Fintech Startup FairMoney raises 10million Euros to scale up in Nigeria, Others

In an attempt to scale up its business, Paris-based fintech startup,  FairMoney has closed a $10 million-euro Series A round of investment to use alternative smartphone data to underwrite micro-credit in Nigeria.

Launched in 2017 by CEO Laurin Hainy, former CEO of Venture Builder and VC fund Le Studio VC, alongside CTO Matthieu Gendreau, ex-lead developer of PriceMatch and CPO Nicolas Berthozat, FairMoney began with mobile lending but is expanding its service offerings to build a full-fledged digital bank for emerging markets.

Its competition in Nigeria includes Lidya which has also raised funding from Flourish and the recently backed digital-only bank Kuda.

Led by Flourish, a venture of The Omidyar Group, the partners of DST Global, and existing seed investors Newfund, Speedinvest, and Le Studio VC, the firm will use today’s funding to scale its engineering team in order to develop a fully-fledged mobile banking offering in Nigeria and beyond.

FairMoney has raised 15 million Euros to date from renowned investors such as Flourish, Speedinvest, and the Partners of DST Global, among others.

“Our vision is to build a holistic financial platform for underserved customers in emerging markets. We want to do that by offering an easy-to-use product to our customers and become a financial one-stop-shop for them,” said Laurin Hainy, CEO of FairMoney. “We started with credit for small business owners and individuals, and we are expanding our services rapidly. Think digital bank for emerging market consumers.”

FairMoney claims to have more than 200,000 customers to date, with a majority using the platform to finance their small business needs. The firm has also introduced the in-app payment function to its users, which allows them to top up their phone subscriptions, buy mobile data, pay electricity or internet bills, among others, already facilitating more than 400 payments daily.