NIGERIA – Mono, a fintech startup, has announced a US$15 million Series A funding round led by Tiger Global to accelerate its continental expansion plans.
The round was led by Tiger Global, the VC firm’s third major investment in Africa this year after Flutterwave and FairMoney, and also had participation from new investors Target Global (an investor in neobank Kuda), General Catalyst and SBI Investment.
New investors were joined by existing ones, including Entree Capital, Lateral Capital, Golden Palm Investments, Acuity VC and Ingressive Capital, bringing Mono’s total raise to a little over US$17.5 million since launching last year.
The funding round will accelerate Mono’s efforts in expansion to other African regions and markets, enable the company to reinforce its key product offerings and build more products for African businesses, and bolster its infrastructure as a whole.
“What we’ve built and have continued to build barely a year after we started this journey, will take us closer to our vision of becoming the most robust open banking service provider in Africa,” said Mono chief executive officer (CEO) Abdul Hassan.
“Our new and existing investors understand and believe in our product vision and we are excited to have them on board with us for the next phase of our journey.”
“What we’ve built and have continued to build barely a year after we started this journey, will take us closer to our vision of becoming the most robust open banking service provider in Africa.”
Founded in August of last year, Mono helps digital businesses in Africa access their customers’ financial and identity data.
It is building open banking infrastructure that enables access to customer financial data and bank payments for digital businesses in Africa.
Its plug-and-play technology allows customers like Flutterwave, Carbon and Indicina to access a broad range of high-quality financial data from institutions across Africa through a single API.
“This new investment round will power all the workings of that next phase. It will help us double down on products and experiences that we can offer growing digital African businesses and by extension, consumers across the continent,” added Mr Hassan.
“It will also aid our ongoing expansion efforts to other African markets like Ghana where we’ve kicked off, and South Africa which is our next stop.”
It has been a busy year for Mono, which has taken part in the Y Combinator accelerator and only announced a US$2 million seed round in May.
John Curtius, partner at Tiger Global, said Mono was building both the present and future of open banking services for digital businesses in Africa.
“We are excited to be on board with them as they continue to grow rapidly and build innovative products for financial data access and payments, as trailblazers in this new industry across Africa,” he said.
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