Nigeria digital bank Kuda has raised an impressive $55 million Serie B co-led by existing investors Valar Ventures and Target Global. With a valuation now set at $500 million, Kuda is looking to expand to other African countries as it tries to capture a large number of underbanked across the continent. Thus far the company has raised over $90 million in funding.
The fintech startup launched in 2019 purposefully to offer digital banking services to all its users. In an interview with CNBC Africa, Babs Ogundeyi the company CEO related the changes brought about by Covid-19 – one of which is the financial services sector, which Kuda Bank has exploited to their advantage. In March they had 650,000 registered users, a number that has almost doubled 5 months later to 1.4 million. Babs revealed that they invested a significant part of their previous raise into product revamping and marketing of new products.
Kuda Bank is now a player in the credit lending space with the Kuda Overdraft service as one way of monetizing its business model. Kuda pre-qualifies the customers most of whom comprise the young demographic and are highly proven to use digital financial services. The company intends to introduce more credit and financial products.
The digital bank previously held a $25 million Serie A led by Valar, in addition to an earlier $10 million. It is no surprise that the success of Kuda Bank is another addition to the new trend of developments in digital banking where top companies with the same business model are emerging such as Nubank in Brazil, WeBank in China, and Revolut in Europe, among others.
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