Djamo is one in all several digital banking startups that pull off with the left Africa. But in contrast to many who focus on large markets corresponding to Nigeria, Egypt or South Africa, Djamo has created a distinct segment in Francophone West Africa, especially on the Ivory Coast and in recent times. It now serves over 1,000,000 customers in each countries.
The FinTech, supported by Y Combinator, has just collected $ 17 million to expand its product suite for these retail customers and the 1000’s of small corporations that it has on board previously two years.
The equity round, the best of all time for an Ivoreres startup, surpasses the 14 million dollars -series A of Djamo in 2022 and reflects the persistent trust of investors to his mission to make banking accessible and reasonably priced.
Co -founder and CEO Hassan Bourgi It refused to share the brand new rating, but said that it had doubled because the last increase.
Bourgi founded Djamo with Chief Product and Technical Officer Régis Bamba in 2020 to shut the financial gap in French -speaking African countries, where only just a few adults Have bank accounts. Traditional banks within the region are sometimes geared toward prosperity and have a lot of the population depending on mobile money, a less expensive method that features the usage of telephone numbers to perform financial transactions.
Mobile money was significantly involved within the expansion of monetary access across Africa. From 2022, 28% of adults in Africa south of the Sahara had a mobile money account Pro The World BankAnd the region holds greater than half of the world on this planet. This progress has also created a blanket.
Most mobile money platforms offer basic services: cash-in, cash-out, P2P transfers and invoice payments. Although they’re useful, they don’t unlock any more advanced financial instruments corresponding to loans, investments or long -term savings.
Djamo positions itself between mobile money and traditional banking business. The startup offers the accessibility of the mobile money with the financial depth of a checking account, an analogous playbook, with the soft bank-assisted Opay and Transsion-owned Palmpay of ten million of shoppers in Nigeria.
His goal is a growing segment of users, mostly younger customers who’re fully grown mobile money pockets, but still find traditional banks expensive, outdated or inaccessible, the founders say.
“These users continue to develop,” said Bourgi. “But they don’t want to go where their parents have gone in institutions with predatory pricing and are not adapted to the new generation of customers. And we are building this and try to become the point of contact for this huge cohort of customers who are now developing more complex, financial funding options.”
Expansion of the product suite for demand
Since our last reporting, Djamo has expanded beyond maps and peer-to-peer transfers. The Ivorian FinTech now offers savings vault, investment products thanks of the primary brokerage license of the region and the salary that Bourgi sees as vital to extend customer loyalty.
How many Neobanks attracts Djamo Banked users who treat it as a secondary account for smooth invoice payments and mobile money integration. But it’s the unpassement that’s harder to activate and that has a better long -term potential. These users, who make up over 55% of the DJAMO base, often treat the app because the most important finance service.
According to Bourgi, nine out of ten users who depend on Djamo because their most important account comes from this segment. In order to attain more from them, Djamo has followed a hybrid approach that mixes his app with offline agents that meet customers personally to enable transactions, much like the mobile money model, which is now getting used by fintechs on all the continent.
Currently, only 5–10% of DJAMO users receive salaries via the app. “The next phase for us,” said Bourgi, “emphasizes how they can switch from 10% to 50% of our users who are paid for their salaries directly in Djamo.”
In the meantime, Djamo also increases services for small corporations – around 10,000 of them, lots of which have began as retail users. According to CTO BAMBA, the startup now offers mass payments, payment links and QR code tools to assist dealers accept and manage payments directly inside the app.
The FinTech achieves income from dealer fees for online card purchases and a premium level plan, for which 25% of the users pay. BAMBA adds that the corporate is researching additional sources of income, including lending and extraction of interest in customer deposits. It is precisely this to secure licenses that enable him to supply interest -bearing savings accounts and credit products.
The founders of Djamo say that the corporate has increased sales by 5 times since 2022 and has processed greater than 4.5 billion US dollars of transactions because the start.
With his recent expansion to Senegal, Djamo has entered a market dominated by Wave, one in all the best fintechs of Africa, which is thought for cheap mobile money transfers. Instead of competing directly, Djamo positions itself as a supplementary service and offers a digital bank experience wherein users can store funds and access more advanced tools corresponding to savings, investments and loans.
Djamo is now a team of 250 people and relies on the proven fact that his recent financing round, led by Pan African, gender -specific VC Janngo Capital, will help scale these services in French -speaking Africa.
“We are enthusiastic to guide the largest VC round on the Ivory Coast and to double Djamo, a Fintech, who is driven by Mission, who transforms access to financial services in Francophone in West Africa,” said Fatoumata Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ Bâ “.
“In a region in which less than 25% of adults have access to formal financial services and in which women are excluded twice as often, this is an important mission. Djamo not only closes the gender gap with women who make up a third of their users, but also opens up the economic possibilities on a scale.”
Other investors who participate within the round are the Sanad Fund for Msmes (managed by Finance in Motion), Partech, Oikocredit, Enza Capital and Y Combinator.
