Laurin Hainy’s fintech startup FairMoney raises $42-million Series-B round

Ishioma Emi -

FairMoney, a money-lending platform co-founded by Laurin Hainy, has raised $42 million in a Series-B funding round, Nairametrics reported.

This follows a €10-million ($11.8 million) Series-A round raised in 2019 and a €1.2-million ($1.4 million) seed fund raised in 2018.

In May 2018, FairMoney raised €1.2 million ($1.4 million) in a round by Newfund Capital, including Speedinvest and Le Studio VC.

By September 2019, FairMoney raised €10 million ($11.8 million) in a Series-A round led by Flourish Ventures and DST Global Partners, Newfund Capital, Speedinvest and Le Studio VC.

Tiger Global Management led the latest round, with participation from existing investors, including DST Partners, Flourish Ventures, Newfund and Speedinvest.

FairMoney boasts more than 1.3 million users in Nigeria and over 100,000 in India. With an active presence in these two countries, the startup is looking to diversify its current offerings and expand to become a choice financial destination for users.

Its 2019 Series-A round helped it scale its engineering team to develop a fully-fledged mobile banking offering, Golden said. It is on the move to becoming a leading microfinance bank in Nigeria. The company also plans to issue debit cards.

FairMoney CEO and Co-Founder Laurin Hainy told TechCrunch that the company has received an MFB banking license, which enables it to open current accounts for users and it is now doing that on a large scale.

“The ambition is that by the end of the year, the customer has the full-fledged banking experience from P2P transfers and lending to debit cards and current accounts,” he said.  “In addition to that, we are working on a number of additional services from savings products, stock trading, and crypto-trading products potentially depending on where regulation is heading.”

FairMoney

FairMoney is a fintech startup that provides collateral-free lending services and bill payments to customers. The Paris-based startup was launched in 2017 by Hainy, Matthieu Gendreau and Nicolas Berthozat to serve emerging markets, starting with Nigeria.

It has developed an Android app that gives users access (individuals and corporate institutions) to micro-loans in Nigeria and India, where it has an operational footprint.