NALA, an African payments company, has obtained up to US$50 million in credit financing to support its product development, global expansion, and the establishment of its next-generation neobank.
NALA is an African payments company and money transfer app that lets users send money to Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Ghana in a matter of seconds from Europe, the UK, and the US in a safe and dependable manner.
It began operations in the European Union (EU) in 2023, adding 19 new nations to its list of send countries and supporting its goal of bringing Africans together worldwide. Last year, the company secured a US$40 million funding round.
Through Mars Growth Capital, a joint venture between Liquidity and MUFG Bank Ltd., it has now expanded that with a US$50 million credit facility from Liquidity, a global AI-driven private credit and technology provider. There is no dilution in the facility.
With a scale-up option of at least US$50 million, an initial US$25 million facility provides working capital to support NALA’s global expansion, product development, and the establishment of its next-generation neobank, all of which are driven by its global stablecoin infrastructure.
“The financing from Liquidity validates our vision of building the definitive stablecoin payments infrastructure for the long term. At some point, our business was more than doubling every other quarter – we grew faster than we could handle pre-funding for single-direction payments, and everything broke. Liquidity came in quickly and was highly flexible, so their tailored capital is a lifeline for us. It provides the cash required for NALA to pre-fund customer accounts and unlock our next phase of growth,” said Benjamin Fernandes, founder and CEO of NALA.
According to Paul Brodie, global head of investments at Liquidity, his group has set up a system that takes into consideration the rapid expansion in emerging market corridors, real-time cross-border payments, and NALA’s compliant stablecoin rails.
“We conducted extensive bottom-up due diligence on NALA, stress-testing the model across a range of scenarios and created a bespoke, highly scalable facility that matches the sophistication of NALA’s operations,” he said.
