As more banking, e-commerce and insurance startups work to improve the way business is done in emerging countries, it should come as no surprise that this winter’s Y Combinator batch is rife with related efforts. There are 35 companies this year, just over double the amount in the 2021 winter batch and up from 18 in the summer program, according to the organization’s directory.
What you’ll notice about this year’s cohort is the prevalence of companies from Nigeria, Indonesia and Argentina, all areas that have seen an abundance of venture capital funding into fintech in recent years, though nearly every country at this point is attracting investor interest. Indeed, according to CB Insights, global fintech funding reached a record $132 billion in 2021, more than two times the amount related companies raised in 2020 and accounting for a whopping 21% of all venture dollars.
Herewith, the startups, with some of our quick thoughts about the broader problem each is trying to solve.
Aigis
Website: http://aigis.id
Founded: 2021
Team size: 5
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
What it says it does: Digital health insurance provider
Promises include: Providing end-to-end healthcare benefits, including wellness features, online healthcare, medication delivery, with simple clicks and fast processes. Users have unlimited availability to speak with doctors.
How it says it differs from rivals: “Aigis is committed to providing health benefits to employees and ease the insurance claim process. Also, we bring various insurance packages and will help you to choose your package.”
Founders: Among them is Reinhart Hermanus, a former software engineer.
Quick thoughts: As in many places, Indonesia’s economy is growing fast — nearly 4% last year. That also means that, as in many places, employers are finding it harder to retain talent, so benefits that are available and readily accessible are of growing importance.
Anfin
Website: https://anfin.vn/
Founded: 2021
Team size: 40
Location: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
What it says it does: Building a digital brokerage in Vietnam connecting users to the stock market in “a simple and intuitive way” by charging low transaction fees and giving investors the ability to buy and sell up to 150 top stocks from the “most prestigious institutions in Vietnam.”
Promises include: Intuitive design through experimentation, expanded access through fractional shares and financial literacy through modern forms of education.
How it says it differs from rivals: Says it makes it easy for a user to invest knowledgeably by offering ways to improve financial literacy.
Founders: Michael Do is a former investment banker, and Phuoc Tran is a serial entrepreneur who most recently founded another startup that he says distributes $36 million in GTV monthly.
Quick thoughts: This model has proven successful in the U.S. but Robinhood, for example, has been accused of taking advantage of inexperienced users. The fact that it says it is offering financial literacy is promising, but time will tell if it executes on that promise.
Blocknom
Website: https://blocknom.com
Founded: 2021
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
Team size: 6
What it says it does: It likens itself to a “Coinbase Earn for Southeast Asia.”
Promises include: “We make crypto investing safe and easy for consumer and businesses through DeFi yielding.”
How it says it differs from rivals: Simplicity. “People can deposit and withdraw in three clicks. Right after deposit, they might earn competitive interest with no hidden fees. The interest is obtained from DeFi protocols.”
Founders include: Ghuniyu Fattah Rozaq, who was previously a mobile app developer with a transportation management company called Ritase.com, and Fransiskus Raymond.
Quick thoughts: Trade in crypto assets is surging in Indonesia, with 2021 transactions reaching a reported 859 trillion rupiah ($59.83 billion), up from just 60 trillion rupiah in 2020. Meanwhile, startups are trying to figure out how to feed this appetite without running afoul of concerned officials, who in January banned financial service institutions from using, marketing and/or facilitating crypto asset trading.
Botin
Website: https://www.botin.app
Founded: 2021
Team size: 3
Location: San José, Costa Rica
What it says it does: Building a one-stop-shop mobile investment app for Latin American consumers.
Promises include: Gives users the “investment tools of the 1%,” including access to U.S. stocks and crypto.
Founders: Includes Robert Baron and James Jara, developers who previously worked together at the Latin American fintech Wink and blockchain startup BlockCorp.
Quick thoughts: Botin is one of at least six companies in this batch aiming to serve the growing global base of retail investors, though it is the only one that appears focused on consumers outside of Asia.
Boya
Website: https://boya.co/
Founded: 2021
Team size: 9
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
What it says it does: Enables African businesses to issue corporate expense cards and control and track their spending.
Promises include: “Instant” card issuance with “real-time” visibility into spending.
How it says it differs from rivals: “We are building the first corporate card that supports mobile money, banks and card schemes payment workflows.”
