Nigerian fintech startup Mono has raised a seed funding round of US$2 million to reinforce its current offerings in financial and identity data and launch new products.
Founded in August of last year, Mono helps digital businesses in Africa access their customers’ financial and identity data.
Its plug-and-play technology allows customers like Flutterwave, Carbon and Indicina to access a broad range of high-quality financial data from institutions across Africa through a single API.
The startup last year raised US$500,000 in pre-seed funding from Ventures Platform, Rally Cap Ventures, Ingressive Capital and a handful of angel investors and VCs, and earlier this year was selected to take part in the Y Combinator accelerator, banking a further US$125,000. It has now raised its seed round, taking on US$2 million from Entree Capital, Kuda chief executive officer (CEO) Babs Ogundeyi, Gbenga Oyebode, Ehimare Idiahi, and Lateral Capital.
Mono plans to roll out new services such as bank-to-bank payments, direct debit, and more features to serve diverse business verticals. It will also expand into the Ghanaian and Kenyan markets to service a broader customer base.
“Mono builds APIs and products that make it easy for developers and businesses to create better experiences for their users or themselves. Our APIs act as a conduit to enable these businesses to securely access data and financial accounts to better understand users and make more customer-centric decisions,” said CEO Abdul Hassan.
“This new funding will not only help us double down on designing the best APIs and powerful infrastructure, but it will also give us the opportunity to expand the coverage of our services to other countries, markets, and industries in Africa, and hire brilliant people to help us achieve this goal. It’s 2021 – secure access to financial accounts should be modern and seamless.”
