Source: Bitke
Nigerian fintech, MoniePoint, became the latest African startup to become a unicorn (a company valued at over $1 billion) after securing a 110-million-dollar investment from multiple investors, including Google.
Once a rare phenomenon on the continent, African unicorns are now reshaping industries, attracting record levels of investment, and proving the resilience and potential of African entrepreneurship.
Almost wholly drawn from the continent’s fintech sector, these companies are tackling unique challenges with groundbreaking solutions tailored to local markets yet scalable globally.
Below we take a look at Africa’s unicorns:
1.) Jumia (2016)
Jumia, which became the first African company to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in April 2019 became the first unicorn in 2016.
However as Jumia went public on the NYSE in 2019, it ceased to be a unicorn and became a typical billion-dollar publicly held company.
It has not been smooth sailing for the company which has struggled to enter profitability despite raising over $196 million from the direct listing and major investments from organizations like MasterCard and French drinks maker, Pernod Ricard SA.
Often seen as the Amazon of Africa, Jumia has struggled for more success after launching in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2012 and expanding to 14 African countries by 2018.
Co-founders, Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, left the company in November 2022 with Francis Dufay taking over as CEO. Since then Jumia has been on a restructuring drive which has seen it exit multiple markets on the continent including Tanzania and Cameroon in 2019.
Most recently the company halted operations in South Africa and Tunisia.
2.) Interswitch (2019)
Interswitch is a leading African integrated payments and digital commerce platform company headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria.
Entrepreneur Michell Elgbe founded Interswitch in 2002 as a transaction switching and processing company with national focus.
The company progressively evolved to incorporate consumer financial services with the successive launches of Quickteller, a retail payments ecosystem linking merchants and billers with consumers, as well as Verve, a homegrown, EMV-certified payments card scheme.
Interswitch became the continent’s first fintech unicorn in 2019 after Visa acquired a minority equity stake in the firm. The company is valued at over $2 billion today.
3.) Flutterwave (2021)
Flutterwave is a Nigerian fintech company that provides payment solutions for businesses across the continent.
Founded only in 2016, the startup has since raised $725 million from investors and was the first startup on the continent to attain unicorn status in 2021.
In 2022, Flutterwave was valued at $3 billion when it raised a Series D in 2022 and became Africa’s most valuable startup.
4.) OPay (2021)
Opay offers a wide range of payment services, including money transfer, bill payment, airtime & data purchase, card service, and merchant payments, among others. Its agent banking approach provides technology to a network of thousands of agents that facilitate the sending and receiving of money as well as payment of bills.
Founded in 2013, Opay has gone on to raise $1.5 billion including a $400 million series C round in 2021 led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, which valued OPay at $2 billion.
However recent corporate filings by Opera suggest that OPay is valued at $2.7 billion, up from its previous valuation of $2 billion during its last funding round
5.) Wave (2021)
YC backed Wave is a Senegalese fintech company that provides mobile payments and money transfers.
Wave was valued at $1.7 billion when it raised $200 million in a Series A round from investors in September 2021 becoming the third African startup to achieve unicorn status in 2021 after Flutterwave and Opay.
For the second consecutive year, Senegalese fintech, Wave, was the only African company featured in Y Combinator’s top 50 highest-earning startups of 2024.
Wave, founded by Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk, previously of Sendwave, launched its mobile money product in Senegal in 2018 as a challenger to telcos like Orange and Free Senegal which control 77% of the telco market combined.
Wave bills itself as being similar to PayPal in terms of offering easy money transfer between peers, but it works with mobile money accounts instead of bank accounts. Customers visit physical agent posts to make deposits and withdrawals without a fee, or use a smartphone app with a flat 1% cut of the money being sent.
By 2023, Wave had a user base of 6 million individuals, representing approximately 75% of the adult population in Senegal alone. Its reach extended further across:
- Senegal
- Côte d’Ivoire
- Burkina Faso
- Mali
- Uganda, and
- Gambia
accumulating a total of 10 million users.
It has raised over $2 billion in funding and is valued at over $1.7 billion.
6.) Andela (2021)
Andela is a Nigerian software development company that connects African developers with global tech companies.
It trains African developers in software development and other technical skills and then places them with companies that need their expertise.
The company achieved unicorn status in 2021 when it was valued at $1.5 billion following a $200 million Series E round led by SoftBank’s Softbank Vision Fund 2, the $30 billion venture fund of SoftBank Group. Andela has raised a total of $381 million since being founded in Lagos, Nigeria in 2014.
7.) Chipper Cash (2021)
Cross-border payments startup Chipper Cash made headlines when it raised $150 million in a series C extension that valued the company at $2 billion making it one of only 5 unicorns in Africa at the time.
The round in November 2021 was led by bankrupt crypto platform, FTX, financing about $40 million of the round.
The fintech has over 4 million users and is particularly focused on the U.S. to African remittance corridor which accounts for almost 30% of all international remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa.
Chipper Cash is valued at over $2 billion.
8.) MNT Halan (2023)
Egyptian fintech, MNT Halan, became Africa’s latest unicorn after attracting $400 million in the largest funding round in Egypt and the Middle East between February 2022 and February 2023.
MNT Halan has created a digital platform that links together consumers, merchants, and small businesses. This platform offers financial services such as business loans, consumer finance, payments, buy now pay later options, and e-commerce solutions. All of these services are supported by the company’s proprietary technology, Neuron.
Founded in 2018, the company has raised over $520 million over the last two years, and it has expanded its operations to other countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
MNT-Halan is valued at over $1 billion.
9.) MoniePoint (2024)
Founded as TeamApt in 2015 by Tosin Eniolorunda and Felix Ike, MoniePoint is a comprehensive financial ecosystem supporting 10 million businesses and individuals with streamlined payments, banking, credit, and business management solutions.
As Nigeria’s largest merchant acquirer, MoniePoint facilitates the majority of the country’s point-of-sale (POS) transactions. Through its subsidiaries, it processes $17 billion monthly for customers while maintaining profitable operations.
To date, the startup has raised over $180 million since its launch in 2015.
According to the Financial Times, its latest funding round in October 2024 propelled MoniePoint to unicorn status – a privately held company valued at $1 billion or more.