Founders: CEO Alphas Sinja, whose prior experience is in startup fundraising, and product lead Robert Nyangate, who previously co-founded and served as CTO at point-of-sale outfit Xoko.
Quick thoughts: Investors have been eager to back corporate card and expense management startups. YC S20 participant Jeeves quadrupled its valuation in six months to $2.1 billion, TechCrunch reported, and Ramp, another big name in the space, doubled its valuation this month after a blockbuster year for revenue growth. Boya could look to these U.S.-based companies’ success as a blueprint for growth in the African market.
Cardda
Website: https://cardda.com
Founded: 2020
Team size: 2
Location: Santiago, Chile
What it says it does: Allows Latin American companies to make payments with local wire transfers via a single API.
Promises include: Giving businesses a way to take control of their payments with virtual cards issued instantly.
How it says it differs from rivals: It claims to “easily identify all charges” made to their cards and that user companies the ability to organize cards by area or employee.
Founders: Cristóbal Grinbergs and Sebastián Hernández say they are passionate about working in fintech in LatAm.
Quick thoughts: The API model is attractive to some companies, but there are so many startups offering virtual cards that Cardda will have to work hard to differentiate itself.
Clupp
Website: http://clupp.com.mx/
Founded: 2021
Team size: 12
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
What it says it does: Online insurer with affordable insurance for low-risk drivers.
Promises include: Offering up to 40% lower premiums by focusing on either low-mileage drivers or those with good driving habits.
How it says it differs from rivals: Providing an appropriate product for most vehicles that includes price, payment options and distribution channels. In addition to developing technology to identify and offer affordable insurance for any vehicle, its tool includes gamification and payment options for the unbanked population.
Founders: Among them is Marisol Sánchez, chief operation officer, a self-proclaimed expert in Mexico’s insurtech market, who is focused on claims and fraud detection. She says she is also president of the Mexican Insurtech Association.
Quick thoughts: Mexico has become one of the world’s leading producers and exporters of motor vehicles over the last 30 years; relatedly, Mexico’s middle class has grown and, along with it, car ownership, so more car insurance options make obvious sense (even while we can’t speak to this team’s abilities).
Creizer
Website: https://www.creizer.com/
Founded: 2021
Team size: 5
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
What it say it does: Providing “accessible” and “flexible capital” to SMBs and entrepreneurs who sell online in the region so they can invest in their own digital businesses.
Promises include: “Collections are made on a percentage of daily sales. This model encourages Latinos to work with debt because they don’t worry about fixed fees/terms.”
Founders: Emiliano Musalem, the founder and CEO, says he he was part of the launching team of Rappi, the Colombian on-demand delivery startup
Quick thoughts: With so-called flexible capital, a startup secures funds to grow their business without giving away further ownership; meanwhile, lenders can do what they do best, which is make interest of off the capital they’re handing out. While debt can be dangerous if the music stops at some point (and there is still that loan to pay off!), startups in the U.S. have increasingly turned to it. It makes sense that startups in Mexico — which have far fewer traditional venture funding options — would be intrigued by the model, too.
Curacel
Website: https://curacel.co
Founded: 2019
Team size: 30
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Building an API to sell and process insurance in emerging markets, with an emphasis on Africa.
Promises include: Curacel allows any hospital that has a management system to connect their system to the startups’ APIs. The company aims to build the rails needed to reach millions of users across its nine markets by building out a full tech stack to enable embedded insurance products, co-founder Henry Mascot told TechCrunch earlier this month.
How it says it differs from rivals: Curacel has integrated with 22 tech entities across Africa, allowing them to provide insurance products. By making these products readily available to users of popular digital technologies through its API, the company hopes to bolster the access and uptake of insurance in Africa, where penetration stands at less than 3%.
Founders: Mascot started a company in 2017 to help hospitals digitize records. He teamed up with Curacel co-founder and CTO John Dada two years later to build a fraud detection system for a health insurance company. Working on the fraud detection project revealed to the pair how technology could help solve fundamental issues for insurance providers, thus Curacel was born.
Quick thoughts: Smartphone and affordable internet adoption is increasing across Africa, providing headwinds for its insurtech sector. Because insurance penetration is still so low in Curacel’s markets, the company can capture market share alongside other African insurtechs such as Lami Technologies.
