Nigeria and San Francisco-based fintech Klasha has announced the close of a $2.1 million round led by American Express (AMEX) Ventures and Global Ventures.
This brings its seed round funding to a total of $4.5 million; Klasha had previously raised $2.4 million from other investors.
Investors from its first-round include Seedcamp, Practical VC, Plug and Play, First Fund, 2.12 Angels, MiLA Capital, Berrywood Capital, AVG Basecamp Fund, Expert Dojo and angel investors like Joe Cross of Wise and Michael Pennington of Gumtree.
Klasha’s business model is centred around helping Africans make payments regardless of their location. It has API enabled features that integrate local payment methods in Africa like bank accounts, cards, USSD, and M-Pesa to facilitate international payments.
With its solutions, consumers can pay merchants with African currencies which Klasha then remits to them in foreign currencies like dollars or euros in two business days. Foreign merchants can also do the same with their suppliers.
It also has an app called KlashaCart—which is only available in Nigeria—that allows consumers to shop from different retailers and receive their goods within 7–14 days via Klasha’s logistics arm.
Klasha will use the proceeds to expand into 5 more African countries in 2022 and re-launch its consumer app—renamed KlashaCart—to allow African consumers to shop from eligible international merchants online.
Founder and CEO, Jessica Anuna, said Klasha’s growth has been rapid. In less than a year, the company has signed up over 1,700 merchants, processed over 210,000 transactions and is experiencing 15% month-on-month (MoM) merchant growth.
With this new funding, expansion should be a walk in the park.
