Djamo stands out as a digital banking startup catering to Africa’s underbanked population, with a focus on Francophone West Africa, particularly the Ivory Coast and Senegal, serving over one million customers across both countries.
Having received backing from Y Combinator, the fintech has successfully raised $17 million to further develop its product suite for retail customers and the thousands of small businesses it has onboarded over the past two years.
This equity round, which is the largest to date for an Ivorian startup, surpasses Djamo’s $14 million Series A funding in 2022, demonstrating sustained investor confidence in the company’s mission to make banking more accessible and affordable.
While co-founder and CEO Hassan Bourgi declined to disclose the new valuation, he confirmed that it has doubled since the last funding round.
Bourgi founded Djamo with chief product and technical officer Régis Bamba in 2020 to address the financial access gap in French-speaking African countries, where a significant portion of adults lack bank accounts, often relying on mobile money for financial transactions.
Mobile money has played a crucial role in expanding financial access across Africa, with 28% of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa having a mobile money account as of 2022, according to the World Bank. However, this progress has also created limitations, as most mobile money platforms only offer basic services such as cash-in, cash-out, P2P transfers, and bill payments.
Djamo positions itself as a bridge between mobile money and traditional banking, offering the convenience of mobile money and the financial capabilities of a bank account, similar to the approach used by Softbank-backed OPay and Transsion-owned PalmPay to scale to tens of millions of customers in Nigeria.
The startup’s target audience is a growing segment of users, primarily younger customers, who have outgrown mobile money wallets but find traditional banks expensive, outdated, or inaccessible, according to the founders.
“These users are evolving,” Bourgi said. “They don’t want to go to traditional institutions with predatory pricing that aren’t adapted to the new generation of customers. This is what we are building – a go-to bank for this huge cohort of customers that is evolving now to more complex, wealth-building financing opportunities.”
Expanding product suite to suit demand
Since our last coverage, Djamo has expanded its offerings beyond cards and peer-to-peer transfers, now providing savings vaults, investment products, and salary-linked bank accounts, which Bourgi believes are essential for boosting customer engagement.
Like many neobanks, Djamo attracts banked users who use it as a secondary account for smoother bill payments and mobile money integration. However, it is the unbanked users, who make up over 55% of Djamo’s base, that show greater long-term potential, often treating the app as their primary financial service.
Bourgi notes that nine in ten users who rely on Djamo as their main account come from this segment. To reach more of these users, Djamo has adopted a hybrid approach, combining its app with offline agents who facilitate transactions in person, similar to the mobile money model now more widely adopted by fintechs across the continent.
Currently, only 5-10% of Djamo users receive salaries through the app. “The next phase for us,” Bourgi said, “is figuring out how to move from 10% to 50% of our users getting their salaries paid directly into Djamo.”
Meanwhile, Djamo is also enhancing services for small businesses, providing bulk payments, payment links, and QR code tools to help merchants accept and manage payments directly within the app, according to CTO Bamba.
The fintech generates revenue from merchant fees on online card purchases and a premium tier plan, with 25% of users paying for the plan. Bamba adds that the company is exploring additional revenue streams, including lending and earning interest on customer deposits, and is in the process of securing licenses to offer interest-bearing savings accounts and credit products.
Djamo’s founders report that the company has grown its revenue 5x since 2022 and processed over $4.5 billion in transactions since its launch.
With its recent expansion into Senegal, Djamo has entered a market dominated by Wave, one of Africa’s largest fintechs known for low-cost mobile money transfers. However, rather than competing directly, Djamo positions itself as a complementary service, offering a digital banking experience where users can store funds and access more advanced tools like savings, investments, and credit.
Now a 250-person team, Djamo is betting that its new round of funding, led by pan-African, gender-focused VC Janngo Capital, will help it scale its services across French-speaking Africa.
“We are thrilled to lead the largest VC round in Ivory Coast and double down on Djamo, a mission-driven fintech transforming access to financial services across Francophone West Africa,” said Fatoumata Bâ, founder and executive chair of Janngo Capital.
“In a region where fewer than 25% of adults have access to formal financial services, and where women are twice as likely to be excluded, this is a vital mission. With women making up a third of its users, Djamo is not only closing the gender gap but unlocking economic opportunity at scale.”
Other investors participating in the round include SANAD Fund for MSMEs (managed by Finance in Motion), Partech, Oikocredit, Enza Capital, and Y Combinator.
Source Link
