Ghana’s Fido To Scale Into The Ugandan Market With Its $30M Series A Round

Fido, a Ghana-based fintech company, has raised $30M in a Series A round to help its expansion plans across Africa. Israel-based private equity fund Fortissimo Capital led the round with participation from Yard Ventures, a VC fund by Harvard alumni.

Founded by Nadav Topolski, Tomer Edry, and Nir Zepkowitz, Fido gives mobile loans of up to $250 to individuals and small businesses. The loans are repayable through single or multiple installments for up to six months. Backed by a team of 65 employees who include digital debt collectors, the fintech firm uses ethical approaches to follow up on late repayments.

Given this, the round will allow Fido to add savings and payment products to its services later this year and fuel its entry into the Ugandan market. The fintech is also set to open its second research and development center in Ghana’s capital, Accra, which will augment its Israel branch, to help it automate most of its operations to ensure sustainability in the long term.

“What we are seeing in the market today is a segment of customers, who are mostly small entrepreneurs, that don’t have access to traditional banking systems, and we see an opportunity to offer these customers, who are outside banking systems, savings products that are fully-digital and very easy to use,” Fido CEO, Alon Eitan told TechCrunch.

“Customers will be able to deposit from mobile money, cards, and even cash, and we receive attractive returns on those savings. Our payments product will be layered on top of existing payment rails, as we want to create interoperability between all the different payment rails that are popping up in different countries today,” said Eitan.

“Uganda in many ways resembles Ghana, and we understand the regulation very well. We think it’s a huge market in terms of population size and penetration of mobile. So, there are about nine million mobile accounts in Uganda, so it’s essential for us to go to a market that is already mature because it helps us deliver our services instantly, which is what we want to do,” he said.

The fintech has issued over $1.5 million in loans to 350,000 customers in Ghana. This amount is set to grow as it enters other African markets, starting with Uganda.