Wakanow
“Can an African OTA become a travel-fintech by owning the payments, installment credit, and cross-border FX stack for its customers?”
Founded2008
HQLekki, Lagos, Nigeria
Total raised$40M
IndustryMarketplace / Travel
The story
Founded 2008 as Nigeria's first online travel agency, Wakanow has evolved from a booking portal into a pan-African travel-tech conglomerate with operations across 14 markets. Its 'Pay Small Small' (PSS) installment product and prepaid Travel Card pushed the company into embedded consumer finance. In 2024 Wakanow spun up a fintech subsidiary, Kalabash54, to own the payments and cross-border FX stack — signaling an ambition to become a travel-fintech, not just a distributor.
Product timeline
2008
Wakanow founded as Nigeria's first indigenous online travel agency.· pivot
2010
Scaled during FIFA World Cup, helping thousands of Nigerians travel to South Africa.· pivot
2024
Partnered with dLocal via fintech subsidiary Kalabash54 to enable local currency payments across Africa.· banking
2024
Adopted Outpayce (Amadeus) B2B Wallet for virtual-card supplier payouts.· banking
2024
Acquired Oya.com to support local transport bookings.· acquisition
2025
Kalabash54 partnered with Univasa to launch Travel Data eSIM product on Wakanow platform.· pivot
Acquisitions
The stack
5 layers disclosed in Wakanow’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Card network
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Unified APIs
in the full report
FX & payouts
in the full report
Accounting gap: none
7 more providers across 4 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.