Fintech company Cellulant raises $47.5m to bridge financial inclusion gaps in Africa

The streak of big-ticket investment in African fintech companies shows no signs of stopping as Cellulant, the digital payments solutions company operating in 11 African countries has raised $47.5 million in its Series C round—one of the largest for a solely Africa-focused venture-funded company.

The round was led by The Rise Fund, an impact investment fund run by TPG Growth, the US-based private equity group, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst, Satya Capital, Velocity Capital & Progression Africa.

The deal is the largest involving a FinTech company that does business only in Africa, according to a press statement by the Rise Fund.

First founded in Nigeria and Kenya in 2004, Cellulant has since expanded to nine other African countries and around 12% of Africa’s mobile consumers can make payments using its solutions. Its reach is down to partnerships with over 90 banks and several mobile payments platforms across the continent. The company says it will be expanding to two more countries following the investment.

The deal marks Rise Fund’s first investment in Africa since raising $2 billion last October. The fund’s backers include Andra AP-fonden, the Swedish pension fund and the Washington State Investment Board. It also lists music star Bono and billionaire Richard Branson on its board.

The investment in Cellulant is the latest endorsement of the key role African fintech companies are playing in bridging the crucial payments and financial inclusion gaps on the continent. Over the past three years, the sector has garnered momentum and has become the most attractive for investors on the continent.

Almost a third of funding raised by African startups in 2017 was in the fintech sector as investors bet on consumers turning to more formal financial services in a region where just 17 percent of the population have banking accounts. Venture funding for African startups jumped by 51% to $195 million in 2017.

Fintech was the biggest attraction for investors with 45 startups raising one-third of total funding. The success of mobile money technology like M-Pesa in Kenya and across East Africa has long shown the potential for other underserved markets. M-Pesa’s success is likely also behind for the increasing presence of mobile networks in the African financial sector and the convergence of the two sectors.

Since 2015, fintech startups in Africa have raised more than $100 million in investment. Last August, Flutterwave, a Lagos-based payments processing and infrastructure company, raised $10 million in its Series A round—one of the largest Series A rounds by an African startup. Fintech has also become a focus area for founders: of the over 300 fintech startups currently operational in Africa, more than half were founded between 2015 or 2016.