Digiventures
Website: https://www.digiventures.la/
Founded: 2018
Team size: 30
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
What it says it does: Enables banks in LatAm to digitize their loan origination and account opening process.
Promises include: Says it will help financial institutions “open a new sales channel in a simple, fast and accessible way.”
Founders: Co-founder Hernan Lopez Conde spent nearly seven years at McKinsey & Co.
Quick thoughts: Banks everywhere are scrambling to digitize. This startup says it has 30 clients, including seven banks in nine countries. Not bad with no major funding!
Duplo
Website: https://www.tryduplo.com/
Founded: 2021
Team size: 6
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: A “Venmo for B2B” in Africa.
Promises include: Enabling businesses to simplify their payment flows.
How it says it differs from rivals: From our recent coverage, “Besides providing tools that enable B2B companies to digitize their payment flows, there’s a no-code tool for them to optimize trade with their business customers, vendors and suppliers. The platform also helps these companies to generate or pay invoices, offer credit to their business customers and a dashboard to attribute payment flows to a particular customer, retailer or location.”
Founders: Among them is Tunde Akinnuwa, who says he is a serial entrepreneur that previously worked in logistics and financial services.
Quick thoughts: When traditional distributors move goods from manufacturers and suppliers to retailers, they collect cash through a network of agents, which is highly efficient and susceptible to fraud; trying to make cash obsolete very plainly makes sense — which is why a lot of regional startups are now focused on doing this.
Eazipay
Website: https://myeazipay.com
Founded: 2021
Team Size: 8
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Offers a “Five-minute payroll payment solution” for African startups and SMEs, similar to that of U.S.-based Gusto.
Promises include: “Eazipay processes eight payroll payment types (Taxes, Pension, Insurances, etc) with just one-click and with our own payment infrastructure. Eazipay Payroll APIs are also available for neobanks and commercial banks — to reach at least 50,000 businesses.”
How it says it differs from rivals: Traction. Eazipay shared numbers reflecting this on its YC profile. “We have grown from 10 businesses in January to over 200 with over $5,000 MRR,” the company says.
Founders: CEO and co-founder Asher Adeniyi previously founded Gidijobs, a Nigerian recruitment platform that Adeniyi says has an ARR of $1.2 million. Adeniyi’s co-founders are data scientist Kingsley Michael and Eazipay product and growth lead Efosa Uwoghiren.
Quick thoughts: Payroll and bookkeeping pose key logistical hurdles for SMEs. Eazipay’s fellow cohort member Grey, also headquartered in Lagos, also seeks to solve challenges workers face in getting paid, as does Hanoi, Vietnam-based GIMO (also a YC W22 startup).
Finku
Website: http://finku.id
Founded: 2021
Team size: 11
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
What it says it does: Personal financial platform
Promises include: Creating a single view of a user’s finances from 22 banks, investment platforms and e-wallets to help them get control of their finances.
How it says it differs from rivals: Offering the most comprehensive account integrations and personal finance tools in Indonesia.
Founders: Among them is Shyam Kalairajah, who says he is “passionate about expanding access to financial services in South East Asia.” Kalairajah previously worked at BCG, Barclays Bank and NGOs, focused on financial inclusion in developing markets.
Quick thoughts: This is a hot area that has attracted a lot of funding already (some of the personal finance apps in Indonesia to raise funding, including Pluang, Ajaib, Bibit and FUNDtastic). All focus on making investing accessible to more people by giving them an alternative to traditional brokerage firms that typically charge high fees. Clearly this startup thinks there’s room for more players here.
Fuell
Website: https://getfuell.com/
Founded: 2019
Team size: 10
Location: Madrid, Spain
What it says it does: All-in-one expense management automation
Promises include: Helping European companies manage card payments and reimbursements. We automatize expense management so that the employees, bookkeepers, and CFOs can save money and time. We are working toward a future we call “pay and leave.” Where the employee just has to pay and the receipt is directly sent from the merchant to Fuell, without the employee having to do anything.
How it says it differs from rivals: “We are working toward a future we call ‘pay and leave’ where the employee just has to pay and the receipt is directly sent from the merchant to Fuell without the employee having to do anything.”
Founder: Eduardo Ortiz de Lanzagorta Gonzalez, who said he started his first VC-backed fintech while finishing his engineering degree. Then he co-founded what he touts as “the most active seed fund in Spain.”
