Senegal-based mobile payment processor Wave has raised $200m in a series A round featuring digital payment technology producer Stripe, TechCrunch reported yesterday.
The round, which valued Wave at $1.7bn, was led by Sequoia Heritage, an independent fund affiliated with venture capital firm Sequoia, and included Founders Fund, Ribbit Capital, Partech Africa and Sam Altman, CEO of artificial intelligence research laboratory OpenAI.
The company was spun off by Sendwave, the remittance provider acquired by peer WorldRemit for $500m in August 2020, and had begun as a pilot programme in Senegal in 2018.
Wave provides a mobile-based payment service that allows users to deposit or withdraw cash for free and send money anywhere for a 1% fee. It operates through a network of agents that have cash on hand for withdrawals and deposits.
The company claims that more than half of Senegal’s adults are active users of its service, equating to approximately 4 to 5 million people.
With the series A funding, Wave plans to strengthen its position in Senegal and Ivory Coast. It will also hire new staff across its product, engineering and business divisions as well as enter new markets such as Uganda.
The company had previously raised $13.8m of funding, according to The Africa Report, having closed a seed round of undisclosed size backed by Partech, Founders Fund, Stripe, Sequoia, Ribbit Capital and Sam Altman at an unspecified date. Its website also Y Combinator as an existing investor.