Ghana’s Float Raises $17m Funding Round To Launch New Financial Products

Float, a Ghanaian fintech startup, has raised a $17m round of debt and equity seed funding led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen’s JAM Fund and Tiger Global, with debt financing provided by Cauris. According to the fintech startup, the funding will speed up the development of its cash management platform and launch new credit products tailored for specific business verticals and industries and expand geographically.

Float has set out on a mission to provide more cash flow and liquidity for millions of businesses across the continent to help them grow and reach their true potential. “We are excited to be the growth partner of choice for businesses across Africa,” the startup says.

The founders also say that the new funding will refine their credit and software products to deliver the best experiences for their fast-growing customer base.

Formally known as Swipe and founded in 2020 by CEO Jesse Ghansah and Barima Effah, the company rebranded to Float and launched its product live in 2021. Now float provides credit lines to small businesses, tools to manage business accounts and wallets in one dashboard, and tools to automate bills, vendor and supplier payments, and invoice collections. To put it simply, it aims to serve as a “financial operating system” for businesses.

Furthermore, in its seven months of operation, the cash flow management and spend platform has onboarded hundreds of businesses in various industries — retail and manufacturing, fintech, e-commerce, media and health.

Float has also hit $10m in credit spending and cash advances to businesses in that time. The company claims to have seen its payment transaction (invoicing and vendor payments) volume, in eight figures, increase 26x.

Other participating companies were Kinfolk, Soma Capital, Ingressive Capital and Magic Fund, as well as some notable angels including Michael Seibel (YC CEO), Sandy Kory (Horizon Partners), Karim Atiyeh and Eric Glyman (founders of Ramp), Gregory Rockson (mPharma) and Zach Lipson and Ross Lipson (founders of Dutchie).