from Stanford University and had formerly worked on building mobile money services for TV subscriptions in East Africa.

Steering NALA with him are two exceptional leaders:

1. Nicolas Esteves, CTO, grew up in West Africa and brings 12 years of fintech experience, including time spent building Osper and Monzo.Nicolas leads the engineering, data and fraud teams.
2. Nicolai Eddy, COO, joined NALA from Morningstar, previously building quantitative index portfolios. Nicolai is based in the Nairobi office and builds our Rafiki, treasury, operations and partnerships teams.

NALA has a global team that serves an international audience. Built by world-class engineers from Wise, Revolut, Monzo, Mpesa, and other leading global fintech companies.

NALA – US Fintech company with 2 core services:

1. NALA consumer money transfer app that enables users to make secure and reliable payments from Europe, the UK, and the US to 11 African countries in seconds. 
2. Rafiki – B2B platform which enables lightning-fast payments to individuals and businesses globally on the African continent. Similar to dLocal but for Africa. 

NALA is on a mission to build payments for the Next Billion, laying the payment rails to improve payments into the African continent. By building community-powered financial solutions, NALA makes it easier to handle day-to-day payments and conduct business in an increasingly global Africa.