The funding round led by NeoVision Ventures Ltd., DLF Family Office, and Shadi Abdulhadi heralds NowNow’s plans to scale and expand its service offerings across Africa.

With the newly secured funds, NowNow will drive financial empowerment as well as introduce new products which will further enhance its already existing consumer banking, agency banking, and merchant payment solutions.

Equipped with a rapidly growing product suite and highly agile technology platform, NowNow seeks to build the world’s best technology that digitizes cash payments for Africans.

Sahir Berry, CEO & Co-founder, NowNow, shared NowNow’s renewed commitment and vision to include everyone financially. “Today we announce that we have moved to the next stage of our commitment to drive financial access and empowerment for Africans at the last mile. With the secured funding, we look to not only provide services that include everyone financially but also upscale our agile ecosystem which ensures that our multidimensional offering remains a market leader. The credit facility will also support our unique strategy to advance financial inclusion and independence through financial education. The interest and backing of our investors will enable us to grow our world-class team as we would be unveiling innovative products and services.”

Gary Peters, Managing Partner of Capital V Ltd, said, “One of the key elements that propelled us to invest in NowNow through one of our funds is based on the founders’ tenacity to grow the company to a viable level, as well as overcoming many challenges and market cycles since its inception in 2018.

“Its core business and vision of digitizing the African region through facilitating daily payment services is also another important element. Whenever we meet a company founder like Sahir Berry, whose leadership’s vision aligns with Capital V’s fund of funds strategy to back disruptive and high-potential start-ups, especially in emerging markets like Africa, the decision process becomes easier.”

NowNow is focused on solving everyday financial challenges by creating the largest fintech ecosystem in Africa as well as supporting the financial inclusion goal in the continent.

The innovative fintech platform was recently selected to participate in the Mastercard Start Path Global program created to help later-stage startups innovate and scale.

A financial literacy report from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) shows that most Nigerians want training and information on financial concepts such as long-term financial planning, budgeting, financial products and services, risk management, the financial security of their dependents, and insurance. While the CBN’s report reveals that there is genuine interest in financial literacy, it also reveals a significant knowledge gap.

Proceeds from NowNow’s seeding round will focus on improving Africa’s financial inclusivity and help bridge the gap between the banked and unbanked in Nigeria.

The African B2B and B2C FinTech company, recently partnered with the Lagos Business School’s (LBS) Sustainable Inclusive Digital Financial Services (SIDFS) to initiate a financial education and literacy program aimed at driving Nigeria’s financial inclusion growth.

NowNow will utilize SIDFS’s rich data, library content, and resources to provide financial and digital literacy tools for its customers to ensure smart financial planning.

NowNow is on a mission to deliver best-in-class financial services to SMEs, banking agents, and consumers, and to provide financial empowerment to Africans.

Some of NowNow’s customers in Nigeria, have never had a bank account, so it is the company’s social mission to provide the proper educational support. With the funding, NowNow aims to advance the introduction of other innovative solutions in the region to help create a more financially inclusive continent.

Recognized as an emerging leader in Africa’s fintech sector, NowNow is among the eight startups and the only African startup selected to participate in the latest Start Path class. The program provides opportunities to co-innovate, gain expert knowledge, and reach a global customer base for the brightest startups in the world.

Mastercard Start Path is an award-winning startup engagement program within the Mastercard Developers portfolio which aims to support startups on their scaling journey across financial services industries globally. 

The Mastercard Developers portfolio provides the services and tools fintech innovators need to iterate at each stage of their journey, transform bold ideas and achieve scale at pace to bring more people into the digital economy. 

Through Start Path, Mastercard will provide NowNow with operational support, commercial engagement, and the opportunity for strategic investment. NowNow aims to deliver best in class financial services in Nigeria and Africa would benefit from the opportunity to collaborate with other innovative startups across the globe.

Sahir Berry, Chief Executive Officer of NowNow Digital Systems, said, “It is a pleasure to be recognized as an emerging leader in the fintech sector, and our participation in the Mastercard Start Path engagement program reinforces our commitment to enabling innovative financial solutions. This opportunity means that NowNow can scale its solutions while learning from the leading global payment technology company. Combining this expert guidance with our innovative solutions, we are confident in the future.”

“At Mastercard, we are proud to collaborate with businesses that are committed to the development of the local digital payments landscape which directly results in the growth of the economy. The Start Path program was designed to enable high-potential fintech startups to take advantage of Mastercard’s resources to co-innovate and quickly scale up operations. As the digital economy increasingly becomes the economy, enabling NowNow to achieve its vision only brings us closer to our financial inclusion commitment to connecting a total of 1 billion individuals and 50 million micro and small merchants (MSMs) to the digital economy by 2025.” says Ebehijie Momoh, Country Manager & Area Business Head, West Africa at Mastercard.

Mastercard creates bespoke training programs for each Start Path participant and provides access to its product teams, customers, and channels to help each startup unlock the potential of Mastercard’s network. Since founding Start Path in 2014, Mastercard has provided mentorship and support to nearly 300 startups globally. 

The latest cohort of the Start Path program will tackle challenges and take advantage of opportunities across Mastercard’s ecosystem of digital transformation, biometrics, cybersecurity, small business, open banking and more.

NowNow Digital Systems Limited provides reliable, best-in-class financial services technology to small and medium-sized businesses, agents, and consumers to drive financial empowerment for its customers.