ImaliPay, Founded By Former Cellulant Employees, Lands $3M Seed For Its Gig Economy Platform 

ImaliPay, which bills itself as a one-stop shop for financial services, has closed a $3 million seed round in debt and equity. In 2020, the fintech raised a $800,000 pre-seed investment.

The funding that came after the one from Google Black Founders Fund last October had Leonnis Investments on board.

Follow-up investors from VCs like Ten 13, Uncovered Fund, MyAsia VC and Jedar Capital also joined the round. Angel investors like Keisuke Honda of KSK Angels and others from Serbia, Kenya, and Norway also joined, as well.

Read also ImaliPay Attracts Pre-Seed Funding For Gig Workers’ Financial Needs

The money will be used to grow the company’s 50-man team, improve its technology, and look into new markets like Ghana and Egypt, the company’s founders said.

Tatenda Furusa and Oluwasanmi Akinmusire. Credits: ImaliPay
Tatenda Furusa and Oluwasanmi Akinmusire. Credits: ImaliPay

Why The Investors Invested

The startup has generated considerable traction since it was founded. In just 15 months, ImaliPay’s users have grown 60x. In the “tens of thousands,” gig workers on the platform use 4,500 points of sale to get their services from the company. More than 200,000 transactions have been made on ImaliPay’s platform so far. There are transaction and referral fees that the pan-African embedded finance provider makes from these two things.

A Look At What The Startup Does

Imalipay was founded in late 2020 by Tatenda Furusa and Oluwasanmi Akinmusire in response to the difficulties faced by ride-hailing drivers in Nairobi when it came to obtaining working cash or dealing with situations such as running out of fuel.

“A couple of things connected to this point,” CEO Furusa said on how the company started. “One time, a Bolt driver ran out of fuel in Nairobi when I was coming from the airport and couldn’t top off immediately. It triggered me to think of what other pains these gig workers might be experiencing. We researched the gig economy and found that they were neglected by some financial services. And we saw that we were perfectly placed on building a fintech solving the problems of Africa’s gig economy workers, freelancers and self-employed digital workers.”

ImaliPay’s pilot was inspired by Furusa’s experience: a buy now, pay later (BNPL) fuel product, but for two-wheeler gig platforms, as the company collaborated with a few fuel stations in Ibadan, Nigeria, to provide this service to SafeBoda riders.

Read also UK’s Fintech Dapio in $3.4M Gets Backing From Flutterwave on Contactless Payments

The business then built a partner ecosystem in which some partners provide it access to new consumers while others support its ecosystem and marketplace.

“We built out other services around spare parts, smartphones, power banks, savings and investments, and insurance bundled with those products,” said Furusa. “So like accident covers and income protection loss insurance, we intertwine these products so gig workers can qualify for each product based upon their transactional behavior.”

Imalipay currently has 15 partners, including Bolt, Glovo, SWVL, Amitruck, Safeboda, Gokada, and Max.ng.

The startup has also collaborated with other platforms to provide additional financial services such as insurance (health and income protection loss) and savings in Kenya and South Africa.

They number around 35 in total, and some of them are Lami, Cowrywise, Ola Energy, Total Energies, HiFi Corporation, and Britam. 

Read also Africa’s Transporters Adopt Cellulant’s Technology in Bid to Digitize the Sector

The startup provides these financial services to the network’s gig workers via linking its APIs to partner companies or directly through an independent app, chatbot, or USSD.

The COO of ImaliPay, Akinmusire, and Furusa met at Cellulant, where they worked before starting ImaliPay.

Imalipay gig platform Imalipay gig platform

Charles Rapulu Udoh

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. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh

ImaliPay Attracts Pre-Seed Funding For Gig Workers’ Financial Needs

ImaliPay Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder, Oluwasanmi Akinmusire

Nigerian fintech startup ImaliPay has raised extra funding to expand its platform which leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to offer tailored financial products that promote the inclusion of gig economy platforms and workers across Africa. The primary aim of the investment is to expand and accelerate its growth and footprint in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, with ImaliPay aiming to become the one-stop-shop for gig workers’ financial needs.

ImaliPay Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder, Oluwasanmi Akinmusire
ImaliPay Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder, Oluwasanmi Akinmusire

The fintech startup which was founded in 2020 by Tatenda Furusa and Sanmi Akinmusire offers both new and existing gig workers and freelancers the ability to seamlessly save their income and receive in-kind loans through a buy now, pay later model tied to their trade.

Read also:Egyptian Government Partners Visa for Fintech Startups Training Programme

ImaliPay figured that as gig workers save money or repay loans on time, they are able to build a credit history that will in turn unlock more formal financial services in the future. To this end, the fintech company has secured an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding in order to scale its customer base, with the round led by Australian venture capital firm TEN13, which has also invested in the likes of Chipper Cash and Bookipi. Other investors included in the raise are FINCA Ventures, Optimiser Foundation, Mercy Corps Ventures, Changecom, and angels from Nigeria, Kenya, Norway, and the United Kingdom (UK). 

Read also:Tunisia’s First Incubator, Wiki StartUp, Launches Startup Nest For Fintech And Agritech Startups

“It’s a great opportunity for investors to participate in the fintech revolution and a fast-growing segment. Our vision at ImaliPay is to advance financial health and inclusion for gig workers who struggle to manage and access flexible financial services that are often only available to traditional SMEs”, said Furusa.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry