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A NowNow Digital Systems, a fintech startup that debuted its mobile wallet at the end of 2017, is preparing its expansion to Angola, according to its CEO, Sahir Berry.
The founder, who was speaking at the startup's publicity event for securing US$13 million in a seed round, said that these amounts will allow the four-year-old company to develop and expand its service offerings across Africa, in countries like Angola and Liberia.
Fintech, which was recently chosen to participate in the Mastercard Start Path Global program for seed, Series A and later stage companies, reiterated that Angola and Liberia are two African nations where fintechs from Nigeria rarely venture, which goes to NowNow is a huge challenge.
The seed round saw participation from a number of companies, including leading investors NeoVision Ventures, an investment studio with offices in Dubai, DLF Family Office, with offices in India, and Shadi Abdulhadi.
In 2016, CEO and co-founder Mahesh Nair set out to tackle two of the biggest problems they believed were plaguing Nigeria and the rest of the continent: financial inclusion and job creation.
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Similar to other branch banking platforms like OPay, TeamApt and Nomba, their flagship product employs over 50.000 agents across Nigeria who provide financial services to Nigerians such as money transfer, receipt and bill payments.
A technology solution from the fintech startup allows users to send and receive money, pay bills and access real-value services like loans and insurance using a debit card and an application wallet.
In recent times, NowNow has been trying to differentiate itself from its rivals by creating NFC-enabled technology that will enable tap-in functionality within its product ecosystem.
This will allow customers to use virtual or physical cards against one phone, or NFC-enabled POS and tap from wallet to wallet using two phones.
Several small companies had access to this product to be able to evaluate it during the pilot phase. The business-in-a-box platform that NowNow typically offers these SMEs, however, comes with value-added tools and services as a storefront and marketplace.
By the end of the year, NowNow expects to have helped 5.000 SMEs with its business-in-a-box solution, which uses NFC technology.
Fintech promises to serve up to 200.000 consumers, aiming to reach one million by the end of the year, where it intends to expand its platform, team and marketing using the money recently received to reach the scale that the business is “now ready to hug".
