Ghanaian-based fintech company, Dash, has successfully completed its seed funding round.
The startup, which serves as a unifying payment platform, has raised a total of $32.8 million. The startup plans to use the funds to bridge the existing gap in digital payments across the African continent.
The seed funding round was led by New York-based private equity and venture capital fund – Insight Partners. Other investors that participated in the round include Global Founders Capital, 4DX Ventures, and ASK Capital.
Further participations came from investors like Techstars, Guillaume Pousaz’s Zinal Growth Partners, Jitendra Gupta of Jupiter Money, Amrish Rau of Pine Labs, the founders of Moss, executives from ProcessOut and the founders of PennyLane.
With the funds raised, the startup is gearing up to expand to new markets such as Tanzania and South Africa, get the licenses needed to operate in the countries, build out its team, invest in technology, and launch new features.
Dash, which was founded by Prince Boakye Boampong, started operations in 2019. The startup works by bridging the payment gap between users and financial institutions.
“We’re building this interoperability so a Kenyan traveling to Ghana or Ghanaian travelling to Kenya would be able to pay for stuff without having to change currencies or setting up accounts when they touch ground. We’re taking a page from AliPay and PayTm by building features that will make the lives of our users easier without having to switch from different providers,” CEO Boampong said.
According to a report by TechCrunch, Dash makes its revenue from processing fees, savings (interest earned when users save), FX fees when Dash is used cross-border, bill payments (commission earned when users pay bills on Dash) and subscription (for Dash+, its premium service).
Speaking on the idea behind the creation of the startup, Boampong explained that:
“I was blown away by the ubiquity and convenience of mobile money in 2014 when I visited Kenya for the first time. However, there are over 200 mobile money wallets and 100 banks across the continent that [do] not work with each other.”
Dash noted that it has completed transactions worth over $300 million in TPV in January, up 300% monthly from Q4 2021. The startup also recently raised $500,000 in its pre-seed funding round.