Waza, a B2B payments infrastructure startup that provides rails for global payments and intra-Africa trade, has raised more than $1.2 million in pre-seed capital to create emerging market payment rails.

Waza, co-founded in 2022 by Maxwell Obi, a two-time entrepreneur and former global head of business at Sendwave, and Emmanuel Igbodudu, an ex-engineer at Revolut and TeamApt, makes it simple for African businesses to make worldwide b2b payments.

In a market like Africa, more than 80% of outbound payments made by local banks must be sent overseas for clearing and settlement, which slows them down and increases their cost. 

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Four months after launching Waza, the company is coming out of stealth to cultivate international banking ties and regulatory alliances that will give these companies a method to make cross-border B2B payments simpler and more inexpensive.

Y Combinator, which led the round, as well as Youcef Oudjidane of Byld Ventures, Ivan Pea Uribe, and Fredrik Andersson of Norrsken are among the investors in this round.

Waza payment Waza payment

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