Wave, a mobile money company based in the United States and Senegal, has raised $200 million in a Series A round of funding. Wave has received the highest Series A financing in Africa’s startup funding history, at a valuation of $1.7 billion.
Sequoia Heritage, a private investment fund and a subsidiary of Sequoia; Founders Fund; payments giant Stripe; and Ribbit Capital led the round together. Existing investors Partech Africa and Sam Altman, the former CEO of Y Combinator and current CEO of OpenAI, are also part of the round.
“We saw an opportunity to make a bigger impact by trying to build a better, much more affordable mobile money service than the telcos are building throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa,” said Drew Durbin, CEO of Wave. “We didn’t see any companies besides the telcos trying to solve that problem.”
Following this round of funding, Wave plans to expand its footprint in Senegal and the Ivory Coast, as well as expand its already 800-strong product, engineering, and business teams. Wave will also grow into other markets where it believes the regulatory environment is favorable, such as Uganda.
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“Since 2018, we’ve supported Wave because we were convinced mobile money is still an unsolved problem in Africa,” he said in a statement. “Wave has great product design, stellar execution, and a strong financial trajectory. We are proud to see it become the first unicorn from Senegal,” Partech general partner Tidjane Deme said in a statement.
“The opportunity in front of the company is massive. But plenty of times, I’ve gotten it wrong, so you never know. However, I have been fortunate to make a number of great investments and I feel Wave has as good of a shot as you can ask for,” he said. “Africa is going to be the fastest growing and most important market over the next coming decades for many companies. I think people are realizing how big the market opportunity is and how much value is going to be created and we’ll see a lot more things like this happen,” commented Sam Altman, an investor in this round.
Over half of Senegal’s adults are active users of the two-year-old business, which claims to be the country’s largest mobile money player. Wave intends to emulate similar development in Ivory Coast, the second region it officially expanded to last year, putting the number of subscribers between 4 million and 5 million.
| S/N | AFRICAN UNICORNS | SECTOR | YEAR FOUNDED | YEAR BECAME A UNICORN | COUNTRY (PRIMARY MARKET) | FOUNDING TEAM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jumia | Ecommerce | 2012 | 2019 | Nigeria | Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, ex-McKinsey consultants |
| 2 | Interswitch | Financial services | 2002 | 2019 | Nigeria | Mitchell Elegbe |
| 3 | Fawry | Financial services | 2008 | 2020 | Egypt | Ashraf Sabry |
| 4 | Flutterwave | Financial services | 2016 | 2021 | Nigeria | Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Olugbenga Agboola |
| 5 | OPay | Financial services | 2018 | 2021 | China | Opera |
| 6 | Chipper Cash | Financial services | 2018 | 2021 | Africa, with HQ in San Francisco, California, USA | Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled |
| 7 | GO1 | E-learning | 2015 | 2021 | South Africa | South African Melvyn Lubega and Australian Andrew Barnes |
| 8 | Wave | Fintech | 2018 | 2018 | Senegal | Americans Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk |
A Look At What Wave Does
Wave, which is a spin-off from Africa-focused remittance provider Sendwave, was founded by Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk who founded Sendwave in 2014. The product was trialled in Senegal as Wave in 2018, however it was still part of the Sendwave ecosystem. Durbin and his team focused on Wave after WorldRemit purchased Sendwave.
The Dakar-based firm has an agent network that uses their cash on hand to service Wave subscribers, similar to PayPal (except with mobile money accounts instead of bank accounts). Users can make free deposits and withdrawals, and they will be charged a 1% fee if they transmit money, according to the business.
According to Durbin, this is 70% cheaper than telecom-led mobile money, and anytime there is a transfer problem, refunds are issued immediately, unlike with incumbents, who may have to wait several days.
Wave’s technology is also unique in comparison to telecom-driven mobile money. Wave is fully app-based, whereas the incumbents mostly focus on USSD (although there are provisions to use applications). Wave also offers a free QR-card that may be used to transact with an agent if you don’t have a smartphone.
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Wave has been able to drive its expansion to several million monthly active users and billions of dollars in yearly volume by constructing its own full-stack infrastructure — agent network, agent and consumer applications, QR cards, company collections, and disbursements.
For its part, Sendwave delivers low-cost or no-cost remittances to Africa and Asia from North America and Europe. Last year, the YC-backed startup was acquired by WorldRemit, which paid up to $500 million in cash and equity for Sendwave.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer