Could Mercury-style banking work for Africa's SMEs?
Zazu, co-founded by Rinse Jacobs and Germain Bahri, both formerly of Solarisbank, is building an operating system for African small businesses.
The platform offers bank accounts, debit cards, and transfers, plus integrations with payroll, accounting, tax, and cap table management, all through a single interface.
In its closed beta, Zazu already serves around 50 SMEs with a waitlist of 1000 and has just raised a $1M pre-seed round from Plug and Play Ventures, Launch Africa Ventures, Voltron Capital, and angels. The founders want to replicate Mercury's success in Africa by offering digital incorporation and compliance flows to the missing middle, a segment that faces a funding gap of roughly $330B.
Expansion into South Africa and Morocco begins next quarter, with plans to add e-commerce and HR tools next year. If Zazu can truly stitch together banking and business software, it could become the operating system of African entrepreneurship.
What would your business look like with banking and operations under one roof?
#fintechoftheday #SME #digitalbanking #Africa
Subscribe for Fintech of the Day. We handpick one fintech startup every day. Please don’t miss the next one and receive emails when new content is published!