Ghana’s Float raises $17,000,000 seed to accelerate credit offerings for SMEs

Fintech startup, Float has raised $17,000,000 seed funding to strengthen its credit offerings for businesses and expand geographically.

With reach across Ghana and Nigeria, Float is resolved to set up offices in Kenya and South Africa after getting licenses to operate in these countries by the second quarter of 2022.

The company also plans to improve its cash management platform and launch new credit products tailored to specific business verticals and industries with the investment.

The seed round, which included a $7,000,000 equity and $10,000,000 debt funding from Cauris, also had participation from Tiger Global and JAM Fund, the investment firm of Justin Mateen, co-founder of Tinder, who co-led the equity fund. Other VC firms involved in the equity round included Kinfolk, Soma Capital, Ingressive Capital and Magic Fund.

Angel investors such as Micheal Seibel; CEO of Y Combinator, Sandy Kory of Horizon Partners, Ramp founders Karim Atiyeh and Eric Glyman, Gregory Rockson of mPharma and Dutchie founders Zach Lipson and Ross Lipson, also took part in Float’s seed round.

Float was founded by Jesse Ghansah and Barima Effah in 2020. Initially known as Swipe, the company rebranded as Float and went live with its product in June 2021. The idea for the YC-backed Ghanaian fintech came during the chief executive’s time at OMG Digital, a media company he founded that also got into YC, in 2016.

The company focuses on ensuring financial accessibility by providing credit facilities to help businesses grow and overcome challenges gotten from traditional banks.

Added to its offerings for businesses to cover cash flow gaps are its software tools to help them manage accounts and wallets in one dashboard, automate bills, vendor or supplier payments and invoice collections.

Float seeks to serve as the financial operating system for Africa’s small and medium businesses, hence its continuous endeavours. The company’s features also include invoice advance, opening a business account, payment links, managing budgets and spend cards.

Not limited to the mentioned products, Float has recently introduced some more features including revenue advances and instant payouts which helps small businesses leverage its platform to tap into their revenues instantly rather than through gateways. Its invoice factoring helps businesses with outstanding invoices get cash advances.

Since inception, Float’s cash flow management and spend platform has onboarded hundreds of businesses in a wide range of industries like retail and manufacturing, fintech, e-commerce, media and health.

The company affirms to have hit $10,000,000 in credit spend and cash advances to businesses in that time, and has seen its payment transaction — invoicing and vendor payments — volume, in eight figures, increase 26x.