Fintech and Cryptocurrency: A Founder’s 13-Year Journey in Africa

CN
5 hours ago

Original Title: Crypto and Fintech Are Colliding. Who Wins, and How?

Original Source: Unchained Podcast

Original Translation: Ismay, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: In the wave of continuous integration of global fintech and cryptocurrency, the story of AZA Finance founder Elizabeth Rossiello provides a rare observational window—she is not only one of the earliest builders of crypto infrastructure in Africa but has also personally experienced and shaped the structural evolution of fintech on the continent.

This 13-year entrepreneurial journey began with Bitcoin and culminated in stablecoins; from the mobile payment hotspot of Kenya to the remittance hubs of Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa, and to the merger with Latin American giant dLocal, AZA Finance has essentially witnessed an early explosion of a trend: in emerging markets, "crypto + fintech" is not the future, it is the reality.

In this episode of Unchained, Elizabeth elaborates on the evolution of Africa's financial networks, the real demands of the remittance market, how to find liquidity hubs between the dollar and local currencies, and why stablecoins are infrastructure rather than speculative tools in Africa. She also discusses the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs in the crypto industry and how "global south" companies can gain autonomy in the global financial landscape.

Below is the interview dialogue:

Laura Shen: I remember you were our first guest on Unchained, that was nine years ago. Although it’s a bit late to have you back, the timing is just perfect. Your company has just announced it will be acquired by the Uruguayan payment company dLocal after obtaining regulatory approval. And we are in the midst of a "summer of stablecoins," where the fintech and crypto industries are essentially competing on the same track, so this is truly the perfect time to have you back.

Elizabeth: It’s absolutely crazy; it feels like we were in a different world when we first chatted.

Laura Shen: I recently re-listened to the first episode, and it was really interesting. You mentioned that when you first started, if someone wanted to send money to China, they would actually send a person with a bag of cash to fly over…

Elizabeth: Yes, that’s right. Even when Barry Silbert made his first investment in me, he sent a check directly because there was no way to wire money. I received a check sent via DHL that said "Bit Opportunity Fund," and then my bank sent that check back to the U.S. for verification. I thought it was absolutely insane; it was completely ridiculous.

African Payment System

Laura Shen: Indeed, can you describe what the payment system in Africa was like back then? We can also review the changes that have occurred over the past decade. To some extent, I feel like you have already experienced the transformations that the U.S. is just beginning to face.

Elizabeth: The African fintech community often jokes that outsiders love to say Africa "skipped traditional infrastructure and went straight to mobile," and we actually dislike that phrase. Many investors or journalists use these words, saying Africa is a blank canvas, and then technology comes in and changes everything. I don’t think that’s an accurate portrayal.

I moved to Nairobi, Kenya, in 2009, just two years after the launch of the mobile payment platform M-Pesa. Although there had been many innovations in telecommunications before, the emergence of M-Pesa truly changed everything. There are many reasons it spread rapidly in Kenya, such as government support, a "lucky" competitive environment, the coinciding growth of the "Kenyan economic tiger," and the rise of the middle class. All these factors combined made that period a golden age for M-Pesa.

I was riding that wave, and at that time, research institutions, development organizations, private companies, and investors from around the world were paying attention to the transformation in Kenya. Even fifteen or twenty years later, if you attend any digital technology conference about Africa, the opening line is often, "Do you know M-Pesa?" It was truly a generational opportunity.

At that time, there was a tech incubator in the Kilimani area of Nairobi called iHub, sponsored by Google, which was like the embryonic form of Africa's "Silicon Valley Oasis." There were only about twenty or thirty people, and a café where the same group of people came every day. There were some cool programming training classes, like AkiraChix, and some Ruby and Rails programmers.

We also held Bitcoin meetups, initially just me, my co-founder Charlene, and a few friends like Kelly and Brenda Guard, along with some crypto enthusiasts.

We founded BitPesa, which was Africa's first Bitcoin trading platform that could trade cryptocurrencies and the world's first Bitcoin trading platform directly connected to mobile payment systems. As far as we know, it was also the world's first crypto trading platform operated by women—myself, Charlene, and later Amy. We can say we were among the first to lay the groundwork.

Later, Barry Silbert learned about our project and said, "Come to New York and tell me about it." We met him, and he invested in us. Soon after, people from Pantera and Blockchain Capital also learned about us. Most importantly, Joe Bishero, who was the Google Kenya Country Manager at the time and later became a cabinet minister, also learned about us and invested. All of this happened in November 2013.

