Jumo, a Banking as a Service (BaaS) platform, has raised $120m in a funding round led by Fidelity Management & Research Company.

The round also saw the participation of Visa and Kingsway and other existing backers. In total, Jumo has raised around $200m to date.

Last year, Jumo raked in $55m in equity and debt funding round.

About Jumo:

Founded in London in 2015, Jumo primarily focuses on delivering financial services to entrepreneurs and businesses in emerging markets. The platform leverages AI to provide savings and credit products as well as financial services infrastructure to company partners.

Jumo’s service portfolio also includes underwriting, know your customer (KYC) and fraud detection services.

The platform was used to disburse 120 million loans to date with a total value of around $3.5bn. These loans were made to individuals and small businesses in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Côte d’Ivoire and Pakistan.

Future plans:

The company will use the proceeds to bolster Jumo’s platform capabilities, introduce new products for SMEs and bring longer term lending options for merchants and bigger businesses.

The funds will also help Jumo to enter new markets such as Nigeria and Cameroon.

Quote:

Jumo founder and CEO Andrew Watkins-Ball said: “It’s exciting to be part of the wave of US capital being invested in payments and fintech on the continent – there are some great businesses being built and we are proud to play a role supporting capital providers to reach customers with great products.

“We are really grateful for the vote of confidence from our new investors and will continue to work hard to improve our products for our partners and customers.”