Rwandan Neobank, Payday, Secures $3 Million Seed Round – Crosses Over 300K Users and Over 40K Transactions Per Day

Pan-African neobank, Payday, has announced a $3 million seed round led by Nigerian fintech, Moniepoint (formerly TeamApt), with the participation of a host of other investors.

In a press release shared with BitKE, Payday says the new capital will be deployed to secure operational licensing in the United Kingdom and Canada while building out operations in the United Kingdom where the company has recently been incorporated. The funds will also boost talent acquisition.

The over-subscribed round brings Payday’s total fundraising to $5.1 million following over $2 million pre-seed round in 2021.

The following are the participating investors:

• MoniePoint
• HoaQ
• DFS Lab Stellar Africa Fund
• Ingressive Capital Fund II
• Dare Okoudjou, Founder and CEO of MFS Africa
• Tola Onayemi, CEO of Norabase
• Techstars
• Angels Touch
• Ingressive Capital
• Now Venture Partners


The startup was launched in June 2021 to support African remote workers, freelancers, and digital professionals with frictionless, borderless payments, enabling global payment processing from over 130 countries.

Payday makes it possible for those on the African continent and in the diaspora to send and receive money in USD, GBP, Euros, and 20 other currencies, allowing Africans to work remotely for international organizations, and be paid and withdraw money in the currency of their choice regardless of location.

Payday is currently operational in:

• Rwanda
• Nigeria
• United Kingdom (UK)

Payday offers its 330,000+ users virtual Visa and Mastercards which can quickly be generated using the Payday App.

The company launched Payday 3.0 in January 2023 as it aims to build a super app that enhances and simplifies the UX for its customers.

Features of the app include:

• Global accounts (USD, GBP, EUR, etc)
• Virtual USD & NGN cards
• Currency swaps
• Payment links
• Local bills payment
• Peer-to-Peer transfers
• The possibility to add user account information to platforms such as Deel to receive salaries in minutes rather than days

Payday says it is onboarding 100,000+ new users a month and processing an average of 40,000 transactions per day, consequently processing several millions in USD per day. In February 2023, the startup became a payment partner for Starlink, operated by SpaceX, which now enables Nigerian and Rwandan citizens to purchase Starlink routers seamlessly.

The round also sees the expansion of the founding team with the addition of Elijah Kingson, Payday’s current CPO, who previously led product design for Premium and subscription products at British-Lithuanian neobank, Revolut.

Yvonne Obike, the company’s current COO, has also joined the Co-Founding team.

The team has also brought onboard former Goldman Sachs and Expedia Product Manager, Sean Udeke, as Head of Products.

“Our goal remains the same: to make it easy and accessible for anyone to access their payments when on the continent, and with this new funding, we are one step closer to achieving that vision,” said Favour Ori, CEO and Founder of Payday.

“We’re amped to scale our platform and reach more Africans, not only on the continent, but around the world. Our passion for empowering individuals and businesses with convenient and secure payment solutions is tangible, and we believe that this funding will allow us to do so on an even greater scale.”