Cote d’Ivoire-based payment firm CinetPay has secured $2.4 million in a seed round led by Nigerian fintech unicorn Flutterwave and pan-African venture capital fund, 4DX Ventures.
CinetPay, a digital finance platform with active operations across Francophone Africa, has seen impressive growth since Idriss Monthe and Daniel Dindji founded the company in 2016.
The growth is confirmed by the $2.4 million that it received in funding from the Olugbenga Agboola-led Flutterwave and 4DX Ventures.
As an online and point-of-sale payment solution platform, it facilitates payments for more than 12,000 merchants from over 130 different payment operators in nine French-speaking African countries: Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Congo, Guinea and Benin.
Despite operational difficulties in the fintech industry and competition from MFS Africa and PawaPay, the company has still processes about $12.5 million in transactions monthly.
The seed investment represents CinetPay’s first funding from institutional investors. It will allow the Francophone payment platform to leverage opportunities in its operating environment that will boost sales and marketing efforts throughout the West and Central African markets.
The investment marks Flutterwave and 4DX Ventures’ first investment in the Francophone region. It comes after the fintech unicorn confirmed the acquisition of Disha, a Nigeria-based platform that allows digital creators to curate and receive payments for content internationally.
Agboola, Flutterwave’s CEO, said the investment in CinetPay is an example of Fluttwave’s shared vision with 4DX Ventures, which is aimed at simplifying payments around the continent.
Walter Baddoo, co-founder and general partner at 4DX Ventures, said the partnership with Flutterwave will help usher in the next phase of digital payments in Francophone Africa.
Flutterwave’s involvement in the round extends the unicorn’s partnership with CinetPay, which started in 2019.
Experts believe that the investment reflects a strategic diversification from the partnership that it sealed with MTN, which allows businesses in select countries to execute transactions through the gateway provided by MTN Mobile Money.
