As Africa’s tech ecosystem booms, extra individuals from the area are touchdown distant jobs with Large Tech companies and international startups. However getting paid stays a problem for a lot of of those freelancers and distant employees — they wrestle to open accounts that settle for U.S. {dollars} and face sluggish invoicing and fee processes, and it doesn’t assist when their international employers use incompatible fee platforms.
Lagos-based Raenest is likely one of the many African fintechs which have stepped in to deal with this downside. By means of its retail product, Geegpay, Raenest affords freelancers digital USD, GBP, and EUR accounts to obtain funds, handle multi-currency wallets, and convert currencies. It additionally offers digital and bodily debit playing cards that settle for a number of currencies like U.S. {dollars}.
Final March, the corporate expanded its platform to cater to companies to streamline worldwide remittance with a brand new model, Raenest for Enterprise. Now the startup has raised $11 million in Sequence A funding, led by QED Buyers, to increase its attain throughout Africa.
Development past freelancers
Apparently, Raenest didn’t begin with freelancers in thoughts. Victor Alade, together with co-founders Sodruldeen Mustapha and Richard Oyome, launched the corporate in 2022 as an Employer of Report (EOR), serving to international firms pay African staff in compliance with native norms.
However a few months in, the founders realized the actual downside didn’t lie with the businesses sending funds — it was with people struggling to obtain them.
“A U.S. firm may not care if a fee is delayed by 5 days, however for somebody in Nigeria or Kenya, that’s a giant deal — particularly when changing to native foreign money turns into one other hurdle,” Alade, a former software program engineer at Jumia and Andela, informed TechCrunch.
Drawing from his distant work expertise, Alade and his co-founders, who additionally carry expertise working with African fintechs like LemFi and FairMoney, pivoted to deal with this ache level.
Geegpay rapidly gained traction with freelancers, however enterprise sign-ups started to rise as properly. The staff realized that African firms additionally wanted international accounts to streamline cross-border transactions. “Companies began asking if they may get fastened financial institution accounts to simplify funds. That’s after we began considering: How large is this chance? Who else is constructing for Africa?” Alade mentioned.
Raenest’s addition of enterprise banking couldn’t have come at a greater time. Round this time, U.S.-based fintech Mercury started restricting business accounts from a number of nations, together with components of Africa. In the meantime, competitors within the EOR house was heating up, with main gamers like Deel starting to consider serving the continent extra intently.
These occasions spurred Raenest to lean into what it noticed as a greater alternative: providing African companies a strategy to obtain and ship worldwide funds.
A viable gambit
The wager appears to be paying off. Since launching in 2022, Raenest has processed over $1 billion in funds — a 160% enhance over the previous two years — to freelancers and companies throughout the continent. Right this moment, greater than 700,000 people use the platform to obtain funds from international platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and Gusto. Additionally they use it for on-line procuring and subscriptions.
On the enterprise aspect, over 300 firms depend on Raenest to gather funds from worldwide clients, elevate capital from traders, and make cross-border funds. Its shopper checklist contains startups like Moniepoint, Helium Well being, Fez Supply, and Matta.
Raenest competes with a number of fintech startups providing multi-currency accounts to clients in Africa, together with Afriex, Cleva, Fincra, Grey, Verto and Leatherback. Alade argues that Raenest has an edge as a result of it targets people and companies, in contrast to most gamers that cater solely to a kind of buyer personas.
The corporate’s ambitions prolong past cross-border funds. “We wish to create a secure and seamless monetary ecosystem for Africans — serving to them earn, make investments, and develop their wealth, regardless of the place they’re on this planet,” Alade mentioned, hinting at upcoming product launches.
Enlargement plans
Presently, Raenest operates in Nigeria below a cash switch license. As a part of its progress plans, the corporate will look to deepen its presence in Nigeria and safe licenses in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, and the U.S.
The corporate has banking partnerships within the U.S. and U.Ok., and additionally it is working to safe extra in these areas because it scales. Alongside the way in which, the corporate, which claims to be worthwhile, goals to draw expertise to assist its growth because it brings Geegpay and Raenest for Enterprise below a single model, Raenest.
The Sequence A spherical, which is coming after a $700,000 pre-seed and $2.6 million seed, brings Raenest’s whole funding to $14.3 million.
Lead investor QED, one of many world’s high fintech VC companies, has been steadily growing its footprint in Africa since 2022. It has backed 5 fintech startups on the continent: Moniepoint, Remedial Health, Precium (previously Revio), Cedar Money, and now Raenest.
“We firmly consider that by bridging the hole between native and international markets, Raenest will unlock new alternatives for African entrepreneurs, freelancers and companies, finally driving larger financial empowerment throughout the continent,” mentioned Gbenga Ajayi, accomplice and head of Africa and the Center East at QED Buyers.
Different traders within the spherical included Pan-African VC companies Norrsken22, Ventures Platform, P1 Ventures, and Seedstars.
