SA fintech JUMO today announced the close of an equity funding round of $52-million led by Goldman Sachs.
Also participating in the round were Proparco, the private sector financing arm of the French Development Agency (AFD), Finnfund, Vostok Emerging Finance, Gemcorp Capital, and LeapFrog Investments.
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It comes as in July JUMO founder Andrew Watkins-Ball (pictured above) revealed that the startup had the secured first commitments in the round — from French development agency Proparco and Finnish development finance company Finnfund (see this story). Those commitments were secured in early June.
The startup’s platform helps facilitates digital financial services such as credit and savings in emerging markets. The Finnish development took part in a $24-million debt facility last year (see this earlier story).
JUMO said in a statement today that the funds raised will be used to further JUMO’s growth and expansion into new markets.
The announcement of the $52-million round led by Goldman Sachs, comes after JUMO revealed in July that it had secured the first two funding commitments
It said since its launch in 2014, more than nine million people have saved or borrowed on the JUMO platform. Close to 70% of these are micro and small business owners. To date, JUMO has originated over $700 million in loans on its platform and manages over 25 million customer interactions per month.
JUMO has offices in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, Zambia, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Singapore and South Africa.
In the statement, Watkins-Ball, who has relocated to Singapore to support the company’s growth in Asia, said the support of Goldman Sachs and other investors is a significant endorsement of JUMO.
“We are working hard to connect hundreds of millions of people with access to the best possible choices from leading banks.
“We are proving that the evolution of computation and storage means that there is no longer any reason why the best financial products should not be available to people in the early stages of building wealth, he said”
Goldman Sachs executive director Jules Frebault said an “immense” opportunity existed across Africa and beyond for JUMO to build on their successful track record developing digital marketplace infrastructure to offer mobile subscribers access to relevant financial products.
Frebault: “We are excited to partner with this highly capable team as they continue to leverage technology to advance financial inclusion”.
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Featured image: JUMO founder Andrew Watkins-Ball (Supplied)
