Waza, a payment and liquidity platform based in Nigeria that serves emerging market companies, has raised $8 million in debt and equity capital to facilitate the management and payment of suppliers worldwide by traders, businesses, and other large organizations operating in Africa.
Waza is a B2B payment and liquidity platform that facilitates global supplier management and payment for large corporations and multinational organizations operating in emerging markets. The business has developed a platform and payment rails that increase users’ access to USD liquidity while offering a safer, more convenient, and more economical means of completing international payments.
Emmanuel Igbodudu, who has held senior roles at Revolut, Moniepoint, Fairmoney, and Carbon, and Maxwell Obi, who previously co-founded and exited Amplify, a Nigeria-based fintech that Carbon acquired in 2019, founded the company. It is a VASP-licensed company with operations in Ghana and Nigeria and is registered as an MSB in the US.
After being accepted into Y Combinator’s Winter 23 batch, the startup started operating covertly in January 2023. Since then, it has helped hundreds of businesses, processed over US$700 million in annualized payment volume, facilitated business payments across six continents, and grown impressively at a rate of 20% per month. It turned a profit in 2023’s fourth quarter and was able to maintain that profit through 2024.
Y Combinator, Byld Ventures, Norrsken Africa, Heirloom VC, Plug and Play Tech Center, Olive Tree Capital, and other institutional and strategic investors contributed US$3 million of the funding round. The $5 million in debt financing was obtained from Timon Capital, and it will be wisely used to test trade financing for their large enterprise clients, which represent an additional US$371 billion in the African market.
In addition to delivering new trade finance solutions, Waza plans to use the funds to support its expansion into new markets beyond its current operations in Ghana and Nigeria.
“We are excited to announce this new funding that brings us closer to our vision of transforming B2B payments and access to liquidity for businesses across the continent. By providing a more efficient settlement infrastructure, we are bridging the foreign exchange and liquidity gap and empowering African businesses to access more global trade opportunities that will drive economic growth and development in the markets we serve. We’re thankful for the support and commitment of our investors and partners, who have been essential in the delivery of this mission,” Obi said.
