Diool, a Cameroonian fintech platform, has recently launched a new feature on its digital payment application that allows more than 500 transactions to be carried out simultaneously. The company’s application, which is linked to popular mobile payment methods like Orange Money, MTN Money, and Express Union Mobile, offers a convenient solution for companies looking to make multiple payments at once.
This innovative feature is expected to provide significant added value for businesses that regularly face tedious manual operations. Diool’s President, Serge Boupda, expresses his delight in the launch of the new feature, stating that it will make executing multiple payments at once more efficient and streamlined. This feature was made possible after Diool raised 1.8 billion FCFA in February 2021, which was aimed at expanding their digital payment services in Cameroon and other countries.
Serge and Philippe Boupda, founders, Diool
Digital payments are increasingly becoming a niche of opportunity in African countries due to the widespread penetration of mobile and the digitization of services. For instance, data from the central bank of six CEMAC countries indicate that the value of payments made via Mobile Money in Cameroon alone reached 2,224.7 billion FCFA between June and September 2017, and this figure has likely doubled by now.
Founded in 2015 by Serge and Philippe Boupda, Diool has made impressive strides since its inception. Just two years after its commissioning, the fintech firm recruited 2,000 traders, with more than 65 billion FCFA worth of transactions processed. Diool’s ambition for this rapidly growing market is justified by the fees it charges for its services.
Overall, Diool’s launch of a new functionality on its application is a significant step towards revolutionizing digital payments in Cameroon and beyond. As the fintech continues to grow and expand its services, it will undoubtedly play a critical role in facilitating financial transactions across Africa.
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
The Cameroonian fintech startup Diool has announced that it was able to raise US$3.5 million in funding to scale its operations beyond its present status. Diool’s transformation has been inspirational. From a mobile recharge project back in 2015, offering small merchants a way to sell prepaid recharges to their customers from a single app, but eventually pivoted into financial services aggregation after realising payment interchanges and financial services access was the pain point of its target users.
Diool chief executive officer (CEO) Serge Boupda
Diool’s platform makes it simpler for small merchants to accept payments from their customers and repay their suppliers, using many payment methods. In the two years since the pivot, Diool has signed up more than 2,000 merchants, who have transacted more than US$120 million via its platform. It has payments integrations with all mobile money providers in Cameroon, and a regulatory partnership with French multinational investment bank and financial services company Societe Generale.
The startup said the US$3.5 million in funding from the Lundin family plus existing investors, has moved its total secured investment to US$4.6 million. The startup’s chief executive officer (CEO) Serge Boupda told Disrupt Africa its goal was to build a simpler way to access financial services for small merchants in Africa.
“We’re doing Cameroon and payments first,” he said. “We’ve also spent some time rebuilding operational architecture and processes, to match new payments regulations in Cameroon – a critical building block for financial services distribution in the region.”
With the funding on board, Diool is now working on expanding at home, before raising further funding and scaling internationally.
“Our next stage is growing the team and product to scale in Cameroon ahead of entering other countries,” Boupda said.
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In May 2019, Serge Boupda stood before investors in a room at the Vivatech trade fair in Paris, pitching to raise $1.5m for his startup, Diool, which had then pivoted from a mobile recharge retailer to a fintech company after discovering that financial services access was the pain point of its target users in Cameroon. Then, his startup had processed over one million euros’ worth of transactions in the central African country. But the investment did not come; even though the startup had just been the overall winner of the prestigious Seedstars Cameroon Competition a year ago. A year before, neighbouring Nigerian fintech startup, Paystack, launched at the same time as Diool and which had long concluded its seed round, had announced a $8m Series A round. This was immediately followed by another investment of $10m in fellow country fintech startup Paga.
Serge and Phillipe Boupda, both brothers, are founders of Diool. Photo credits: Afrikatech
Now, two years have passed after the pitch at Vivatech, and Serge Boupda has taken some momentary rest to make a major interim announcement: that Diool has secured $3.5 million in funding, but not from the regular investors within the African fintech startup ecosystem.
“We do Cameroon and payments first. We also spent some time rebuilding the architecture and business processes, to match Cameroon’s new payment regulations — a critical part of delivering financial services in the region,” said Serge Boupda, Diool’s co-founder in a bare press release.
The Fundraising Journey Continues
While the latest funding brings with it a huge relief, Serge and his team will soon step out again.
In the meantime, they are focused on expanding at home. Thereafter, they hope to explore international markets apart from Cameroon.
“Our next stage is growing the team and product to scale in Cameroon ahead of entering other countries,” Boupda said.
Who Are The Investors And Why Did They Invest?
Information about who the investors in this round were is scanty, except a statement that the investment came from the “Lundin family, plus existing investors”.
Based in Vancouver, Canada, the Lundin Foundation, in 2016, was part of Zambia fintech startup, Zoona’s $15m fundraise, alongside the IFC, Omidyar Network and Quona.
Particularly, the foundation has been very much active in the French-speaking parts of Africa. In 2015, it participated in Investisseurs & Partenaires’ 9.5m euros fundraise alongside Rothschild Foundation,Caritas, Small Foundation.
When not persuaded to invest out of its regular markets, the foundation invests in promising young businesses in Central Africa. The fund’s portfolio includes more than 30 different companies that have created thousands of local jobs.
Despite the excitement that usually comes with successful fundraising, Diool’s story, again, stresses the troubles facing startups in French-speaking Africa irrespective of the sectors they belong in. Last year, the $2.4million funding raised by Healthlane, which also runs a branch in Nigeria, was the only major fundraising headline made by a startup in Cameroon. Diool’s $1.2m was another, though not widely reported. Partech Africa report 2020 put the total figure of funding at $3.8 million, meaning that only Healthlane and Diool and a few others raised funding that year. All these are not withstanding the fact that Cameroon shares almost the same similarities (population, internet penetration, financial inclusion rate) with Ghana, which received $111m in startup investments in the same year.
Founded in 2015, with a major pivot in 2017, Diool says it is one platform that performs multiple functions.
“Merchants want to serve customers fast and accept any payment method proposed. With the funds received, they buy more inventory from suppliers, add value and sell again. With one platform to manage their many operations, they can save time and costs of running business,” the startup notes on its website.
Put simply, Diool assists small merchants to accept payments from their customers and repay their suppliers, using many payment methods. The startup also maintains payments integrations across all mobile money providers in Cameroon. It also said it has partnered with French multinational investment bank and financial services company Societe Generale, based in Cameroon, in order to beat the demands placed on fintechs by regulations in the country.
After two years since its pivot, Diool has signed up more than 2,000 merchants. These merchants have transacted more than US$120 million using its platform.
Serge grew up in Africa, studied in Europe, and for 15 years traded complex financial derivatives in different markets around the world for a big French bank. For his part, Philippe Boupda, Serge’s younger brother and Diool’s co-founder, is a telecommunications engineer with extensive experience in working/integrating telecommunications systems.
The latest investment brings Diool’s total secured investment to US$4.6 million.
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