GIMO
Website: https://gimo.vn/en
Founded: 2019
Team size: 40
Location: Hanoi, Vietnam
What it says it does: Help underbanked workers get paid anytime, anywhere.
Promises include: Partnering up with corporate employers to provide a mobile financial application as a benefit to their employees, aiming at changing the way the employees earn, spend, save and invest.
Founders: Among them is Quan Nguyen, co-founder and CEO, a former Citibank executive who managed its consumer banking division and led capital raising and investments.
Quick thoughts: Startups that help workers access their earned wages faster have sprung up around the globe, and Vietnam is no exception. In fact, YC graduated a very similar company in Vietnam last year called Nano Technologies that quickly raised $3 million in funding from both local and U.S.-based investors.
Grey
Website: https://grey.co
Founded: 2020
Team size: 15
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: A provider of foreign bank accounts for Africans to serve as an alternative to foreign currency exchange offices.
Promises include: Users can earn payments including salaries from individuals and companies abroad, hold their savings in a foreign currency, and convert their savings to their local currency.
How it says it differs from rivals: Other options for foreign exchange of currency are limited, with the main incumbent being Nigeria’s physical Bureau De Change (BDC) offices, which can be inefficient and complicated for customers to use, in part due to local regulation. Grey’s virtual accounts, provided in USD, GBP and EUR, are domiciled abroad, which shields them from the impact of local challenges, Grey CEO Idorenyin Obong told TechCrunch’s Tage Kene-Okafor last month.
Founders: Idorenyin Obong and Femi Aghedo. Obong has worked remotely as a software developer for international companies for most of his career, which exposed him to the challenges customers face when exchanging foreign currency for local currency.
Quick thoughts: Virtual foreign bank accounts are becoming increasingly common among African fintechs, with companies like Techstars-backed PayDay and infrastructure provider Fincra offering similar products. Grey’s inclusion in the YC W22 cohort also underscores this batch’s status as the largest for African startups to date.
Kapital
Website: https://www.contactokapital.com
Founded: 2020
Team size: 59
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
What it says it does: A B2B SaaS outfit focused on business banking and credit for small and midsize businesses in Latin America.
Promises include: Banking suite that help SMBs gain visibility and control of their treasury; unlimited debit accounts in one place; expenses management platform and prepaid cards; and payroll payment systems.
How it says it differs from rivals: Unlike other “BNPL companies, we need no integration or alliance with the commerce. Once our client gets their credit card, they start paying at any commerce, online or physical, and with the help of our app, decide the number of months to pay the purchase.”
Founders: Among these is Eder Echeverria, a self-described “happiness entrepreneur” who previously logged more than seven years at a financial services outfit called Nomi Fin in Mexico.
Quick thoughts: So-called challenger banks continue to be all the rage, with investors eager to fund them. In the U.S. and Europe, that spells tons of competition, though in Mexico, it’s still early days.
Lenco
Website: https://lenco.co
Founded: 2021
Team size: 13
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: A digital bank for Africa’s 50 million businesses.
Promises include: The company enables startups and retail outlets to easily pay vendors and suppliers while also performing cross-border payment and access to growth capital.
How it says it differs from rivals: Lenco claims it is better than a bank because in addition to bank accounts and credit cards, it also offers invoicing and expense management.
Founders: Among them is CEO Andrew Airelobhegbe, who says he was previously co-founder and CEO at ogaVenue, which he described as “Nigeria’s largest online event venue booking portal.”
Quick thoughts: In Nigeria, there are more than 40 million micro-businesses underserved by banking services. YC sees this and has been funding more companies like Lenco, including, last year, a startup called Prospa that raised $3.8 million in seed funding last fall.
Moni
Website: https://www.moni.africa/
Founded: 2021
Team size: 12
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Community bank for Africa.
Promises include: Financing to mobile money agents in five minutes using a community lending system.
How it says it differs from rivals: The company said it achieved 99% repayment from over 10,000 loans disbursed through the community-based system compared to competitors that “rely on databases of local credit bureaus to give out loans.”
Founders: Among them is CEO Femi Iromini, who says he previously worked with The World Bank Group.
Quick thoughts: This is another area that YC clearly sees as beginning to show promise, with past YC companies that include CrowdForce (which raised $3.6 million in funding last month) and Kudi (it raised $55 million last summer at a $500 million valuation).
