Ivorian Fintech Djamo Secures $40 Million Series C for Regional Growth
Quick Reads:
- Djamo has 2 million users and offers credit cards, mobile loans and remittances in Côte d’Ivoire.
- The company has raised $31 million in equity and $5 million in debt to date, backed by Y Combinator, Partech and Janngo Capital.
- Djamo is exploring stablecoins for cross-border payments but ruling out bitcoin.
- Côte d’Ivoire’s financial inclusion rate rose from 41% in 2017 to 58% in 2024, per the World Bank.
Ivorian fintech Djamo is chasing fresh capital to power its regional ambitions, with co-founders confirming the company is preparing a Djamo $40 million Series C round to accelerate expansion across Francophone West Africa.
Founded in 2020 by Hassan Bourgi and Regis Bamba, Djamo has grown to two million users, offering bank-backed credit cards, mobile loans and remittance services built for customers who mobile money alone hasn’t served well. The startup has already banked $31 million in equity and $5 million in debt from investors including Y Combinator, Partech and Janngo Capital, and now wants to build on that with the new raise.
“We are now focusing on entrenching profitability in our home market and accelerating growth into other markets in Francophone West Africa. To achieve that, we are targeting to raise $40 million for our Series C round,” Bourgi said in Abidjan.
The company’s pitch centres on affordability. Bourgi says traditional mobile money providers in Côte d’Ivoire have long struggled to offer real access to credit and savings, a gap Djamo hopes to close for a new generation of digitally native customers, including Gen Z users hunting for international payment cards. Through a partnership with Ecobank, Djamo already issues cards built for online spending, and it’s also courting the Ivorian diaspora, a segment Bourgi calls central to the business because of the remittance flows it brings.
Banks, according to co-founder Bamba, haven’t treated Djamo as a rival. The fintech is in talks with a local bank to extend cross-border payments to SME account holders, a feature currently limited to individual users. Djamo is also engaging Côte d’Ivoire’s central bank on a potential sandbox for stablecoin-powered cross-border payments, though Bamba was clear the company won’t touch bitcoin.
The expansion push follows Djamo’s recent entry into Senegal, where it will go head-to-head with mobile money incumbents and established players like Wave. The founders say their edge lies in family payments, remittances and low-cost digital loans, a strategy they believe travels well across Francophone markets with similar financial access gaps.
Côte d’Ivoire’s own numbers back up the opportunity: World Bank data shows financial inclusion climbing from 41% in 2017 to 58% in 2024, even as access to credit and savings products lags behind. That gap is exactly where Djamo is placing its bet with this Djamo $40 million Series C round.
