Since its public debut one year ago, Anchor has processed more than $550 million.
YC-backed embedded finance fintech, Anchor, has raised $2.4 million in a seed round led by Goat Capital with participation from FoundersX, Rebel Fund, Pioneer Fund, Y Combinator, Byld Ventures and Future Africa among others.
Anchor’s partnership with regulated financial institutions enables fintechs and SMEs to create and embed financial services in their core products. Using Anchor’s APIs, fintechs and even regular businesses can generate bank accounts, issue cards, make and receive payments seamlessly, and offer savings and investment products without needing to acquire expensive licences.
Anchor was publicly launched in August 2022 on the back of a $1 million pre-seed round and its selection for the summer cohort of Y Combinator. The company says it has now hit over $550 million in annualized total transaction volume (TTV), with revenue growing 30% month-on-month.
“We’ve been fortunate to have been able to just grow the platform very quickly, which we believe confirms that there was actually a problem to be solved. And we just want to double down with this new funding,” Segun Adeyemi, CEO and co-founder of Anchor told TechCabal.
In a press statement shared with TechCabal, Anchor says it recently signed a partnership with the fintech arm of Africa’s largest telecom in Nigeria, MTN MoMo PSB which it hopes will dwarf its previous growth numbers.
Anchor charges users for accessing the platform, but also takes a cut of every billable transaction, according to Adeyemi. It counts SeamlessHR, LifeBank, Penne, Zit and 56 other companies as customers and is hoping to grow its customer base beyond fintechs to also target other businesses.
Embedded finance is the latest current in the world of financial technology companies that broadly follows the spirit of fintech-enabling reforms like Open Banking, to allow non-financial providers to offer payment, savings, insurance and other financial services to their consumers, users, or businesses.
By adding financial services to their core product offerings, companies can enable their customers to access financial services as part of a user journey their customers are already familiar with. As more parts of African businesses become digital, fintechs are in a race to capture the growing market segment of newly digitising business sectors. Anchor thinks there is a $7 billion opportunity locally for the taking. Globally that market is expected to surpass $622 billion in a decade.
This current of embedded finance is interesting because it represents a switch from the previous two decades of consumer fintech to fintech that enables financial services for other sectors.
Justin Kan, Partner at Goat Capital, says, “The embedded finance market in Africa is nascent but growing fast at over 30% CAGR. Anchor’s growth rate is impressive and showing signs of becoming the category leader which is something we look out for in our portfolio companies.