Interswitch, founded by Mitchell Elegbe, is Africa’s oldest unicorn and one of the continent’s first Fintech companies. In 2002, Nigeria ran entirely on physical money. Banks operated in silos, and to make a transaction, you would literally transport the money by hand. This resulted in constant queues at the bank and high security risks. Inspired by his personal frustrations, Elegbe built an online, real-time transaction switching infrastructure that enabled banks to communicate with one another. Interswitch connected banks, ATMS, card networks, and payment systems across the country. 

The demand for financial technology was undeniable, and Interswitch quickly grew and built more products. It launched Verve, an African payment card scheme; Quickteller, a consumer-facing platform for digital and bill payments; and Paydirect and Webpay, merchant payment and e-commerce collection services. Interswitch achieved Unicorn status in 2019 after Visa acquired a 20% minority stake for $200 million. Today it operates in 32 African countries and supports over 300 financial institutions. 

2. Tosin Eniolorunda and Felix Ike – Moniepoint

Tosin Eniolorunda and Felix Ike founded Moniepoint (formerly TeamApt) in Nigeria in 2015. They started from an apartment in Lagos, initially building software, payment switching, and reconciliation engines for Tier-1 Nigerian banks. In doing that, they realized that traditional banks moved too slowly to support the informal and unbanked sector. In 2019, the founders expanded their focus and decided to build services for SMEs as well. Through deploying localized point-of-sale (POS) hardware to neighborhood agents, they turned kiosks into micro-financial hubs. They differentiated themselves from their competitors by focusing on instant transaction settlement and offline processing features. Within a year, they captured significant payment flow across Nigeria’s retail economy. 

By 2021, Moniepoint was processing $3.5 billion per month. Then in 2022, the Central Bank of Nigeria issued them a banking license, thereby transforming Moniepoint into a full-service platform. Finally, in 2024, Moniepoint attained Unicorn status with a valuation over $1 billion after a $110 million Series C funding round led by Google’s Africa Investment Fund. 

Related post: Moniepoint Becomes Africa’s Latest Unicorn After $110 Million Raise

3. Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk – Wave

Americans Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk founded Sendwave in 2014. Durbin was inspired to build more reliable financial technology after struggling with high fees and broken wallet structures while running an NGO in Tanzania. Sendwave began as a low-cost remittance app helping the diaspora in the U.S. send money to East Africa. However, when WorldRemit acquired Sendwave for $500 million in 2020, the founders spun out to build Wave Mobile Money. 

Traveling to West Africa, Durbin and Quirk noticed that traditional telecom mobile money services charged exorbitant fees for peer-to-peer transactions. They launched in Senegal in 2018, rolling out an app-based service accompanied by a network of cash agents. Wave introduced free deposits and withdrawals and charged a flat 1% transfer fee, undercutting telecom companies by 70-90%. Instead of relying on USSD codes alone, they introduced QR codes to simplify the process. Another factor that fuelled their growth was their rapid localization. They translated their app and marketing materials into local languages and employed digital ambassadors to drive product adoption. Today, at least 75% of Senegalese adults have a Wave account. By capturing the market, they forced incumbent telecom operators to lower their rates by up to 80%. The company also expanded operations into six other African countries – Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali, Uganda, and Gambia. Wave became Francophone Africa’s first unicorn in 2021 when it closed a $200 million Series A round, amassing a $1.7 billion valuation. 

4. Jeremy Johnson, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Nadayar Enegesi, Brice Nkengsa, Ian Carnevale, and Christina Sass – Andela

Andela was founded in 2014 by six founders: Jeremy Johnson, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Nadayar Enegesi, Brice Nkengsa, Ian Carnevale, and Christina Sass. They began with one simple but powerful premise: brilliance is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not. Instead of creating another financial services platform, Andela focused on recruiting African workers with enormous potential. The initial MVP paid fellows to enroll in their multi-year technical training courses before embedding them as full-time remote developers in global companies. This unique approach attracted massive attention and funding. The company expanded into Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, growing its talent pool to over 1000 engineers by 2018. 

When the COVID-19 Pandemic normalized remote work, they shifted from exclusively training people to a massive global network of junior to senior developers. It evolved into a marketplace connecting tech workers from over 100 countries with major international clients. They became a Unicorn in 2021 with a $200 million Series E funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, which pushed its valuation to $1.5 billion. 

5. Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi – Moove 

Moove was founded in Lagos in 2020 by Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi. The founders saw huge demand for mobility and ride-hailing services, but recognized that the industry wasn’t scaling fast enough. Taxi drivers working in the gig economy seldom qualified for traditional credit or bank loans to purchase cars. To address this, they founded Moove, a mobility fintech that provides revenue-based vehicle financing for drivers. This enables people to buy vehicles with their daily or weekly earnings rather than paying large sums upfront. In their model, drivers with an active, verified account on a partner marketplace like Uber or Bolt can use their performance ratings and earnings as alternative credit scoring. Today, Moove employs 3,300 people globally and operates about 42,000 vehicles across 29 cities in 13 countries.

The company has expanded by acquiring other mobility startups such as Kovi in Brazil and Tokyo Taxi in Japan. Now headquartered in Dubai, Moove has also transitioned into the autonomous vehicle space. Moove manages fleets for AV companies such as Waymo. It became Africa’s latest unicorn earlier this month after raising $250 million in a Series C round, reaching a $2.1 billion valuation. 

