The funding round was led by QED Investors, a fintech venture capital firm, with participation from Norrsken22, Ventures Platform, P1 Ventures, and Seedstars. This latest investment brings Raenest’s total funding to $14.3 million.

Gbenga Ajayi, partner and head of Africa and the Middle East at QED Investors, spoke about the firm’s assertiveness in Raenest’s vision, stating, “We firmly believe that by bridging the gap between local and global markets, Raenest will unlock new opportunities for African entrepreneurs, freelancers, and businesses, ultimately driving greater economic empowerment across the continent.”

Founded in 2022 by Victor Alade, Sodruldeen Mustapha, and Richard Oyome, Raenest initially launched as an Employer of Record (EOR) to help foreign companies legally hire and pay African employees. However, the founders soon realised that the greater challenge was not just facilitating payments for companies but ensuring that individuals could receive their earnings seamlessly.

This led to the creation of Geegpay, a platform designed for freelancers and remote workers, allowing them to open virtual USD, GBP, and EUR accounts to receive international payments with ease. The platform quickly gained traction among African freelancers working with global clients through platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Gusto.

Recognising a growing demand from businesses, Raenest expanded its services in 2023 by launching Raenest for Business, enabling companies to manage cross-border transactions efficiently. Today, more than 700,000 individuals and over 300 businesses rely on the platform for global payments, invoicing, and multi-currency management.

Raenest operates in a highly competitive fintech space, with rivals like Afriex, Cleva, Grey, Verto, and Leatherback offering similar multi-currency solutions. However, CEO Victor Alade believes Raenest’s dual approach—attending to both individuals and businesses—gives it a unique advantage.

“A U.S. company might not care if a payment is delayed by five days. But for someone in Nigeria or Kenya, that’s a big deal—especially when converting to local currency becomes another hurdle,” Alade explained.

Since its inception, Raenest has processed over $1 billion in transaction volume, a 160% growth between 2023 and 2024. Companies like Moniepoint, Helium Health, Fez Delivery, and Matta use Raenest to facilitate international transactions, raising capital, and paying global suppliers.

Currently operating in Nigeria with a money transfer license, Raenest plans to expand into Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, and the United States as part of its next growth phase. The company is also strengthening its banking partnerships in the U.S. and U.K. to provide better financial services for Africans at home and in the diaspora.

Beyond cross-border payments, Raenest aims to create a broader financial ecosystem that helps Africans earn, invest and grow their wealth globally. As part of this vision, the company is working on new product offerings and consolidating its services under a single brand, Raenest.

The fintech sector, which currently holds a 2% share of the $12.5 trillion in global financial services revenue, is estimated to grow up to 7%, of which banking fintechs are expected to constitute almost 25% of all banking valuations worldwide by 2030.

The report, Global Fintech 2023: Reimagining the Future of Finance, provides a comprehensive overview of fintech’s future landscape globally and explores the latest trends and opportunities in the global fintech market.

It also examines the regulatory environment for fintech companies and the impact of emerging technologies. In 2022, fintechs on average lost more than half of their market value, but according to the research, this plunge was merely a short-term correction in an otherwise long-term positive trajectory.

“The fintech journey is still in its early stages and will continue to revolutionize the financial services industry as we know it,” says Deepak Goyal, BCG managing director and senior partner and co-author of the report.

“Customer experience remains poor. More than half the world’s population remains unbanked or underbanked, and technology continues to unlock new use cases in leaps and bounds. All stakeholders must therefore seize the moment. Regulators need to be proactive and lead from the front. Incumbents should partner with fintechs to accelerate their own digital journeys.”

“This report highlights clearly something that, anecdotally, QED has witnessed firsthand: that fintech’s story is in Chapter 2, not Chapter 8, and that much of this powerful narrative is still to be written,” says Nigel Morris, QED Investors managing partner and coauthor of the report.

“Fintech sits within financial services which is a massive, profitable industry, and the opportunity ahead of us to democratize access to these services on a global scale is tremendous. We expect to see continued growth not only in developed markets in the US and Europe, but also in developing fintech markets in LatAm, Asia, and Africa, where the inertia and friction is even greater. QED remains more bullish than ever about the future of fintech and its promise to improve the lives of billions of people across the world.”

APAC to Become the Largest Fintech Market, Led by Emerging Countries

Historically an underpenetrated market with nearly $4 trillion in financial services revenue pools, Asia-Pacific (APAC) is poised to outpace the US and become the world’s top fintech market by 2030, with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27%. This growth will be driven primarily by Emerging APAC (e.g. China, India, and Indonesia), as it has the largest fintechs, voluminous underbanked populations, a high number of small and medium-sized enterprises, and a rising tech-savvy youth and middle class.

North America, which currently has the world’s largest financial-services industry, will remain a critical fintech market and innovation hub, projected to grow fourfold to $520 billion in 2030, with the US accounting for a projected 32% of global fintech revenue growth (a CAGR of 17%).

