Fintech startup ImaliPay announced on Thursday (April 7), the successful completion of a US$3 million funding round. The startup -founded by Tatenda Furusa (photo, left) and Oluwasanmi Akinmusire (photo, right)- will use the funds to expand its team with new talents, improve its one-stop-shop platform, and enter new markets (Ghana and Egypt in that instance). 

Currently, ImaliPay’s app is available only on Play Store. Through its app and thanks to strategic partners, the startup offers actors of the gig economy access to various financial services still inaccessible to them. The services include  Buy Now Pay Later, investments, savings, and insurance.

“We researched the gig economy and found that they were neglected by some financial services. And we saw that we were perfectly placed on building a fintech solving the problems of Africa’s gig economy workers, freelancers, and self-employed digital workers,” explains Tatenda Furusa, CEO of ImaliPay. 

The CEO obtained a business and management master's from the University of Nottingham, UK,  in 2017. His co-founder Oluwasanmi Akinmusire graduated with a Master of Business Administration, from Ajayi Crowther University in Oyo, Nigeria, in 2019. The two partners worked at Cellulant, a pan-African firm that provides local alternative payment solutions for global, regional, and local merchants. They want to foster financial inclusion in Africa, whose citizens are excluded from most of the traditional financial services. 

In 15 months of operation, ImaliPay's user base has grown 60-fold, and the fintech claims over 200,000 transactions via its platform. Freelancers can access its services at 4,500 physical outlets. 

Adoni Conrad Quenum