Payday, a Pan-African Fintech startup, has become the first Rwandan company in history to join the prestigious Techstars Toronto Accelerator program. The startup joins several global fintech companies, including notable unicorns such as SalesLoft, SendGrid, ZipLine, Chainalysis and DataRobot, and more.
Founded by Favour Ori, Payday provides fast payments for Africans globally, where users can send & receive cash from anyone, anywhere in 2 minutes. Other offerings include payments by foreign employers and clients, issuing virtual Mastercards, paying tuition and other fees in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. With Payday, users can also create and manage multiple foreign wallets with account numbers.
Techstars is an operational investment company that assists founders and early-stage entrepreneurs scale their vision into a thriving business. The 3-month accelerator program’s goal is to provide entrepreneurs with invaluable skills, resources, and connections to a large pool of global talent and investors.
CEO, Favour Ori said, “Joining Techstars will be a game changer for us. This is an opportunity to work with and learn from outstanding mentors, as well as to leverage their experience, skills, and network to create a platform where all Africans, regardless of location, can enjoy financial inclusion”.
“The word that best describes the founders and team behind Payday is “resilient”. Moreover, Payday has engineered a financial product that Africans need across the continent, and the recent traction they are seeing makes us believe that this is the start of something massive” says Sunil Sharma, Managing Director of Techstars Toronto. “We are thrilled to be able to co-invest with some of the best early-stage fintech and e-commerce investors in Africa,” says Sharma.
The inclusion of Payday in this program represents an endorsement from one of the world’s most reputable investor communities, emphasizing the potential of the company’s business model and its commitment to developing innovative payment solutions that will simplify how Africans move money around the world.
Within 4 weeks after launch, the company processed $1.4M+ and has been leveraged by foreign businesses such as TalentQL (TechStars), Tupelo, and a slew of others tor a variety of services such as payroll, taxes, and compliance. This month, the tech company raised one million dollars to build what it describes as the “PayPal” for Africa, backed by several investors including LofyInc, Microtraction, Magic Fund, Ventures Platform, Voltron Capital, CcHub Syndicate, Helicarrier Inc, Greencap Equity, Midlothian Angel Network, Emergence Capital, and more and a host of other investors.
Although the current investment round is closed, Payday is still open to meeting interesting players and investors in the Fintech space.
