The mode of financial transactions around the world is either through Mastercard or Visa; whereas in Ghana (Africa) it’s a different ball game.
Africa isn’t a predominantly card continent. Telecoms and banks lead the majority of transactions through bank accounts and mobile money wallets. They have a major challenge: as users make transactions within their environment, there is no interoperability for transactions between them.
And that is where Dash comes in. The Ghanaian-based fintech has raised $32.8 million in a seed round that saw the participation of New York-based Insight Venture Partners and other investors like 4DX Ventures, ASK Capital, Techstars, the founder of Moss, executives from ProcessOut.
This deal and funding round ranks among the largest in Africa and will help in building a Mastercard and Visa sort of intermediary services for mobile payments wallets across Africa.
Prince Boampong started the company in 2019. Before Dash, he was the co-founder of OMG Digital, a YC-backed Ghanian media start-up he began alongside Jesse Ghansah (the current CEO of Float) in 2016.
Dash’s payment network unites mobile money and traditional banks and facilitates transactions for consumers and businesses. The wallet gives users access to a plethora of services they can’t find on their traditional provider.
The fintech’s playbook is very similar to that of Visa and Mastercard as it routes payments through telcos and banks irrespective of who issued it. Users (and customers) from different countries – Kenya, Ghana, Kenya, for now – can connect their mobile or bank account to Dash to pay bills, receive and send money to other users while the platform is in charge of converting the currencies.
The company has processed over $1 billion since its launch from 1 million customers across Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. The funding will help the company expand into new markets (Tanzania and South Africa) and also enable them to get licenses that will be needed to operate there.
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