Cameroonian fintech Koree, specializing in enabling customers to save spare cash on their cards, has successfully secured a $200,000 pre-seed funding round. The funds are earmarked for expanding the network of merchants, scaling the user base, and ultimately achieving product-market fit, as stated by Koree’s founder, Magalie Gauze-Sanga.
The pre-seed round received support from various investors, including Tunde Akinnuwa, co-founder at Duplo, Cameroon Angels Network, Catalytic Africa, Digital Africa, and other private investors. Koree addresses the challenge of spare change in cash-based economies by utilizing a card and digital wallet system, allowing merchants to return customers’ spare change. Additionally, merchants can leverage Koree’s platform to create loyalty programs, offering cashback rewards to customers.
In pursuit of its fundraising goal, Koree is gearing up to launch a new marketplace that incentivizes users with rewards on their everyday purchases. According to Gauze-Sanga, consumers will earn cash while shopping on the Koree app across 14 categories such as bakery, supermarket, fast food, movies, and pharmacy. The cash earned can be directly redeemed into the user’s mobile money account.
To facilitate the redemption process, Koree will collaborate with customers’ referenced payment service providers. Since its launch in September 2022, Koree has garnered over 13,000 users and processed more than 50,000 cash-based transactions totaling $400,000. The fintech has also generated 30,000 private wallets, with revenue sourced from charging merchants a subscription fee and a commission on each transaction.
Noteworthy achievements include winning the Orange Fab Cameroon challenge in June 2023, providing access to resources for expansion. The Orange Fab acceleration program offers mentorship from industry experts to support Koree’s strategic development plans. Subsequently, in October, Koree secured victory in the Ecobank Fintech Challenge, securing $50,000 in non-dilutive funding, which is being utilized to hire for business development and engineering roles.
With a team spanning Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Nigeria, and Senegal, Gauze-Sanga emphasizes the importance of a physical office, to be located in Douala, Cameroon, as it would facilitate team bonding and the creation of a robust work culture.
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard.