“Can a consumer remittance app for the African diaspora evolve into the definitive cross-border financial platform — consumer wallet and B2B payments rail — for money moving into and across Africa?”
Founded as a consumer remittance app for African diaspora in the UK sending money home to East Africa, NALA quickly built corridors to Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya. After proving out the consumer remittance model and reaching 1M+ users, the company raised a $40M Series A in 2024 and announced a pivot toward B2B payments — launching 'Rafiki', a cross-border business payments platform targeting SMBs and enterprises moving money into Africa. The embedded finance angle centres on Modulr as the e-money infrastructure backbone for UK/EU regulatory licensing, while NALA operates the corridors and FX conversion layer on top.