Grace Ashiru
Fintech startup Djamo, based in Ivory Coast, has closed a $14 million funding round. This is the biggest equity round ever for a startup in Ivory Coast, and it will help the company grow across Francophone Africa.
Régis Bamba and Hassan Bourgi started Djambo in Ivory Coast two years ago, intending to help people who don’t have bank accounts or don’t have enough money in their accounts. In French-speaking markets, less than 25% of adults have bank accounts.
The Djamo app lets banks and mobile money work together, so people in Ivory Coast can move money from their bank accounts to their mobile money wallets and back again. It has used this feature to build a full set of financial services.
Djamo’s first product is a debit card that works with Visa and lets people buy things online from places like Amazon, Alibaba, and Netflix.
Bourgi said that 60% of the people who use Djamo had never used a Visa debit card before they joined the platform.
The firm claims to have over 500,000 customers, a more than fivefold increase over the 90,000 consumers it had onboarded in February.
Since its start, the platform has processed more than $400 million, and its income has grown by 20% to 25% each month.
With the $14 million in funding, the startup will be able to move into two more Francophone African countries by the end of next year and add investments and loans to its product line.
Oikocredit, Enza Capital and Partech Africa led the funding round.
