Lemonade Finance, a Nigerian fintech startup, has raised $725,000 in a pre-seed round.Ventures Platform, Acuity Venture Partners, and Microtraction were among the investors in the funding round, which was led by Y Combinator.
Lemonade Finance, founded by Ridwan Olalere and Rian Cochran, was selected to Y Combinator’s W21 batch earlier this year.The platform enables Africans to send and receive money rapidly from their native countries.
Ridwan Olalere, one of the Co-founder’s commented, “Before Lemonade, international money transfers that should take minutes took days.Those are hours of stress and anxiety for you and your family while your money is stuck in transit. It also makes it difficult for many Africans abroad, who own businesses, to keep those ventures running.The Lemonade app solves all that, with great rates and instant transfers across borders; it’s a game-changer for the African diaspora,”
Dayo Koleowo, managing partner at Microtraction, said Lemonade’s solution was very timely.
“As a multi-currency financial service provider, they make it easy for the African diaspora to send and receive money from their new country of residence, which is remarkable. We believe Rian and Ridwan have the technical and financial know-how to provide the number one cross-border neobank for Africans in diaspora,” he said.
Kayode Oyewole, a partner at Ventures Platform, said his firm was excited to back Lemonade, which has built a “compelling financial product to serve the more than 100 million African diaspora, who today have limited access to great financial products”.
“The founders are rockstars with deep experience building and scaling products to reach millions of users,” he said.