The UK and European Union combined represent the world’s third-largest financial institution market and are expected to witness major fintech growth through 2030, estimated at more than fivefold over 2021 and led by the payments sector. Similarly, Latin American markets, led by Brazil and Mexico, which have established fintech landscapes, are projected to show a revenue CAGR of 29% over the same time frame. The report projects a fintech revenue CAGR of 32% until 2030 in Africa, with South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, and Kenya being the key markets.

While Payments Led the Last Era, B2B2X and B2b Will Lead the Next Era of Fintech Growth

The first part of the fintech journey was led by payments, accounting for roughly 25% of cumulative equity funding ($120 billion) since 2000. And according to the report, the sector will grow fivefold to $520 billion, driven by cross-border payments, “payment-plus” models (bill pay and payment apps offering adjacent services such as wallet services), and the proliferation of use cases driven by real-time payments.

While payments led the last era, B2B2X and B2b (serving small businesses) will lead the next. B2B2X is made up of B2B2C (enabling other players to better serve consumers), B2B2B (enabling other players to better serve businesses), and financial infrastructure players.

The B2B2X market is expected to grow at a 25% CAGR to reach $440 billion in annual revenues by 2030, supported by growth in embedded finance and financial infrastructure; while the B2b fintech market is expected to grow at a 32% CAGR to reach $285 billion in annual revenue by providing solutions to credit-starved and poorly served small businesses.

Spread Businesses in the Developed World Will Face Challenges While Playing a Critical Role in Emerging Markets

Spread businesses in developed markets (which include banks and neobanks, lending platforms, mortgage lenders, and credit unions) will face challenges scaling up profitably and will need to start lending on their own balance sheet while accessing lower-cost funds, one method of which is by acquiring a banking license. One significant challenge is incumbent banks are investing heavily in technology to improve their customer experience and value chains, making it difficult for neobanks to differentiate themselves.

With roughly 2.8 billion underbanked (50% of which reside in emerging economies) and an additional 1.5 billion unbanked (75% of which reside in emerging economies) adults in the world, neobanks will play a key role in expanding financial access.

Regulators Must Be Proactive, Not Indifferent

Regulation of fintechs has traditionally been relatively light, non-proactive, fragmented, and, in some cases, even lagging behind. While recent bank crises have made them more sensitive to asset/liability management, in addition to creating guardrails, regulators must ensure they are not overregulating the industry and thereby stifling innovation.

Regulators should consider leveling the playing field via such actions as enabling faster pathways for banking and payment institution licenses, supporting digital public infrastructure, and facilitating an open banking ecosystem.

Fintechs Need to Focus on Fundamentals and Play Offense; Incumbents Should Accelerate Their Own Digital Journeys by Embracing Fintechs

The landscape today is much different than it was in 2021 and early 2022 when so many fintechs were able to attract higher funding. Today, fintechs need to conserve cash and stretch their runways to get through the “funding winter” without resorting to raising money at lower valuations.

They should therefore consider strengthening their competitiveness and pursuing aggressive strategies such as talent acquisition, gaining market share by entering new geographies/markets, and exploring M&A opportunities—while also taking an active role in shaping and embracing forward-looking regulations that enhance customer confidence and drive higher valuations.

Historically, incumbents have tried to buy capabilities by acquiring fintechs. To avoid failed acquisitions and shorten fintechs’ time to market, incumbents and fintechs should form “Value-based Partnerships,” which allow the fintechs to remain independent but with a clear commercial arrangement that is to the benefit of both partners.

Novastar Ventures co-led the investment round, Lightrock and BII also participated in the round.

Being QED Investors’ first African investment, the VC states that TeamApt’s solution and achievement so far were interesting factors that led to its investment in the startup. 

“Tosin Eniolorunda and his team have steadily built an impressive payments network across the country over the past five years. They already process payments for more than 400,000 merchants and some of these merchants also serve as ‘human ATMs’ helping more than 1 million customers across the country pay in cash into their bank accounts or receive cash locally when needed. A good use case for this may be for your car service at a local store in Kano – you can take out some cash next door with a TeamApt agent.”

QED Investors want to tap into the opportunity brought about by challenges in offline payments across Nigeria’s financial services industry.

“In a country like Nigeria where there are roughly nine ATMs per 100,000 people – a number that can be drastically lower in the inner, more rural parts of the country – this presents a complex payment problem nationwide. Simply put, the penetration is not there.

For comparison, Canada, which has one of the highest concentrations in the world, has 210 ATMs per 100,000 people. Based on a study of 110 countries with data provided by The World Bank, the average is 61 per 100,000 residents.”

QED Investors’ investment in TeamApt is in line with building solutions to issues faced by small businesses and merchants in Nigeria.

“Payments are critical, but so is having access to credit, being able to balance their books and being able to bank effectively. To solve the growing needs, you need to not only help them collect money, but you need to help store it, manage it and give them access to it in the most convenient manner possible.”

The VC affirms its satisfaction with TeamApt’s focus on execution and customer obsession across the entire product spectrum. “What they’re building today will help shape the future of payments in Nigeria forever.”