Laura Shen: You arrived in Africa in 2009, so in what year did you first encounter Bitcoin?

Elizabeth: In 2013. For the previous five years, I had been working in microfinance. Microfinance can be considered one of the earliest forms of fintech—providing banking services through mobile payments. Often, this process was very manual; for example, in Ethiopia, some institutions served hundreds of thousands of clients, and all calculations were done manually. But in countries like Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda, they were already using MTN's mobile payments or mobile financial tools like Kenya's M-Pesa extensively.

My co-founder Charlene was also working in this field, mainly on asset financing projects, such as providing funding for irrigation and water resources. We were really working on the ground, going to some very remote areas, and talking face-to-face with women in fishing, agricultural workers, and livestock farmers in various villages and huts in Botswana, Malawi, and Ghana, understanding how technology was truly changing the financial accessibility for the "bankless" population.

I did about five years of fieldwork and wrote several research reports analyzing the operational effectiveness of these projects. Most projects operated effectively, and the data looked good, but the core issue was the source of capital. After all, the essence of microfinance is "re-lending"—you need to have funds to lend. And these funds often came from global donors in the form of "hard currency," like dollars.

The problem is, how can you operate in a country using local currency while carrying a loan denominated in another currency? I often said, if you operate with Kenyan shillings, but it continues to depreciate against the dollar, how can you possibly repay that dollar loan?

This became a key issue I discussed in many reports and a direction I was particularly focused on. Until October 2013, when I first encountered Bitcoin, I immediately thought it might be a solution to bridge liquidity between currencies.

Perhaps we no longer needed to rely on hard currencies like the dollar to provide financing for local financial institutions. Maybe we could directly use Bitcoin for currency transactions, such as exchanging it between Kenyan shillings and Nigerian naira, or between shillings and South African rand. We could even use it to facilitate cross-border transactions within Africa.

Because many of the companies I served were not only operating in Kenya but also active in Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, and several other countries. But the problem was, there were no convenient cross-border payment channels on the African continent. Yet within Kenya, using M-Pesa for payments was fast and convenient, almost unbelievably seamless.

I think it was because we had already been exposed to the Lightning Network, and mobile payments were just so convenient. I never carried a wallet; I could pay for almost anything with my phone—tuition, plane tickets, even buying a tomato. When my parents or family came to visit me from New York, they would habitually pull out their wallets, and I would say, "Put the wallet away; I've already paid."

At that time, it really felt like we were living in the future. But when we needed to make an international remittance, we had to revert to "past" methods, which felt particularly absurd. Why had no one solved this problem? So we began to think: if we layered Bitcoin technology on top of the local currency market's transaction structure, would there be an opportunity? These ideas gradually intertwined, ultimately leading to our entrepreneurial vision.

Evolution of Payment Tools

Laura Shen: You just mentioned that initially, you were connecting through Bitcoin. So you were using Bitcoin as an intermediary technology, allowing people in Canada or elsewhere to send money to Kenya, right?

Can you talk about how this model has evolved? I guess you are using stablecoins more now, and I noticed you have also integrated several fintech tools. Can you explain the process of this evolution?

Elizabeth: Initially, I was still paying off my student loans and had a CityBank dollar account. I was thinking about how to transfer that money. I tried to initiate a wire transfer through Barclays Kenya, and I was even woken up in the middle of the night for a phone confirmation; the whole process was very cumbersome.

So we thought, why not sell Bitcoin to Kenyans, and then they could sell Bitcoin in the U.S., Canada, or Europe and make payments? At that time, there were some really cool cryptocurrency trading platforms that could directly convert cryptocurrencies into bank accounts—though those services were gradually phased out later, they were really useful back then.

So my international friends in Kenya said, "This is great! I buy Bitcoin, and then I can directly pay into my European bank account or send money to my CityBank or Canadian account." That was our earliest batch of users.

Then we met some local Kenyans at iHub who said, "We also want to use this to invest, send money to Asia, or just because we like other currencies and want to launch some new projects." We said, "No problem." And that’s how they entered the crypto community.

So initially, it was for international remittances, and then it gradually evolved into various needs around cryptocurrencies—including how to onboard new users into the crypto world. Later, we expanded our business to more countries.

