JUMO raises $120m from Fidelity and Visa in bumper funding round

Fintech start-up JUMO has raised $120 million with Fidelity, Kingsway Capital and Visa among the biggest participants in its latest round of funding. This brings the total raised to $200 million and a current valuation of $400 million for the six-year-old financial services company that serves entrepreneurs and SMMEs in emerging markets. “We’re really grateful for the vote of confidence from our investors & will continue to work hard,” says CEO and Founder, Andrew Watkins-Ball.

JUMO uses AI to deliver banking-as-a-service to entrepreneurs in emerging markets

Fidelity Management and Research Company’s participation marks the first investment the firm has given to an emerging market fintech business. It now joins Leapfrog, Goldman Sachs, Finnfund, Proparco, Vostok Emerging Finance and Brook Asset Management as investors.

“It’s exciting to be part of the wave of US capital being invested in payments and fintech on the continent,” says Watkins-Ball. “There are some great businesses being built and we are proud to play a role supporting capital providers to reach customers with great products.”

Although JUMO is based in London, the company has served over $3 billion in loans to customers across Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Côte d’Ivoire and Pakistan. JUMO is focused on making it easier for capital providers to be able to reach new customers at affordable prices whilst making predictable returns. The platform itself provides a full range of infrastructure and services that banks need in order to operate, from core banking to underwriting, KYC (know your customer) and fraud detection services.

“We are excited about our investment in JUMO and are looking forward to accelerating adoption of JUMO’s platform across markets and delivering on Visa’s mission of helping Individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive,” says Melissa McSherry, Global Head of Risk and Identity Services at Visa.

The fundraise will support the scaling of JUMO’s platform capacity, enabling the company to evolve its services and increase the number of financial products on offer to SMEs, as well as providing longer term lending options for merchants and bigger businesses. The funds will also support JUMO’s international expansion in new markets such as Nigeria and Cameroon.

[Correction: In the initial version of this article, we incorrectly included South Africa and Portugal in the list of countries that JUMO has served loans in. We regret the error.]

Featured image: Supplied by JUMO

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