NALA announced a $40 million Series A on July 9, 2024, saying it would use the funding to expand its consumer remittance service beyond Africa and build Rafiki, a business payments platform connecting companies to African payment rails. The announcement marked a broader product strategy: NALA aimed to strengthen the infrastructure behind its own transfers while making that capability available to other businesses. The figures and customer examples below describe the company as reported in 2024, not its current status.
What did NALA announce in its $40 million Series A?
NALA announced the round on July 9, 2024. TechCrunch reported that Acrew Capital led the oversubscribed financing, with participation from DST Global Partners, Norrsken22, HOF Capital, and existing investors Amplo and NYCA Partners. TechCrunch also named several angel investors. NALA said it would put the capital toward consumer expansion beyond Africa and the buildout of Rafiki.
Founder and CEO Benjamin Fernandes described the plans as extending beyond remittances, with investment in infrastructure and NALA’s own payment rails. He said the company was reinvesting in reliable, low-cost payments and asked readers to give it “a couple of years” to pursue its plans, as quoted by TechCrunch.
What is Rafiki, and how does it relate to NALA’s remittance app?
Rafiki is NALA’s business-facing payments infrastructure. NALA describes it as a single API through which global businesses can make payments into Africa. The company also says the same infrastructure supports its consumer app, so Rafiki is both an external B2B product and part of the technology behind NALA’s own money transfers.
In NALA’s July 2024 description, Rafiki’s intended strengths included direct treasury management, clearer error mapping, lower costs, and more streamlined payouts and collections. TechCrunch reported that the platform integrated directly with banks and mobile-money providers. These are product capabilities and objectives reported at the time; the sources do not establish current service levels, prices, or independently measured performance.
Which countries and payment methods did NALA support?
At the time of its July 2024 announcement, NALA said customers could send from the UK, US, and EU to 11 African countries. TechCrunch reported that NALA connected to 249 banks and 26 mobile-money services. It also noted that in markets such as Kenya, users could send to mobile wallets and pay local bills. These are historical availability and integration figures, not a current country list or guarantee that a particular route or payout method is available today.
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Who used Rafiki in 2024?
TechCrunch identified UK fintech TransferGo and global payroll provider Cadana as early Rafiki customers, and also referred to remittance companies and banks as users or target business categories. That reporting provides examples of early adoption but does not establish whether those companies remain customers, how many transactions they processed, or how much revenue Rafiki generated.
What growth and profitability did NALA report?
In its July 2024 announcement, NALA reported the following operating milestones. These were company-reported claims, not independently audited metrics in the sources available:
- Revenue grew 10 times in the preceding 12 months.
- Transaction volume grew 34 times over the preceding 20 months.
- The company had nearly 500,000 customers worldwide.
- NALA said it had reached profitability and positive cash flow for the first time.
- Its team had grown from seven people to nearly 100.
The company framed those figures as evidence of momentum behind its consumer business and the opportunity to develop infrastructure for other payment providers. They should be read as a snapshot from 2024, not as current operating metrics.
How did NALA move from local payments to cross-border services?
NALA’s account of its history says it began with a domestic payments service in Tanzania, pivoted during 2020–2021, and launched cross-border payments in 2022. TechCrunch similarly described a 2021 pivot toward remittances. The July 2024 strategy extended that evolution: retain consumer remittances while building an API-based platform for businesses moving money through African payment networks.
Y Combinator lists NALA as an active Winter 2019 company and describes consumer cross-border payments to emerging markets alongside stablecoin payment rails for emerging markets. That profile offers company context, but it does not establish current product availability, customer scale, or the present status of the Series A plans.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the announcement does—and does not—establish
The round and product plan were a meaningful expansion of NALA’s stated ambitions in 2024: beyond consumer remittances toward B2B payment infrastructure, and beyond Africa as a sending-market focus. However, the contemporaneous sources do not establish NALA’s current operating status, present-day transfer coverage, regulatory permissions, current Rafiki customer roster, pricing, or independently verified service performance. Readers evaluating a transfer or business payment should check NALA’s current terms, supported routes, fees, exchange rates, and applicable regulatory information directly before relying on a 2024 description.
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