Kuda bank the bank of the free, a Nigerian based digital bank secured a $25m Series A which will be led by Valar Ventures, a US- based venture capital firm. Other participants in this round were Target Global and other unnamed investors.
Co- founder of Kuda bank Babs Ogundeyi in a statement explains “the company intends to use these funds to expand on itd credit offerings, add more integrations, build-out services for businesses and expand to new markets”.
This is coming four months after a record-shattering $10m seed round in November 2020 and a year and six months after its $1.6m pre-seed investment in September 2019. This brings the raised funds to a total of $36.6m. Adding to their feat of achievement, Kuda Bank has reportedly doubled its customer base from 300,000 customers in November 2020, to 650,000 customers in March 2021.
Mustapha Ogundeyi, also a co-founder of Kuda bank also claims the bank rakes $500 million transactions per month, this comes from services like bill payment, card transactions amongst others. According to Techcrunch, the bank has processed $2.2.billion in February 2021.
They also have plans to spread its tentacles outside the shores of Africa and penetrate into the international market to serve Africans within and outside the continent. With the several solutions that present itself within the payment space, Kuda bank is showing no sign of stopping as they are closely following the models of other Neobanks across the globe like Revolut, Varo, Monzo, Nuвank which are continuously looking to transform the banking system.
The application of a distinctive African model could be an incitement to further the growth of the company according to Kuda. Founded as Kudimoney in 2016 by Babs Ogundeyi and Mustapha Musty, the company initially started out as a lending service, but it later transitioned into a challenger bank that helps customers save and spend money.
