Waza emerges from stealth with $8M seed funding to tackle global trade liquidity gaps in Africa. The YC-backed platform addresses supply chain payment pain points for African businesses, targeting a $7T market with $250B revenue potential.
Earlier this year, a reporter stated that cross-border fintech and payments are a hot segment, particularly for Y Combinator-backed startups in the last batches.
And the market, forecasted to surpass $250 billion by 2027, is seeing fintechs increasingly challenging traditional banks, especially in the B2B sector.
Waza, launched in January 2023 after joining Y Combinator’s winter batch, will capitalise on this trend and enter the global payments sector, starting in Africa.
Read also: Silverbacks Holdings acquires a stake in the African sports-tech firm NERGii
How to simplify global business payments with Waza
Waza co-founder and CEO Maxwell Obi told some tech reporters its first month’s payment volume was $280,000. He noted that fintech processed $70 million in monthly payments in May, or $700 million annually. The CEO also reported a 20% monthly increase in Waza’s FX spread and 0.75% to 1% take rate transaction volumes and revenues.
Waza simplifies global business payments and liquidity management across 6 continents for 3 key client segments: multinationals, importers/traders, and fintechs/developers. Competitors include AZA Finance, Verto, and Conduit.
In cross-border trade, businesses pay suppliers quickly and demand the product immediately since currency rates affect their profits.
Obi noted on a call that Waza’s value proposition has always been price and speed of settlement, citing its global banking ties as a moat.
They also control their payment infrastructure better than the competition. This is how they’ve cornered their customers by being cheaper.
Obi’s journey from fintech founder to Waza
Obi was a founder and operator before launching Waza. Carbon briefly employed him at Amplify, a Nigerian fintech company he co-founded. He then joined Zepz subsidiary Sendwave.
Obi managed alliances and regulatory interactions before and after Sendwave’s $500 million acquisition by Zepz. He says he conceived the idea for Waza while at Sendwave.He worked as head of business with partners, banks, and fintechs in Sendwave’s markets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
His constant request was for a global supplier and vendor payment mechanism. That was impossible for Sendwave as a peer-to-peer remittance provider.
Obi said that he considered exploring space. On the ground, he talked to importers, exporters, giant corporations, and entrepreneurs, and the severity of their pain points became apparent. He saw this as a bigger problem than he imagined, so he took action.
Read also: Duplo foresees global trade shift enhancing B2B payments across Africa
Building Waza: Obi and Igbodudu’s tech vision
Emmanuel Igbodudu, a top programmer at Revolut in charge of Vaults, started Obi and CTO Waza. Igbodudu worked as an engineer for Carbon and the Nigerian fintechs Moniepoint and Fairmoney.
Obi and CTO Emmanuel have strong and valuable technical backgrounds. As fintech expands into other trade finance and cross-border payment solutions to diversify its revenue streams, Obi said it wants to do one thing well before delving into other verticals.
They are getting money from A to B quickly and cheaply. They intend to design products that address B2B payments across verticals. Obi said Waza may produce a business banking product like Brex or Mercury for Africa that offers credit or financing or a stablecoin banking product for the digital economy.
Seed money will fund these activities and spread beyond Ghana and Nigeria. Byld Ventures, Norrsken Africa, Heirloom VC, Plug & Play Tech Centre, and Olive Tree Capital invested $3 million.
Timon Capital of Lagos and New York supplied $5 million in venture loan funding for Waza to pilot trade financing for large enterprises.
Timon Capital managing director Chris Muscarella said that the Waza team has deep experience with cross-border flows and is pursuing one of the bigger opportunities in frontier markets.