- Afriex offers faster, and less expensive foreign payments for Africans.
- The firm was launched back in 2019 by its Co-founder, Tope Alabi.
- Tope has already signed a deal with Visa to provide Afriex customers with credit and debit cards.
Amid a sporadic growth of fintech companies targeting unbanked consumers in Africa, fintech startup Afriex has grown by 500% six months after it closed a $10 million Series A funding round at a $60 million valuation.
According to Forbes, at least half of Afriex’s customers use the platform more than once a week.
At the helm of Afriex is Tope Alabi, the former blockchain consultant at ConsenSys. Alabi explained that he launched the service back in 2019 and its traction was so instant.
He said:
“I don’t know if it was the pandemic but we really started growing fast.”
The service began by concentrating on Nigeria and has subsequently spread to other countries in Africa such as Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda.
Haseeb Qureshi, the Managing Partner of Dragonfly Capital, said he first encountered Alabi while serving as a mentor at an Andreessen Horowitz-run program for crypto startups. He had Alabi on his crew.
He claims to have been quite pleased by Alabi and Afriex, but he decided not to participate in the seed round because he was unsure about how it would expand after seeing other founders attempt and fail to create cryptocurrency businesses with an eye on Africa.
But after observing the success of the business, he believed Afriex could have discovered the secret. “The company’s ability to span the whole corridor between the US and Africa, where many others have attempted to succeed but have failed, is a major strength,” Haseeb added.
While Alabi has big plans for the platform, Afriex is presently just focused on its primary money transfer offering. He has already signed a deal with Visa to provide Afriex customers with credit and debit cards later this year and plans to utilize it to establish a stablecoin.
