Mono, an African startup that helps connect consumers’ bank accounts to financial applications, has raised a $15 million Series A round. The round, led by Tiger Global — the VC firm’s third major investment in Africa this year after Flutterwave and FairMoney — also had participation from new investors Target Global (an investor in neobank Kuda), General Catalyst and SBI Investment. New investors were joined by existing ones, including Entree Capital, Lateral Capital, Golden Palm Investments, Acuity VC and Ingressive Capital, bringing Mono’s total raise to a little over $17.5 million since launching last year. More than half of the population is either unbanked or underbanked. Open finance players in Africa like Mono — mirroring Plaid’s success in the U.S. market to theirs — thrives on the notion that access to a financial ecosystem via open APIs will improve access to financial information and lower entry costs for the underbanked.
Likes of Okra, Plaid, Stitch and OnePipe also streamlining various financial data in single APIs, the battle to provide customers’ financial information to companies and third-party developers is heating up nicely, hence the need to ship more innovative products down the line. In Mono’s case, two products give it an edge, according to CEO Abdulhamid Hassan. First is, DirectPay, a product that helps Nigerian businesses to collect bank transfer payments from customers within their web or mobile app without using their debit cards. Think of what Flutterwave and Paystack have done with cards; Mono wants to do that with bank accounts.