FairMoney Raises $42m to Expand Offerings in Nigeria, India

By Adedapo Adesanya

Micro-lending financial technology company, FairMoney, has raised $42 million Series B to expand and diversify offerings for its users in Nigeria and India.

The round was led by Tiger Global Management, one of the investors in Flutterwave’s $170 million round in March.

Existing investors from the company’s previous rounds, DST Partners, Flourish Ventures, Newfund and Speedinvest, also participated.

With an active presence in Nigeria and India, the micro-lending startup plans to diversify its current offerings and expand to become the preferred financial destination for its users.

The company raised €10 million Series A in 2019. Before then, it received a €1.2 million seed round in 2018. With the latest investment, the company’s total fundraising comes to about $55.26 million.

Founded in 2017 by Laurin Hainy (CEO), Matthieu Gendreau, Fairmoney (CTO), Nicolas Berthozat (Product co-founder), Fairmoney provides mobile-based collateral-free lending services to Nigerians.

In 2020, the company quietly expanded to India and was able to gain a decent foothold to disburse half a million loans in just six months.

With a total loan volume of $93 million disbursed last year to over 1.3 million users who made more than 6.5 million loan applications disbursed; with the expansion, the company plans to disburse $300 million worth of loans this year.

Giving a breakdown, $270 million will be disbursed in Nigeria and $30 million in India.

Speaking on the deal, Mr Scott Shleifer, partner at Tiger Global, expressed excitement about the investment. According to him, Fairmoney has shown strong growth and they are happy to partner in helping the fintech build a better financial hub for customers.

“We are excited to partner with FairMoney as they build a better financial hub for customers in Nigeria and India. We were impressed by the team and the strong growth to date and look forward to supporting FairMoney as they continue to scale.”

Fairmoney’s CEO, Mr Laurin Hainy revealed that the company has no plans to expand outside Nigeria and India for now. However, he revealed that the company plans to aggressively expand its user offerings in its markets.

He added that to achieve their goals, the company plans to boost the team by hiring worldwide, saying, “We are hiring worldwide, and there are 150 open positions out there right now that we’re trying to fill with a strong talent to help us build the financial app for Nigerians.”