Nigeria-based fintech firm Raenest just lately secured an $11 million funding from QED Traders to assist freelancers and distant employees obtain fee throughout Africa, TechCrunch stories.
As employees all through Africa are gaining employment with Large Tech companies and international startups, Raenest’s retail product, Geegpay, is tackling the problem of creating certain freelancers and distant employees receives a commission via multi-currency wallets, working with USD, GBP, and EUR accounts. Launched in 2022, founders Victor Alade, Sodruldeen Mustapha, and Richard Oyome initially needed to assist overseas corporations pay African workers to remain compliant with native norms. Oddly sufficient, freelancers weren’t on their radar.
Nevertheless, months in, they realized the issue was employees struggling to obtain funds — not the opposite method round. The skilled engineers took the chance to deal with the rising ache level. “A U.S. firm may not care if a fee is delayed by 5 days, however for somebody in Nigeria or Kenya, that’s an enormous deal — particularly when changing to native forex turns into one other hurdle,” Alade stated.
“Companies began asking if they may get fastened financial institution accounts to simplify funds. That’s after we began considering: How massive is this chance? Who else is constructing for Africa?”
It wasn’t lengthy earlier than Geegpay began to turn into fashionable with freelancers and distant employees along with enterprise sign-ups. The useful instrument got here proper on time as one U.S.-based fintech, Mercury, began to limit enterprise accounts from various international locations, together with African nations.
With the assist of QED Traders, one of many world’s prime fintech enterprise capital companies that has been heightening its African footprint, accomplice and head of Africa and the Center East, Gbenga Ajayi, stated the agency believes Raenest is the important thing to unlocking new alternatives for entrepreneurs. “We firmly consider that by bridging the hole between native and international markets, Raenest will unlock new alternatives for African entrepreneurs, freelancers, and companies, finally driving larger financial empowerment throughout the continent,” Ajayi stated.
For the reason that fintech’s preliminary launch, the corporate has processed over $1 billion in funds, in accordance with Fixextra, which is an enormous 160% improve since 2023. With 700,000 particular person clients and over 300 companies in Raenest’s portfolio, the corporate has plans to make use of the funding to develop its presence in Nigeria and Kenya, and shortly launch in the US and Egypt.
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