Ivorian payments financial technology (FinTech) startup Julaya recently completed a pre-Series A round with an additional $5 million in capital. This brings the total capital the fintech startup, which specializes in business-to-business payments, has raised in this series to $7 million.
Senegalese football player Edouard Mendy will participate in the series
Ivory Coast-based payments fintech startup Julaya recently closed an additional $5 million in a pre-Series A funding round, according to a report. With this latest capital increase, Julia has raised a total of $7 million in this funding round.
The funding was led by European venture capital fund Speed Invest with the participation of EQ2 Ventures, Kibo Ventures plus the angel syndicates Unpopular Ventures and Jedar Capital. Existing Julia investors that participated in this round include Orange Ventures, Savive and 50 Partners. Senegal and English football club Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy participated in the tournament.
Going beyond standard card services
In an opinion piece published by TechCrush, Julaya, the founder and CEO, said the fintech startup has revolutionized the provision of regular card services to mobile money users in West Africa. Leopoldi, however, shared his thoughts on why it’s important for Julia to offer services beyond standard card services.
Our passion or strategy with the cards is to provide a complete service. Because if you only have cards, I don’t think you can build a good start with many. [of] If you want traction, for example in the US card payment industry, except in South Africa, maybe Nigeria and a little bit of Egypt, it’s growing and when you can grow a business on that, it’s almost there. Impossible in our region [Francophone Africa]” Leopoldi said in an interview with TechCruach.
Regarding Mendy’s involvement in July’s pre-series one round, Leopoldi said he wondered how “ahead of the curve” the goalkeeper was. According to the CEO, Mendy is a Senegalese because he encourages other Africans to follow his footsteps and become investors.
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