Canza Finance, a pioneering Wb3 neobank specializing in facilitating cross-border payments for African startups, has successfully closed a funding round, raising an amount of $2.3 million.
The company plans to utilise the funds to acquire licenses from various financial regulators across Africa, while focusing on laying the groundwork for its innovative FX DeFi platform, Baki. With this latest funding round, Canza has now raised a total of $5.5 million, following a $3.27 million seed round last year.
Led by Polychain Capital, the funding round saw participation from notable investors such as Protocol Labs, Avalanche’s Blizzard Fund, 99 Capital, Stratified Capital, Hyperithm, and others.
African businesses, particularly in markets like Nigeria, Cameroon, and Senegal, often encounter challenges with slow and costly traditional methods when conducting cross-border payments. Canza Finance aims to address these limitations by working with FX agents in these regions to offering a faster and more cost-effective solution for international transactions.
Co-founder and CEO of Canza, Pascal Ntsama, expressed the company’s mission to enable access to financial services that are traditionally available only to large corporations. Canza’s process involves businesses submitting a valid invoice and completing KYC/KYB processes to initiate a transaction. The startup then determines the exchange rate and completes the transaction within 24 hours.
Canza Finance generates revenue by charging a 1% fee on processed transactions. The introduction of Baki, its synthetic FX exchange on-chain protocol, is expected to further reduce transaction fees to 0.2%. Baki utilises stablecoins, i.e., digital currencies pegged to the dollar, to enable businesses to swap currencies to the dollar without incurring significant forex fees. This approach helps Canza clients achieve dollar stability and navigate traditional forex challenges, ultimately reducing transaction costs to just 1%. Currently processing transactions worth $2,000,000 weekly and serving 150 clients, Canza Finance aims to expand its infrastructure development across Africa.
Oyedeji Oluwoye, Co-founder and CTO of Canza Finance, noted the company’s plans to obtain essential licenses for virtual asset custodian, broker-dealer, and exchange services in the coming months. The startup aims to secure a Money Services Business (MSB) license in the United States, obtain a Foreign Exchange (FX) license in Nigeria, and acquire three crucial Virtual Asset Licenses from the Financial Service Commission of Mauritius.