Mono
Website: https://www.cuentamono.com/
Founded: 2020
Team size: 18
Location: Bogota, Colombia
What it says it does: A bank account that integrates LatAm SMEs’ finances and operations.
Promises include: A corporate bank account that integrates with accounting, tax and payroll systems allowing small and medium-sized business owners in Latin America to manage their business in just one place.
Founders: CEO Salomon Zarruk, a lawyer formerly with Baker McKenzie, has expertise in financial regulation; CPO Juan Camilo Poveda is a former product manager at Movii and Nubank; CTO Sebastian Ortiz was a founder at Tpaga (YC S17); and COO Jose Tomas Lobo is a former country manager at Laboratoria in Chile.
Numida
Website: https://numida.com
Founded: 2016
Team size: 60
Location: Kampala, Uganda
What it says it does: Working capital for micro-businesses in Africa.
Promises include: After downloading the app, business owners can apply for loans in minutes and if approved, can receive capital within a day.
How it says it differs from rivals: “We have figured out how to score and disburse unsecured loans to cash-based businesses that have no digital transaction history, while maintaining excellent collection rates. In the past 12 months we have provided $7.5 million in working capital to 13,000 businesses in East Africa.”
Founders: Among them is Mina Shahid, co-founder and CEO, who says he is a two-time founder and previously worked with co-founder Ben Best at another lending company in Ghana that failed.
Quick thoughts: As our colleague Tage puts it, in Uganda, “businesses deal mostly with informal providers, some of which are loan sharks. Numida, a startup founded six years ago, is positioning itself as the foremost digital option.”
PayCaddy
Website: https://paycaddy.com/
Founded: 2018
Team size: 14
Location: Panama City, Panama
What it says it does: Enables LatAm companies to launch financial products with an API. Says its mission is to make fintech accessible in Latin America for any company looking to embed financial services.
Promises include: Companies can use PayCaddy to open digital wallets with KYC checks, automate online payments and issue personalized debit and prepaid cards for customers or employees.
How it says it differs from rivals: Its use of an API gives it an edge in that it has the potential to ease some of the load of in-house development teams.
Founders: Co-founder Juan Diego Galvez has been working in electronic payments since 2016, helping mid-and large-sized companies handle cross-border payments.
Quick thoughts: APIs are hot; the fact that PayCaddy has developed one could make it easier for it to attract customers.
Payourse
Website: https://payourse.com
Founded: 2020
Team size: 12
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Tools and infrastructure for easy access to cryptocurrency in Africa.
Promises include: Ability to launch a crypto exchange in minutes and be able to send and receive money from friends and family and exchange crypto for local currency. There is no sign-up required and zero fees.
How it says it differs from rivals: The company describes itself as “customer-focused” and guarantees that it can deliver on faster, easier and cheaper for any product it develops.
Founders: Among them is CEO Bashir Aminu, who said he previously built Coinprofile, a similar company enabling the sending and receiving of cryptocurrency.
Quick thoughts: In terms of crypto adoption around the world, Nigeria is near the top of the list in large part because it sees huge transaction volumes on peer-to-peer platforms; Payourse’s way to ride the wave is to enable more outfits to jump into the fray (and take a cut when they do).
Peakflo
Website: https://peakflo.co
Founded: 2021
Location: Singapore
Team size: 15
What it says it does: It’s a Bill.com for Southeast Asia.
Promises include: Enabling SMBs and startups to streamline their customer collections and vendor payments.
How it says it differs from rivals: Customers get paid faster and save more on vendor payment fees.
Founders include: Saurabh Chauhan and Dmitry Vedenyapin. Chauhan was formerly a managing director with Daraz, a Rocket Internet-backed e-commerce marketplace. He also spent seven months as founder-in-residence with Entrepreneur First; Vedenyapin was also a founder-in-residence with Entrepreneur First and, before that, was CTO of the aviation company AirAsia.
Quick thoughts: Over half a million small and midsize businesses in Asia don’t have a scalable revenue collections process, according to the company. We don’t know that this team is the one to eventually fix the issue, but it’s a big opportunity it’s chasing.
Pina
Website: https://pina.id
Founded: 2020
Team size: 18
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
What it says it does: Designing and building the future of personal finance with a mission to help everyone achieve financial freedom by providing products and advice that make complicated financial decisions simple and relevant.
