Consumer finance app Djamo looks to expand into Francophone Africa, backed by a new $14 million round • TechCrunch

Last February, Djamo announced that it had been accepted into Y Combinator, the first from the Ivory Coast. Months later, the two-year-old fintech has raised $14 million in funding from the famous accelerator, as well as from three lead investors – Enza Capital, Oikocredit and Partech Africa – and other participating investors, including Janngo Capital, P1 Ventures, Axian and launch Africa.

As with most fintechs across Africa, Djamo, launched by Régis Bamba and Hassan Bourgi last year, offers financial services to the underbanked and unbanked population. The focus is on French-speaking markets where fewer than 25% of adults have bank accounts. One reason for this is that the banks concentrate on wealthy customers and those they consider profitable for the business. But as the banks let go, mobile money from the region’s telcos filled the gap, and over the past 10 years, their wallets have reached more than 60% of the population — a testament to how many millions of French-speaking natives were hungry for financial services.

Today, this mobile money infrastructure and reach allows startups like Djamo to build on its existing payments infrastructure to democratize financial access across the banking and mobile money spheres. Djamo’s app allows for interoperability between banks and mobile money, meaning customers in Côte d’Ivoire can send money from their bank accounts to mobile money wallets, and back; it has leveraged this capability to build a complete suite of financial services.

Djamo’s first product is a Visa-powered debit card that allows users to make online purchases on sites such as Amazon, Alibaba or Netflix. Other products include virtual accounts for peer-to-peer transactions, a product for receiving salaries and an auto-savings product that provides guidance to customers’ financial goals. Kuda, Telda, PiggyVest, TymeBank and Koa are a few examples of comparable products across Africa.

“Before Djamo, it was a real challenge for the average customer to receive a salary digitally because they were not integrated into the banking system,” CEO Bourgi told TechCrunch during a call. “We found the right partner to launch that product, and any company can pay salaries to employees with a Djamo account. When you look at Djamo, along with other products, we want customers to be able to manage their money better and help them with planning for the future. We’re not necessarily trying to digitize cash like mobile wallets. We’re here to work on personal finance.”

Customers see so much value in the various use cases Djamo has put together so far that fintech still relies on word of mouth to scale across Ivory Coast, according to Bamba, the company’s chief product officer. The platform has currently registered over 500,000 customers, a more than 5-fold increase from the 90,000 customers Djamo had on board in February 2021.

“In our region, users pay some of the highest fees in the world but don’t always get adequate service in return, and that can be extremely frustrating. The one thing we want to achieve is to offer a product where customers get real value for money,” said the CPO . “The app has grown organically like crazy, and to get those kind of numbers in a market like this in a short period of time is proof that we’re nailing the overall user experience and building something very relevant for users.”

While they did not provide an update on the 50,000 monthly transactions recorded during the February interview, the founders say the fintech platform has processed over $400 million since its inception. Djamo is also experiencing 20% ​​to 25% month-over-month revenue growth, spurred by a change in its pricing plan that includes a free option and two premium options with varying services: $2/month and $3.5/month. They say these options are 80% cheaper than other bank accounts offered by financial institutions – including microfinance banks that Djamo sees as direct competition due to their use of digital channels to offer financial services – in Côte d’Ivoire.

Image credit: Djamo

Bourgi said 60% of Djamo customers have never used a Visa debit card before joining the platform. It is an achievement the CEO is proud of and considers crucial in Djamo’s attempt to make financial services accessible to the masses, including those outside the Ivory Coast. The $14 million in funding, which it claims is the largest equity round ever for an Ivorian startup, will help the startup advance into two more countries across Francophone Africa before the end of next year and expand its product offerings to include investments and lending.

Speaking about the investment, Tidjane Deme, General Partner of Partech Africa, said: “Francophone Africa offers a large integrated market, with [a] rapidly growing demand for frictionless services from a new group of digital native young adults. We are delighted to join forces with high caliber local investors who bring sector and regional expertise to enable Djamo to unlock this opportunity.”