Related post: Nigerian Startup Moove Becomes Africa’s Latest Unicorn After $250M Series C

6. Zhou Yahui – OPay

OPay (short for Opera Pay) was launched in 2018 by Yahui Zhou, the Chinese tech entrepreneur and billionaire leading Opera Limited. At the time, roughly 40% of Nigeria’s population couldn’t access traditional banks; OPay was on a mission to expand financial access. The company first began as a multi-service super app, combining payments, ride-hailing and delivery. With ORide and OFood offering unbeatable discounts, they quickly won over people’s trust.  

However, a government ban on commercial motorbike taxis in 2020 forced them to focus solely on digital payments and agent banking. They perfected their mobile wallet services and expanded into banking. OPay issued agents POS machines to act as local banks and ATMs, solving slow traditional banking issues with quick mobile transactions. They reached Unicorn status in 2021 after raising $400 million in a Series C funding round led by SoftBank. This brought its valuation to $2 billion. By 2022, OPay had over 30 million users, 500,00 agents, and 100,000 merchants. Now, OPay operates in Nigeria, Egypt, and Pakistan. 

7. Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled – Chipper Cash

Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled met at Grinnell College in Iowa, where they were studying economics and computer science, respectively. Before becoming co-founders, they worked at large multinationals like Facebook, Yahoo, and Flickr. While abroad, they grew frustrated with high fees and fragmented cross-border regulations when sending remittances back to Africa. Launched in 2018, the two built Chipper Cash, offering free peer-to-peer mobile money transfers. With their app, they connected disjointed systems in countries like Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana. They use a combination of blockchain technology and advanced encryption methods to enable fast, secure transactions. 

By Late 2021, a Series C extension round led by FTX pushed its valuation to $2.2 billion, elevating it to Unicorn status. As of 2023, Chipper Cash expanded to offer Chipper Cards (virtual and physical debit cards), Chipper Checkout (a payment gateway solution for businesses), Chipper stocks (a stock trading feature), and direct payment of utility bills and subscriptions. They have also built banking features that allow the diaspora in the U.S. and U.K. to send remittances back home. 

8. Olugbenga Agboola and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji – Flutterwave 

Olugbenga Agboola and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji founded Flutterwave in Nigeria in 2016 to unify the fragmented payment systems across the continent. Before Flutterwave, African businesses struggled to process payments from multiple countries; each country had its own banking systems and regulations. Agboola, a former tech executive, and Aboyeji, who previously co-founded Andela, set out to build the infrastructure to bridge Africa’s banking systems. Flutterwave enables businesses across the continent to accept card payments, bank transfers, and other digital payments from African and international clients. 

Within two years, the platform processed over $1 billion in transactions and was adopted by transnational companies like Uber, Microsoft, and Booking.com. It has since diversified and now offers other products like Flutterwave Market – an e-commerce tool, Flutterwave Capital – a lending service, and Disha – a creator platform. They achieved Unicorn status in 2021 after raising $170 million in a Series C round. 

9. Coen Jonker and Tjaart van der Walt – Tyme Group 

Coen Jonker, Tjaart van der Walt and Arthur Eichweber started Tyme – “Take Your Money Everywhere” – at Deloitte as a research project in 2012. They pioneered low-cost banking technology in South Africa, where a large proportion of the population was excluded from traditional finance services. In 2015, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia acquired Tyme and funded their development of a biometric system that enabled real-time identity verification. 

They were then acquired by Patrice Motsepe’s African Rainbow Capital (ARC) in 2018, securing local capital and black economic empowerment credentials. This enabled Tyme to secure a commercial banking license and launch publicly in 2019. Tyme combined digital banking using cloud tech and retail kiosks, placing them inside major grocery chains like Pick n Pay. They scaled rapidly and grew to offer new products like TymeAdvance – salary advances – and MoreTyme – a buy now, pay later scheme. In 2022, they expanded internationally, bringing GOtyme to the Philippines, and pivoted to serving SMEs. Tyme Group became a Unicorn in 2024, after raising $250 million in a Series D funding round, bringing its valuation to $1.5 billion. 

Related post: South African Tyme Group Becomes Africa’s Latest Unicorn After $250M Series D Funding

10. Mounir Nakhla and Ahmed Mohsen – MNT-Halan

Mounir Nakhla spent years building the foundations of MNT-Halan. In 2009, the Egyptian entrepreneur founded Mashroey, an asset-financing venture backed by the automotive giant GB Auto. At the time, tuk-tuks were slowly starting to populate Cairo’s streets, but traditional banks ignored their potential. Mashroey enabled drivers to buy tuk-tuks by providing financing. Six years later, Nakhla launched Tasaheel, a microfinance business that focused on serving another undervalued market – Egyptian women entrepreneurs. Then, upon seeing the success of ride-hailing apps across Asian markets, Nakhla teamed up with Ahmed Mohsen to build Halan in 2017. Halan specifically served motorcycle and tuk-tuk drivers. Still, they were not satisfied with the thin unit economics that plagued industry leaders like Uber and Lyft; Halan pivoted from ride-hailing and into digital lending. 

In 2021, GB Auto merged Mashroey, Tasaheel, and Halan into a singular entity: MNT-Halan. Today, MNT-Halan is a fintech ecosystem that provides a range of financial services through its super app. Its core focus is serving Egyptians without a formal credit history. The company offers micro-lending, payment processing, e-commerce, and investment services to consumers and small businesses. In 2023, they secured a massive $400 million hybrid equity and financing round that raised its valuation past the $1 billion mark, making it Egypt’s first private fintech unicorn. 

Main Image: Moniepoint Founders, Tosin Eniolorunda and Felix Ike

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