Moove raises $105M proving from "Africa to the world" is possible ??; InsurTech isn’t dead! ??; FinTech in Japan is underrated ????

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Last week (14-18 March) was another super exciting one when it comes to FinTech.?We will look at Moove raising $105M & proving from "Africa to the world" is possible; InsurTech not being dead; FinTech in Japan being underrated, and other interesting news and developments.

Without further ado, let us dive into what has happened in the financial technology sector last week. Let’s connect the dots.

Moove raises $105M proving?from Africa to the world?is possible ??

The funding ???Mobility FinTech?Moove?has raised $105M in an oversubscribed Series A2 round, and now plans to take its mission of closing the vehicle financing gap in Africa to new markets.

The round was led by existing investors, Speedinvest, Left Lane Capital, and thelatest.ventures, with new investors including AfricInvest, MUFG Innovation Partners, Latitude, and Kreos Capital participating.

The announcement is coming almost 7 months after Moove closed its $23M Series A round and a month after the mobility FinTech closed $10M in debt financing.

The USP ???Founded in 2019 by?Ladi Delano?and?Jide Odunsi, Moove offers mobility entrepreneurs access to revenue-based financing in markets with lower levels of credit access. Drivers sign up on the platform and, once verified, are trained and sign contracts with Moove to access loans to buy or rent cars. The company gets these drivers on Uber’s platform — its exclusive partner across Africa — and then deducts weekly rental fees from their earnings before transferring the balance to their accounts.

Some numbers ???Although the company hasn’t yet disclosed comprehensive figures, here’s what we know thus far:

• The startup is now present in 6 African cities: Lagos, Accra, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nairobi, and Ibadan.
• Revenue has grown 50% month-on-month from last August.
• As of last August, it had 12,900 pre-approved sign-ups.
• Moove-financed vehicles have completed over 3M rides since they launched

?? THE TAKEAWAY

Start local, then go global ???First, the news from Moove proves the fact that startups can still raise money twice in one year ?? On a more serious note, what Moove has discovered was that the problem they were trying to solve - the lack of access to financing for mobility entrepreneurs & gig workers - is not just unique to Africa. It’s actually relevant in many emerging markets, as well as Europe. Hence, with the new funding, Moove is targeting 7 new markets across Asia, MENA, and Europe over the next 6 months. Of course, this won’t be without competition (i.e. Southeast Asia’s Carro, U.K.’s Drover, and France’s Virtuo are tackling similar problems), but it shows that you can actually start from Africa and scale globally. Watch this out as we’re probably going to see a lot more African-born startups being able to solve global problems.

InsurTech isn’t dead! ??

The money?? Just about a year after raising its Series A, Pleasanton, California-based?Cowbell Cyber?closed a $100M Series B as cyberattacks continue to dominate news headlines.

The new round was led by Anthemis Group with participation from Permira, PruVen Capital, Nyca Partners, Viola FinTech, and all existing investors.

The USP ???Founded in 2019, the company has raised $123.5M to date. Cowbell specializes in policies for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). In its release, the company said it estimates that cyber insurance in-force premiums in the U.S. will total $100B by 2030—and one in five SMEs in the U.S. remains uninsured or underinsured for cyber risk.

?? THE TAKEAWAY

It’s alive and important.?Similar to FinTechs, private market investors poured capital into promising InsurTech startups, while the public markets sent the value of recently public companies down — and then further down as the year progressed. But it doesn’t mean they have no future. The latest Cowbell Cyber round proves that. Given the surge of ransomware around the world, Cowbell will definitely have its space under the sun, especially given that it’s data-driven. Cowbell’s system is a massive data ingestion operation, where it monitors about 71% of the companies in the U.S. market, or 23M businesses, to figure out larger trends in usage and SMB behavior, covering some 1,000 data points. Watch them out.

FinTech in Japan is underrated ????

The money???Kyash, a Tokyo-based mobile financial app, has raised $41.2M in Series D funding.?

The round comes from a number of investors, including Japan Post Investment Corporation, Block (formerly known as Square), Greyhound Capital, among other prominent backers.

The USP ???Founded in 2015,?Kyash?offers a mobile banking app that enables consumers to make online and offline payments, remittances, and ATM withdrawal services.

In addition to that, Kyash, the issuer of Visa cards, provides flexibility by issuing virtual and physical pre-paid debit cards. When TechCrunch asked about its B2B business, Kyash carved out its white-labeled card issuing platform to?infcurion?last year and is focused purely on direct channel business.

?? THE TAKEAWAY

Underrated Japan?????When thinking about FinTech, we usually think about the US or Europe-based companies challenging the cumbersome incumbents. But Japan, a land of lots of modern innovations, rarely gets into our heads. It shouldn’t be like that. Kyash currently focuses on the Japanese retail market, which is the third-largest economy globally. With social distancing being enforced globally during the COVID pandemic, cashless payments are becoming the norm and hence Kyash grew about 22% from January to May 2020 like other competitors, including Robinhood and Starling Bank. Finally, the fact that FinTech heavyweight Block has backed Kyash, which is their first investment in an Asia-based company, only further proves that others might be missing out. Watch out for more FinTech from Japan.

Extra Reads & Quick Bites for Curious Minds??

• FinTech departures ?? Curve’s, a FinTech that combines all your cards into one, chief operating officer Nathalie Oestmann is leaving the FinTech after two and a half years. Oestmann, a long-standing finance executive, announced her decision to exit the “financial super app”?in a LinkedIn post.?In other news, the chief revenue officer for?Revolut?is leaving the company after seven years to found a new web3 startup. Alan Chang, the digital banking app’s fifth hire the year CEO Nik Storonsky and CTO Vlad Yatsenko co-founded the company, quickly rose up the ranks from operations analyst to CRO. His departure sees the company’s leadership shakeup continue — the company lost eight senior executives during the lockdown in 2020.
• BNPL troubles ???Companies like Klarna and Zilch are beginning to let customers buy food — and pay for it later. This could get very dangerous for the financially vulnerable as living costs swell, according to Citizens Advice. Its latest research?reveals?one in 12 people in the UK have turned to BNPL to cover basic costs like food and toiletries in the last six months. It’s yet another rallying call for local regulators to speed up scrutiny of the sector.
• P2P lending to Banking ???Finland's?Fellow Finance?is following in the footsteps of?Zopa, closing its P2P lending business to concentrate exclusively on a new banking operation. The loan-based crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending platform is in the process of merging with Evli Bank to create Fellow Bank. Set to open up for business as a new digitally-oriented lender in April, Fellow Finance will offer customers the option to sell their loan portfolios to Fellow Bank and to open interest-bearing bank accounts and fixed-term deposit accounts as an alternative.

Money Moves??

• The Danish FinTech B2B company?Cardlay?has received a $6M cash infusion.
• UK-based Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) provider?Playter?has secured $1.7M in a seed funding round co-led by?Fin Capital?and?1818 Venturesto sustain its growth plans.
• Indian payments platform?Razorpay?announced that it’s acquiring?IZealiant Technologies, which develops payment solutions for banks, a company post reported.

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P.S.?You might enjoy my earlier pieces as well:

?? Bitcoin in 2021: a story in 5 graphs, and what might come in 2022

???A Wise pitch deck that led to London’s biggest and most successful direct listing ever

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About: I am?a business developer, sales professional, FinTech strategist, as well as Cryptocurrency and Blockchain enthusiast. I'm highly passionate about Financial Technology and Digital Innovation, and strongly believe that it will change the world for the better. Apart from my daily job at a global payments startup where I'm leading the company's expansion into Europe, I'm an active member of the FinTech community and a TechFin evangelist.

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