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Fireside Chats // The Do’s and Don’ts of Fintech Business
July 22, 2022 @ 5:00 am - 8:00 pm
Fireside Chats // Scaling A Fintech Business, Do’s & Don’ts
The last couple of years have been chaotic and the dust is still settling for most African Businesses in the different sectors, however as far as doomsday scenarios go, fintech investments have been doing pretty well.
According to Fintech Circle the numbers in terms of funding went up over the pandemic period: In 2020, Series A, B, and C rounds had increases of 12%, 21%, and 69% YoY respectively, as did the global number of fintech startups, which doubled over the year.
This goes to show that, the fintech market is ripe globally and especially in Africa, and the new emerging leaders all have the same in common: agile, efficient, forward-looking scaling.
Scaling, however, comes with a lot of inherent challenges that demand the right answers. For growth-driven startups, regardless of industry sector or specialty, some tried and tested guidelines can be followed to enable steady scaling — and with it, expand their clientele, attract more capital, and repeat. Wondering how?
Join us for a Fireside Chat with Benjamin Fernandes a Tanzanian technology entrepreneur and the founder of NALA —a cross-border money transfer service to reduce the costs of sending money from the diaspora to East Africa, starting with the UK.
Early in the year, Nala secured a seed round of $10 million in a new fundraising round, backed by leading US Venture Capital firms including Y-Combinator, Accel Partners, and DST Global.
This comes three years after NALA secured a seven-figure pre-seed round led by Accel in 2019. During that time, NALA built a mobile money service in East Africa and scaled it to more than 250,000 users.
But in 2021, NALA started testing international money transfers after some users expressed interest in moving money from the U.K. to East African countries (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania), thus ushering Tanzanian fintech into the remittance business.
During the Fireside Chat, Benjamin will share with us the success behind Nala Money, the DOs and DON’Ts of scaling Fintech Businesses in Africa as well as his passion for solving problems and the incredible story that is FinTech in Africa!
RSVP your attendance!
When: Fri, 22nd July
Where: Nairobi Garage // 7th Floor Pinetree Plaza off Ngong Road
Time: 5 PM
About the speaker
Benjamin Fernandes is an award-winning Tanzanian speaker and entrepreneur. Benjamin grew up in Tanzania, then earned scholarships that took him to America for the first time at the age of 17.
At age 21, Benjamin was the youngest African in history to ever be accepted into Stanford Graduate School of Business.
He holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and an Exec Ed from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, being the first Tanzanian to attend both institutions.
Fernandes was previously a national television personality in Tanzania. After that, he worked at The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the United States.
In 2018, Fernandes founded Nala, a fintech startup that is on a mission to increase economic opportunity for Africans globally. NALA recently raised $10m backed by leading US investors such as Y-Combinator, Accel, Amplo, and Bessemer Partners.
In 2020, Fernandes was listed as the 15th most influential Tanzanian. In 2022, Fernandes was listed in the inaugural ROW100 most influential technology leaders in the world.
RSVP your attendance!
When: Fri, 22nd July
Where: Nairobi Garage // 7th Floor Pinetree Plaza off Ngong Road
Time: 5 pm
