Diool, a Cameroonian fintech startup, has raised US$3.5 million to expand its operations.
Diool began as a mobile recharge project in 2015, providing small merchants with a way to sell prepaid recharges to their customers through a single app, but later pivoted into financial services aggregation after realizing that payment interchanges and financial services access were the pain points of its target users.
Small businesses can use the startup’s platform to accept payments from customers and repay suppliers using a variety of payment methods.
Diool has signed up over 2,000 merchants who have transacted over US$120 million on its platform in the two years since the pivot. It has payment integrations with all Cameroon mobile money providers, as well as a regulatory partnership with Societe Generale, a French multinational investment bank and financial services company.
Diool has now raised US$3.5 million from the Lundin family and existing investors, taking its total secured investment to US$4.6 million.
According to Serge Boupda, Diool’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the company’s goal is to make it easier for small-scale African merchants to access financial services.
“We’re doing Cameroon and payments first. We’ve also spent some time rebuilding operational architecture and processes, to match new payments regulations in Cameroon – a critical building block for financial services distribution in the region.”
Diool is focusing on expanding domestically now that it has received funding, before raising additional funds and scaling internationally.
“Our next stage is growing the team and product to scale in Cameroon ahead of entering other countries,” Boupda said.