Y Combinator neobank Djamo raises $17M with 1M users across Francophone Africa
Djamo is one of several digital banking startups targeting Africa’s underbanked. But unlike many that focus on large markets like Nigeria, Egypt, or South Africa, Djamo has carved out a niche in Francophone West Africa, specifically the Ivory Coast and, more recently, Senegal. It now serves over 1 million customers across both countries.
The Y Combinator-backed fintech just raised $17 million to expand its product suite for these retail customers and the thousands of small businesses it has onboarded in the last two years.
The equity round, the largest ever for an Ivorian startup, surpasses Djamo’s $14 million Series A in 2022 and reflects continued investor confidence in its mission to make banking accessible and affordable.
Learn more: https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/03/djamo-raises-17m-and-has-1m-users-across-francophone-africa/
Peach Payments acquires West-African payments gateway PayDunya
Digital payments gateway Peach Payments has agreed to acquire West-African payment platform PayDunya. In the process, it enters mainland Francophone Africa for the first time, following its expansion to Eswatini (2024), Mauritius (2021) and Kenya (2018).
Peach Payments is an enterprise-grade payments gateway that enables online payments in Africa for businesses of all sizes.
Dakar-based fintech PayDunya started operations in 2015, after Aziz Yérima co-founded PayDunya with fellow ESMT-Dakar students Youma Fall, Christian Palouki and Honoré Hounwanou (from Senegal, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire respectively).
Maseera Acquires Egypt’s ADVA to Drive Fintech Innovation in North Africa
Maseera Holding for Financial Investments (“Maseera”), a portfolio company of 2PointZero—an investment platform under the International Holding Company (IHC)—has successfully acquired ADVA, a leading Egyptian consumer finance platform. This acquisition positions ADVA as Maseera’s primary technology and data analytics hub in North Africa and marks a crucial milestone in Maseera’s regional expansion strategy.
Founded in 2020, ADVA has rapidly established itself as a key player in Egypt’s fintech landscape, providing accessible financing solutions for essential services like healthcare and education. The platform has played a pivotal role in serving Egypt’s underserved middle- and low-income populations, leveraging a proprietary AI-powered credit scoring model. By incorporating alternative data, such as mobile usage patterns, ADVA has been able to underwrite first-time borrowers, significantly expanding financial access.
MTN South Africa’s mobile money is on fire
Despite initial struggles for the local South African market to embrace mobile money products, like Vodacom’s local version of M-PESA, MTN has announced it has reached 13 million registered users in its own mobile money product, MoMo, after five years of being available in the market.
This translates to nearly three million new subscribers annually since relaunching in 2020, demonstrating an appetite among South Africans for convenient mobile money transfers, or at least among MTN’s nearly 40 million registered South African users.
“Since its relaunch in South Africa, MoMo has played a key role in promoting economic growth and reducing the digital financial divide,” says Kagiso Mothibi, CEO of Fintech at MTN South Africa.
Read more: https://htxt.co.za/2025/04/mtn-south-africas-mobile-money-is-on-fire/
Flutterwave’s fintech solutions to fraud
As the world modernizes and money moves online, thieves are creating new ways to scam consumers and financial technology institutions. Unfortunately, stopping modern criminals can’t be left solely to police and security guards. The best defense against digital pickpockets starts with fintech companies.
To counter the threat of 21st-century cybercriminals, Flutterwave, Africa’s leading e-payments platform, has spearheaded several innovative methods to keep its customers’ data safe and protect their money as it moves across cyberspace.
These state-of-the-art solutions make use of the latest tools, such as artificial intelligence, to provide a powerful preventive measure to the sophisticated cyberattacks.
Read more: https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/flutterwaves-fintech-solutions-to-fraud/fzkfetn
Raxio Secures $100M from IFC to Fuel Africa’s Digital Infrastructure Boom
Raxio Group, a leading Sub-Saharan African data center platform, has signed an agreement for $100 million in financing from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group. The funding will accelerate Raxio’s expansion of facilities powering key technologies like AI, cloud computing and digital financial services – critical enablers of Africa’s economic growth and digital inclusion.
The debt funding from IFC will help Raxio double its deployment of high-quality colocation data centers within three years, addressing growing demand in underserved markets across the continent. The company is developing a Sub-Saharan African regional data center platform in countries including Ethiopia, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, and Angola.
Ripple Adds RLUSD Stablecoin to Cross-Border Payments Platform
Ripple announced it has added its US dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, to its Ripple Payments platform to support enterprise cross-border transactions using the digital asset.
RLUSD, launched in December 2024, is designed primarily for business applications rather than retail use.
Ripple said the stablecoin is aimed at improving the speed and reducing the cost of international payments processed through its network.
Read more: https://fintechnews.sg/109776/digitalassets/ripple-rlusd/
