Mono, a Nigerian fintech startup, has announced that they’ve raised quite a bit of money to help with their quest to power the African Internet economy.
TechCrunch is reporting that the company — founded by Abdul Hassan and Prakhar Singh — closed a $2 million seed investment round. This announcement came just nine months after the company raised $500,000 in pre-seed capital. Investors for this round of funding include Entrée Capital (one of the investors in Kuda’s seed round), Kuda co-founder and CEO Babs Ogundeyi; Gbenga Oyebode, partner at TCVP; and Eric Idiahi, co-founder and partner at Verod Capital. New York but Africa-based VC Lateral Capital also invested after taking part in Mono’s pre-seed.
When all this money is combined with their $125,000 YC investment, their total investment moves to $2.625 million.
Originally launched in August 2020, Mono is a company that prides itself on providing a streamlined financial data solution to Africa. However, in recent months, the company also slightly shifted its focus to include a mission statement that promotes financial inclusivity.
That’s because the vast majority of their client base is either unbanked or underbanked.
What’s more, unlike the United States, Africa’s connectivity issues prevent such things as mass enrollment in so-called “neo-banks.”
But that’s where Mono comes in, according to its founders.
“Our focus isn’t only on open banking but data. We’re thinking of how we can power the internet economy with data that isn’t necessarily financial data. For instance, think about open data for telcos. Imagine where you can move your data from one telco to another instead of getting a new SIM card and making a fresh registration. That’s where I see the market going, at least for us at Mono,” said Hassan.
In the future, the founders also say that they will shift their focus to other diverse financial offerings, including connectivity with existing payment apps.
