Ghana’s Fido raises $30m Series A to broaden financial inclusion in Africa

Ghanaian fintech Fido has raised $30 million in a Series A funding round.

Fido raises $30m Series A

The round, led by Fortissimo Capital, saw participation from Yard Ventures, the VC fund of Harvard university alumni, as well as a number of private investors.

The fintech has now raised $38 million to date and intends to use the fresh capital to launch new financial products in Ghana, expand its customer base throughout the continent and establish a tech centre in Accra to train software engineers.

“We are building a new culture of money in Africa by making financial services instant and accessible,” says Fido CEO Alon Eitan. “This is not only about making financial services accessible, but also about making them better: instant, simple, and transparent. We are just getting started.”

Fido broadens access to financial services through automating banking services such as customer onboarding, credit analysis and fraud detection.

Its autonomous banking platform upends traditional banking services in Africa, which are notoriously complicated, bureaucratic and time-consuming.

It’s machine learning (ML) risk models make instant credit decisions for customers with little to no financial background, cutting operational costs and expanding access to financial services.

Fido claims to have underwritten 1.5 million loans worth more than $150 million to more than 340,000 customers.

Fido also aims to educate customers on how to improve their credit scores, as well as incentivising positive financial behaviours.

To support the launch of its new financial products Fido will expand its tech team in Tel Aviv and leverage the tech hub in Accra to attract and develop local talent.

The fintech currently has a 60-strong workforce and is led by a team of “creative entrepreneurs and artificial intelligence (AI) veterans”, Fido says, including CEO Eitan, CTO Guy Shaked and CCO Kelvin Abdallah.