In a move to improve people’s daily lives, delivering financial inclusion by utilizing big data, credit analysis and a unique human-centric customer experience, CVAS, is taking in more funds to provide mobile financial services across sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.
The firm has raised an additional $5 million from Convergence Partners to ensure convenience and accessibility to financial services for everyone.
According to Brandon Doyle, CEO of Convergence Partners, “we are very pleased to have been able to top up our investment in ChannelVAS. This is a business we feel particularly excited about as it ticks a number of boxes for us as an investor; the success of the business demonstrates the capacity of digital data and AI technologies to deliver meaningful and robust solutions to meet the real financial needs of underserved customers in the markets it serves.”
CVAS will use the funds to deepen its position as a global leader in airtime credit solutions to its partner mobile network operators while building out a pipeline of exciting new scalable products.
Channel VAS provides Mobile Financial Services, Airtime Credit & Airtime Advance Services, Handset Loans and Big Data Analytics, all through cutting edge proprietary analytics tools.
Launched in 2012 and operating in more than 42 countries in Africa, Middle East, Asia and LATAM with focus in emerging markets, Channel VAS supported MNOs and financial institutions to provide over $12 million USD credit daily to more than 750 million people in 2020 and continues to expand to new markets globally.
In late September 2017, Channel VAS raised investments from Abu Dhabi’s Waha Capital for a minority stake in Channel VAS. This acquisition serves to build a strategic and integrated partnership, promoting the expansion of rapidly growing Channel VAS’ footprint globally, while doing so will also provide diversified investment and industry exposure for Waha Capital.
In November 2018, Ethos, a South African investment company agreed on investing in the leading Mobile Financial and data analytics firm. This was the first investment from Ethos’ latest large-buyout fund, Ethos Fund VII to further support the expansion of Channel VAS’ footprint globally, while at the same time opening the Mobile Financial sector to Ethos.
With an addressable base of over 750 million mobile subscribers, Channel VAS’s operations are utilized by about 50 MNOs and financial institutions. Incorporated in 2012 and led by a team that has a reputation for building multi-billion dollar emerging market companies in the fields of IT, Logistics and Telecommunications, Channel VAS has a pipeline that is forecast to double the group’s size by the end of 2020.