Promises include: Enabling users to set savings goals and manage their finances “holistically” by integrating money management and investing into one app.
How it says it differs from rivals: Users can see their net worth, monthly cash flow and how their budget has changed over the past several months. They also have the option of choosing a portfolio that is already built for building their own.
Founders: Among them is Christian Hermawan, who says he spent over 20 years in the capital markets.
Quick thoughts: YC invested in numerous personal finance apps in Indonesia this time around, including Finku (above). Presumably YC would say these teams aren’t in direct competition, but … they kind of seem like they are?
Plumter
Website: https://plumter.com
Founded: 2021
Team size: 2
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Provide payment rails and APIs to help African merchants and consumers easily move money in and out of Africa.
Quick thoughts: Says Tage, our colleague in Nigeria, “While there are a plethora of fintechs like Chipper Cash and NALA enabling P2P cross border payments within and outside the continent, none is a clear winner yet. That’s why startups such as Plumter and Grey still see opportunities in the space and are bundling enticing features to woo customers from already existing platforms.”
Rebill
Website: https://www.rebill.to
Founded: 2019
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Team size: 18
What it says it does: Payments orchestration and recurring billing platform for Latin American companies.
Promises include: “Rebill saves the card on file and allows merchants to increase their acceptance rates by linking multiple payment gateways in a single transaction. It offers full flexibility to manage any type of recurring billing scenario and provides advanced metrics for any e-commerce or SaaS company.”
Founders include: Nahuel Candia, who worked most recently as an IT consultant and worked previously at a social commerce platform with another of the team’s founders, Ariel Diaz Ailan.
Quick thoughts: This is still a nascent space, and one that’s just now beginning to attract capital. Indeed, an earlier YC startup that’s offering payments orchestration software and services to LatAm startups — Plug Pagamentos — announced $2.7 million in seed funding in November.
Rocket Pocket
Website: https://RocketPocket.id
Founded in: 2022
Team size: 9
Location: Jakarta Indonesia
What it says it does: Fintech for teenagers in Indonesia.
Promises include: This is a finance app for young adults, but also for parents. “Share practical experiences in managing finances so [your] children grow up financially smart.”
Founders: Among them is Agnes Lie, who previously logged time at Boston Consulting Group and more recently served as the VP of growth marketing for Ovo, an Indonesia payments, rewards and financial services platform
Quick thoughts: There’s growing awareness — everywhere — that teens don’t receive enough education about money and finance at school. Apps like these help teach them while giving parents some control over the kids’ spending and one need look no further than at the kid-focused fintech Greenlight in the U.S. to appreciate the potential investors see.
Sribuu
Website: https://sribuu.id/
Founded: 2021
Team size: 20
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
What it says it does: AI-powered personal financial adviser in (and for) Indonesia.
Promises include: “We help our users make better money decisions with our wealth management tools and give personalized saving advice based on their financial habits.”
Founders: Nadia Amalia worked previously as an investment analyst at Deutsche Bank and has a master’s degree in Finance from MIT.
Quick thoughts: Investors love robo-advisery firms and this is a relatively untapped market, which has some related startups raising big bucks, including Bibit.id, a digital investment app in Indonesia that last May raised $65 million in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital India.
Touch and Pay Technologies
Website: https://www.touchandpay.me/
Founded: 2019
Team size: 55
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Digitizes and processes micro-transactions in Africa.
Promises include: “We process cash-based micro-transactions across Africa’s informal sector [such as] payment for bus rides. [Today] we help over 300,000 people make this payment.”
Founders: Olamide Afolabi previously founded a regional payment services company; Michael Oluwole was his director of strategy and operations.
Quick thoughts: This startup’s contactless card may seem comparatively low tech, but it’s gaining traction. As the founders told TechPoint Africa earlier this year, because they live in Lagos, they understood that a radical change that was too different from what people were used to would not work used in paying bus fares.
Tradezi
Website: https://tradezi.vn
Founded: 2022
Team size: 5
Location: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
What it says it does: A “Robinhood for Southeast Asia.”
Promises include: Offers free online trading accounts that users can set up in “just three taps,” allowing them to invest in stocks, crypto and other alternative assets in one place.
How it says it differs from rivals: “We provide our users the most seamless and reliable investing experience to meet the current unprecedented growth in Southeast Asia — which is something most incumbent players are struggling with.”
