Anchor Raises $1m Pre-Seed Round
The Nigerian banking-as-a-service startup platforms make it possible to seamlessly build financial products in Africa by providing APIs for offering accounts, money movement, savings and card products.
Anchor said it has raised over US$1 million in pre-seed funding and announced its public beta launch. The startup’s newly-launched public beta API infrastructure makes it easier for African businesses to build, embed and launch financial products, starting in its first market, Nigeria.
Segun Adeyemi, Anchor Co-founder, said: “We built Anchor to abstract away the complexities in building financial products so that businesses can get started in five minutes with a few lines of code.”
The startup has raised more than US$1 million in pre-seed funding to help it scale its offering. YC is one of the investors, alongside Byld Ventures, Luno Expeditions, Niche Capital, Mountain Peak Capital, and a host of angel investors, including Emmanuel Okeleji, Ado Oseragbaje, Yinka Odeleye, and Sanmi Famuyide.
Anchor said its BaaS platform has already transacted millions since its May beta launch, growing over 200 per cent month-on-month. It is launching its public beta for African businesses to embed finance into their offerings and for fintech to build banking products. Already, the company has more than 40 other startups on its waitlist.
“We have seen first-hand the painful process of closing banking partnerships, negotiating third-party contracts, and obtaining regulatory approvals. And more generally, the extensive time and effort required to launch financial products,” Adeyemi added.
“Considering the similarity in the underlying infrastructure, irrespective of the unique value propositions, companies should not have to wait for years and spend millions to go to market. That’s why we are excited to get Anchor into the hands of many more businesses via our public beta launch,” Adeyemi added.
Ashutosh Desai, Partner at Y Combinator, said: “Anchor’s embedded finance platform enables technology companies in Africa to build products that can rapidly expand access and improve quality of financial services.”
Youcef Oudjidane, Founder Byld Ventures, said: “As a full stack BaaS provider, Anchor demarcates customer engagement from infrastructure – enabling its customers to focus on building differentiation as opposed to commodity infrastructure. We are really excited to be working with this determined and experienced team.”