African fintech NowNow pulls in $13M seed round

NowNow, a Nigerian payments startup, raised $13 million in seed funding from NeoVision Ventures, DLF Family Office and Shadi Abdulhadi, TechCrunch reports.

Why it's the BFD: The relatively small seed round is part of a bigger trend of investors betting on fintech's growth across the continent as younger consumers seek alternative ways to bank.

Of note: In March, Axios reported that, before 2021, just eight African startups had raised $100 million or more in a single round. Last year, that number shot up to 14, per data from Partech.

• Fintechs have sprouted in cities across Africa and are pulling in funding from U.S. and global investors.

Details: "NowNow is targeting 5,000 SMEs with its business-in-a-box solution, including the NFC-enabled tech, by year’s end," TechCrunch reports. "On the consumer side of things, the fintech claims to serve up to 200,000 customers; it hopes to increase that number to 1 million by December."