Finance & Venture Capital

Reimagining Financial Services Across Africa

Africa's financial landscape is undergoing the most significant transformation in its history. With over 350 million unbanked adults, a booming youth population, and mobile penetration exceeding 80% in most urban markets, the conditions are ripe for fintech to do what traditional banking never could — deliver financial services to everyone. Eruba Group's Finance & Venture Capital vertical is at the forefront of this movement.

Historical Context: The Evolution of African Finance

For decades, African financial systems were characterized by low banking penetration, high transaction costs, and exclusionary practices that left the majority without access to credit, savings, or insurance products. Traditional banks required physical branches, extensive documentation, and collateral — barriers that the vast majority of Africans could not overcome.

The watershed moment came in 2007 with M-Pesa in Kenya, which proved that mobile phones could serve as the foundation for an entirely new financial ecosystem. Within a decade, mobile money accounts in Sub-Saharan Africa surpassed 500 million, processing over $700 billion in transactions annually. This infrastructure laid the groundwork for the current fintech explosion.

By 2018, African fintech startups were raising significant capital — Flutterwave, Paystack, and Chipper Cash became household names. Eruba Group entered the space in 2019, recognizing that the first wave of mobile money was just the beginning. The real opportunity lies in the sophisticated financial products and infrastructure being built on top of this foundation.

The Present: A Thriving Ecosystem

Today, African fintech represents a $65 billion market, growing at 25% annually. The ecosystem has matured considerably: beyond payments, we now see thriving sub-sectors in digital lending, insurtech, wealthtech, blockchain infrastructure, embedded finance, and decentralized finance (DeFi).

Our portfolio company PayShift exemplifies this evolution. Starting as a cross-border payments platform, PayShift now processes over $2 billion in annualized transaction volume and has expanded into merchant lending, enabling small businesses to access working capital based on their transaction history rather than traditional credit scores.

Across our Finance & VC portfolio, our companies serve a combined 1.5 million active users and process over $5 billion in annual transaction volume.

The Need: Financial Inclusion as an Economic Imperative

Financial exclusion is not merely an inconvenience — it is a structural barrier to economic development. When 60% of adults lack access to formal financial services, the consequences ripple across every sector:

• SME Growth: Africa's 44 million SMEs face a $330 billion credit gap. Without financing, businesses cannot grow, hire, or invest in innovation.
• Agricultural Productivity: Smallholder farmers, who produce 70% of Africa's food, lack crop insurance and access to credit for inputs like seeds and fertilizer.
• Remittances: Africa receives $95 billion in remittances annually, but traditional transfer fees average 8.5% — the highest in the world. Fintech can slash this to under 1%.
• Savings & Investment: Without safe, accessible savings products, families remain vulnerable to economic shocks and unable to invest in education or health.

The Problems & Our Solutions

Africa's fintech opportunity is immense, but so are the challenges. Regulatory fragmentation across 54 countries makes scaling difficult. Infrastructure gaps — unreliable electricity, limited internet in rural areas — constrain reach. Trust deficits, born from years of predatory lending and pyramid schemes, make customer acquisition expensive.

Eruba Group's approach is both strategic and hands-on:

• Regulatory Navigation: Our dedicated regulatory affairs team helps portfolio companies obtain licenses across multiple jurisdictions. We have relationships with central banks in 12 African countries.
• Infrastructure Partnerships: We connect our companies with telecom operators, mobile money platforms, and cloud providers to reduce infrastructure costs.
• Trust Building: We invest in companies with strong compliance cultures and help them build transparent, customer-first products that earn loyalty.

Our Impact by the Numbers

The Future: Africa's Financial Infrastructure

We believe the next decade will see Africa develop entirely new financial infrastructure — not copies of Western systems, but purpose-built platforms designed for the continent's unique characteristics. Key trends we're investing ahead of include:

• Embedded Finance: Financial services integrated into every digital interaction — from ride-hailing to e-commerce to social media.
• Blockchain & Digital Assets: Africa leads global crypto adoption by necessity. We're backing the infrastructure layer that makes digital assets safe and accessible.
• Pan-African Payment Rails: The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will create a $3.4 trillion single market. The payment infrastructure to serve it is being built now.

How Far Are We from Our Goal?

Our 2019 vision was to back 30 fintech companies serving 10 million users by 2029. We have invested in 8 companies currently serving 1.5 million users. While we're at 15% of our user target, the exponential growth curves of our portfolio companies — PayShift alone grew 4x last year — suggest we will reach and exceed this goal. We plan to deploy an additional $60 million into this vertical over the next three years.