AZA formely known as BitPesa has raised $15 million from the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).
AZA has rebranded and will now serve as a parent company to BitPesa, TransferZero and BFX.
BitPesa, its original flagship product will continue rendering the service of providing liquidity in cryptocurrency and other services across the continent.
TransferZero an API platform allows ventures to develop their remittance and access lending at their convenience while BFX gives an enabling platform for SMEs on the continent to perform payment through multiple channels.
AZA has said the fund raised will get deployed to execute improvement on liquidity and provide more transaction services.
Founded in 2013 by Elizabeth Rossiello then as Bitpesa in Kenya, offering a remittance solution on cryptocurrency. In 2015, the startup platform expanded its operations to Nigeria and Uganda.
On its expansion to Nigeria and Uganda, the startup had raised $1.1 million in seed funding.
Over the years, an aggregated sum of $15 million has been raised and this excludes the recent $15 million raised.
The Development Bank of Southern African has described itself as wanting to “play a pivotal role in delivering developmental infrastructure in South Africa and the rest of the African continent.”
Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO, AZA, said, “The Development Bank of Southern Africa believe in what we are doing, and that the digital payments and financial infrastructure we are building will play a massive role in helping African businesses thrive globally and in return develop the continent’s economy,”
Currently, AZA runs $65 million across its 11 markets on the continent and it aims to reach the $100 million mark monthly transaction.
An estimation has shown that trade finance on the continent with banks serving as middlemen worth 430 billion and $362 billion respectively
Featured Image: bitpesa
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