Nigeria-based credit-led neobank FairMoney, which aims to give underbanked people access to digital financial services, has raised US$42 million in Series B funding as it begins to expand into other emerging markets.
Founded in 2017 by Laurin Hainy, Nico Berthozat and Matthieu Gendreau, FairMoney is using loans as a launching pad for its future bank accounts. Its artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform disburses loans to users in seconds, without any human intervention.
By building this automated process, and with a focus on very large countries like Nigeria and India, FairMoney already has close to 1.5 million users across the two markets, and hopes to keep the same fast growth pace.
With this in mind, it has now closed a US$42 million Series B round led by Tiger Global Management and also featuring existing investors DST, Flourish Ventures, Newfund, and Speedinvest.
Having begun life in Nigeria, FairMoney launched its services in India last year, and currently has over 3.5 million registered users. With the new funds, FairMoney plans to expand its services to further underline its position as a digital challenger bank for emerging markets. The company will invest the new capital to hire top global talent and accelerate customer acquisition in current and new markets. They will also focus on developing a suite of innovative digital banking services, including providing current account services.
“We are incredibly excited by the opportunities ahead for FairMoney as we enable more underbanked consumers in emerging markets to access digital financial services. Our vision is to build the financial home for our users and this new round of funding will allow us to go deeper into our core markets. With this funding, we are well equipped to tap into the global talent pool for more A-players with a growth mindset, and who are hungry to build more impactful, customised and mobile-first financial products designed for emerging markets,” said Hainy.
“We are excited to partner with FairMoney as they build a better financial hub for customers in Nigeria and India. We were impressed by the team and the strong growth to date, and look forward to supporting FairMoney as they continue to scale,” said Scott Shleifer, a partner at Tiger Global.
