LemFi, a remittance startup serving African immigrants, and formerly known as Lemonade Finance, has raised $53 million to accelerate its European expansion.
LemFi will also use he funds to offer more product offerings, scale its payment network licenses and provide hyper-localized services through partnerships, and as well recruit new talent to its 300 plus staff.
According to Ridwan Olalere, co-founder and CEO of LemFi: “When we started building LemFi, we were told remittance had already been solved. But for too many people, it is still too slow, cumbersome and expensive with customers telling us that in some instances it was cheaper to send money from the US via Canada than directly to their families back home. By targeting the communities most in need, we’ve built LemFi into the go-to remittance service for one million people, supporting them in building wealth across 20 countries. We’re not stopping there: this new funding will support us in our mission to build the financial services hub for immigrants globally from adding new features to expanding to new countries.”
The Series B round was led by Highland Europe, a London-based growth-stage investment firm and participation from existing investors like Endeavor Catalyst, Left Lane Capital, Palm Drive Capital, and Y Combinator and brings total capital raised to $85 million to date.
LemFi recently crossed $1 billion in monthly transaction volume and has a presence across Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia. The European expansion came off an acquisition of an Ireland-based company and a partnership with Modulr, to aid in its European expansion.
Launched in 2020 by Ridwan Olalere and Rian Cochran, LemFi aims to simplify remittances for diaspora communities in North America and Europe, to send money to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. LemiFi currently boasts over one million active users who transfer money to friends and family in countries like Nigeria, Kenya, India, China, Pakistan, and several others via its multi-currency accounts.
LemFi now operates in 27 send-from markets and 20 send-to countries where remittances are a vital source of support. According to World Bank, remittances soared to $669 billion in 2023, comprising significant proportions of GDP in numerous countries and often exceeding foreign direct investment as the primary foreign exchange source.
LemFi will be taking on other remittance firms such as Remitly, Zepz, and Taptap Send to compete for the $669 billion market.