Grey, Nigerian Fintech has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-seed funding from Ingressive Capital and Abdul Hassan, co-founder and CEO of Mono and other investors.
In addition to the secured funding, the startup which operates as an online Bureau De Change has secured space to join the winter 2022 startup batch for Y combinatory in Silicon Valley after recently changing its name from Aboki Africa in a bid to use a more international-friendly name launched as an instant exchange service.
The recent development is also part of its effort to resolve problems around using a third party or a local Bureau De Change such as inflated rates.
Idorenyin Obong, co-CEO of Grey who had worked remotely for international companies said his experience with exchanging local funds birthed the drive to create a seamless process of having to go to the bank, withdraw cash and meet a BDC operator who would travel long distances for one transaction.
“It would literally take the entire day. So we set out to build an MVP so everybody who has a domiciliary account would be able to exchange that foreign currency to naira. And then everybody who had naira and wanted foreign currency should be able to get it in their domiciliary accounts,” he said.
Obong said the next goal for his company is to attend to multiple requests from users who want to use mobile apps instead of the platform’s predominant web interface as well as launch virtual and physical foreign-denominated cards.
What you should know
- The startup was launched in July 2020 by Idorenyin Obong and Femi Aghedo to help Nigerians exchange the foreign currencies in their domiciliary accounts to local currency, the naira.
- Grey Finance is one of the many African startups to have gotten into YC W22, which is set to be the largest batch for African startups yet.