Founders: Phi Dang and Jasmine Huynh, software engineers with combined experience leading technical teams at Google, Meta and Microsoft.
Quick thoughts: Young, digitally savvy users in Southeast Asia present a huge, untapped opportunity for retail investing platforms. Tradezi isn’t the only company aiming to become the Robinhood of its region — Anfin, another startup in the YC W22 batch, is also building a retail trading app based in Vietnam, and PINA, also in this cohort, calls itself the “Wealthfront of Indonesia.” Outside of YC, seed-stage Infina raised funding in 2021 for a similar product, and Futu Holdings, which has been called “China’s Robinhood,” is investing into international expansion.
Transfez
Website: https://neo.transfez.com
Founded: 2019
Team size: 50
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
What it says it does: Think Brex for Indonesia.
Promises include: Providing businesses with global payments, expenses and corporate
cards in one integrated experience.
Founders: CEO Edo Windratno says he studied industrial engineering at the Institut Teknologi Bandung and that has founded previous companies (these aren’t listed on LinkedIn, unfortunately); CTO Bondan Herumurti spent much of the last decade with the Jakarta-based software company Rubyh.co
Our thoughts: In another hint that YC is perfectly happy to bet on startups that will eventually duke it out, Transfez is poised to bump up against another of YC’s portfolio companies: Volopay, a Singapore-based fintech startup that last month raised $29 million in Series A funding and reportedly plans to use the funds to expansion to Indonesia.
UpBanx
Website: http://upBanx.com
Founded: 2021
Team size: 13
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
What it says it does: Brex for D2C brands and content creators in Indonesia
Promises include: “UpBanx is Brex for D2C brands and content creators in Indonesia. Our platform enables customers to open a high-yield account, get financing and manage transactions in one place.”
Founders: Wafa Taftazani spent more than four years in business development at Google and has founded numerous companies.
Quick thoughts: Investors are interested in all aspects of the creator economy; even while this startup would seem to be narrowing its prospects by specifically marketing its tech to content creators, the pitch could resonate right now.
Valari
Website: http://valari.co
Founded: 2021
Team size: 2
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
What it says it does: Embedded finance platform for B2B in LatAm.
Promises include: Democratizing access to financial services in LatAm by allowing any B2B company to launch fintech products and services.
How it says it differs from rivals: “Banks do not have the infrastructure or technology to serve small businesses … Valari becomes an enabler of financial products distribution by making it simple for B2B platforms to launch their fintech services.”
Founders: Alejandro Pozo is the CEO and founder; he previously spent four years as an associate with Goldman Sachs
Vendy
Website: https://vendy.money
Founded: 2022
Team size: 9
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
What it says it does: Enabling offline payments in Africa.
Promises include: Providing an alternative payment infrastructure without the need for a payment card or consumer app so that customers can pay businesses from their phones without internet access.
How it says it differs from rivals: Proprietary integration to banks, telecommunication companies and mobile money providers across Africa.
Founders: Among them is Kayode Disu, who says he has over 12 years of experience in building digital security and payments products for “the top banks and payment switches in West Africa.”
Quick thoughts: Stax, a similar startup that allows people to send and request money and transfer funds between accounts via automated USSD codes (that work like texts), just raised $2.2 million in seed extension funding. The reason, as our colleague Tage reported earlier this month: in a market where internet-enabled app-based banking can reach 300 million subscribers on the continent, USSD technology, which is predominantly offline and used mainly by feature phones, outpaces it with 850 million connections.
Wibond
Website: https://www.wibond.co/
Founded: 2020
Team size: 30
Location: Córdoba, Argentina
What it says it does: The buy now, pay later startup describes itself as the “Affirm for LatAm.”
Promises include: Underbanked consumers can create their free account to quickly access and pay without banks, in installments and without a card. Merchants with e-commerce channels can increase their sales and integrate Wibond in a very agile way by offering a new form of payment and expanding their markets.
How it says it differs from rivals: Integrates directly into the purchase flow of online merchants.
Founders: One of its founders — Ezequiel Bucai — previously co-founded a company called ClickyPass, which was acquired by the U.S.-based unicorn Classpass in 2020 for an undisclosed amount.
Quick thoughts: Bucai’s previous exit is encouraging although there are a number of companies that have this same goal so it will be interesting to see how it plans to stand out from earlier movers in the region.
