Kenyan digital currency payments startup closes $2.5 million funding round

folarin okunola

January 31, 2017 4:46 PM

BitPesa currently operates in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, the DRC, the UK and Senegal and says the focus of this funding round is to help it expand further.

BitPesa

BitPesa has closed a $2.5 million Series A funding round with plans to expand its services further across West and Southern Africa, as well as in the UK and Europe.

Existing investors Digital Currency Group, Pantera Capital Management, Blockchain Capital, Zephyr Acorn, FuturePerfectVC, and BnkToTheFuture participated in the round led by US-based Draper VC. New shareholder Greycroft Partners also joined in.

This brings the company's total amount of funding to almost $6 million less than four years after it launched in 2013.

BitPesa currently operates in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, the DRC, the UK and Senegal and says the focus of this funding round is to help it expand further across West and Southern Africa. It also wants to step up operations in Europe.

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“BitPesa is well positioned to dominate the huge market opportunity for digital payments across Africa and beyond. It takes a locally-based team to work in the evolving landscape of frontier market financial services, and BitPesa’s approach to investing in teams, infrastructure, and compliance from Lagos to London gives them a strong advantage,” said Tim Draper, founder of Draper VC.

BitPesa accepts bitcon payments and can exchange them for over 30 currencies which it can also deposit into bank accounts or mobile wallets.

In 2016, the company launched its own API platform which allows businesses to send instant payments in local currency from African bank accounts directly into Chinese accounts.

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