Fintech startup, Grey, has raised $2 million in seed funding to expand its services into new African markets. The 1-year-old company says the funding would also allow it to extend its product suite to both remittances and person-to-person and business-to-business payments so every African can enjoy seamless cross-border payments with low fees.
The seed funding round included participation from Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Heirloom Fund, True Culture Fund, angel investors Alan Rutledge, Samvit Ramadurgam, Karthik Ramakrishnan, and other high-profile investors.
Grey allows users of its platform to create a foreign USD, GBP, and EUR bank account for free, send money to the UK and Europe and receive payments from over 88 countries. The company says it also offers conversion directly to its customers’ local currency so that they can spend it easily on the app. The platform also allows users to receive foreign payments in their preferred foreign currency and withdraw directly to mobile money or their local bank account.
What Grey is saying
- Announcing the fundraising, co-founder and CEO of Grey, Idorenyin Obong, said: “We built Grey in 2021 to empower people to live a location-independent lifestyle. I believe that the least of your worries as a freelancer, remote worker, or digital nomad should be sending or receiving payments, so we’ve made it easy.
- “We like to say that we’re on a mission to make international payments as easy as sending an email. We want to do impactful work to improve how Africa as a continent interacts with money across its borders. I am delighted that we’ve acquired an extensive and fiercely loyal user base.”
- “Our seed funding round included participation from Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Heirloom Fund, True Culture Fund, angel investors Alan Rutledge, Samvit Ramadurgam, Karthik Ramakrishnan, and other high-profile investors. With this new round of capital, we plan to launch into new markets and extend our product suite to both remittances and person-to-person and business-to-business payments so every African can enjoy seamless cross-border payments with low fees.
- “In addition to our funding, we’ve also expanded into East Africa, starting with Kenya, and partnerships with payments giant Cellulant and ed-tech leader Moringa. Travelling to Kenya is much easier with Grey because you can pay vendors directly to M-pesa,” he added.
Last year, the startup raised an undisclosed pre-seed investment and got accepted into YC’s winter batch this March.
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