I remember when we first entered the Nigerian market, Jeremiah Layer helped us convert payments. At that time, a Nigerian user needed to pay for his daughter's tuition at Harvard, which was around $30,000 to $40,000 at once. Jeremy helped us connect with the banking system in Boston, and we sent the payment through cryptocurrency.

Thus, our model gradually evolved and expanded. However, we later realized the real issue, which I initially mentioned—how to complete payments between African countries.

We found that at that time, there was no cryptocurrency trading platform in Nigeria, and since we were a trading platform in Kenya, we were essentially also a trading platform for Nigeria. So the question arose: do we really need to send cryptocurrency back and forth between the two countries? Or could we operate a local liquidity pool instead?

So we began exploring the concept of a "liquidity pool," meaning we didn't have to actually "send" crypto assets from one country to another; we could just hedge within an internal liquidity pool.

Then we shifted to direct foreign exchange trading. Sometimes users wanted to exchange Nigerian naira for Kenyan shillings, and sometimes they wanted to use Bitcoin, and we treated all these demands equally.

I used to say in my speeches that we weren't trying to create a "crypto company," but rather a "company that can use cryptocurrency." There is a fundamental difference between the two—many people start with the path of "first creating a crypto company" and then look for application scenarios; whereas we started from actual needs and then chose the most suitable tools, which included cryptocurrencies as well as fiat currencies. In many cases, using fiat currency was actually more efficient and practical at that time.

To this day, our company trades over 150 fiat currencies globally while still being crypto-native. We always insist on using the currencies that our customers need the most, whether they are fiat or cryptocurrencies.

More importantly, we have deeply integrated crypto assets across various levels, including risk control, technology, and knowledge systems. Recently, we have been integrating with dLocal, and they often ask us, "Where is your crypto team?" We respond, "Our entire team is the crypto team." Every compliance officer in our company understands crypto, every trader can operate crypto transactions, and every new employee undergoes crypto training.

I believe this is one of our company's core differentiating advantages—because we started from the ground up, personally participating in building in emerging markets, all of this feels very natural to us.

I didn't wake up one day and suddenly decide, "I want to do crypto," but rather we wanted to solve the problems of "how to efficiently conduct cross-border payments" and "how to trade local African currencies," and cryptocurrency was just a means to achieve these goals.

So when I see people like Jack Zhang (co-founder of Airwallex) or others say, "There are no application scenarios for crypto," I feel it's a pity. Because there are indeed many real application scenarios for crypto.

Laura Shen: What were the typical fees charged by traditional payment service providers at that time? What difficulties did users face when using these services? And then talk about how different your solution is and what your pricing looks like.

Elizabeth: During the time we started our business, it coincided with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals prioritizing "reducing remittance costs." At that time, the average remittance cost in Africa was almost twice that of Southeast Asia and South America. Those regions had costs around 2% to 4%, while many African markets had costs ranging from 4% to 8%, with some even exceeding 10%.

This included structural issues where traditional remittance companies monopolized the market in many countries, and almost all cross-border wire transfers had to go through two or three major banks—mainly Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered, along with the so-called "correspondent bank network." Additionally, the monetary policies and banking infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa laid the groundwork for "high friction, high cost."

When we first established, there was a Bloomberg article about us titled "The Western Union Killer," which was indeed our goal at that time. Under our impact, Western Union later lowered its prices.

You can imagine that for a startup, this kind of influence was almost intoxicating—we realized, "Wow, we actually have the ability to illuminate this dark corner!" And we were just a small company, yet we truly felt a tremendous energy. Perhaps that also made us a bit arrogant, thinking we could really change the world. But that feeling was indeed exhilarating.

Now, 13 years later, many projects are replicating our original model. We later adjusted our company name from one that included "Pesa" (a term used in East Africa) to a brand name that is more broadly applicable across Africa.

Global financial trading centers like Hong Kong, Zurich, London, and New York have countless asset managers, brokerage firms, prime brokers, traders, and market makers, each of which is indispensable. I believe every major city in Africa should also have financial infrastructure of the same caliber. We need multiple market makers and service providers; only then will competition be fiercer, and the market will mature.

As a founder, of course, I hope to lead the market. But from a higher perspective, as someone who genuinely cares about the development of this continent, I hope to see the entire ecosystem thrive.

Why Expand to Africa?

Laura Shen: As time went on, how did you decide which African markets to expand into? What types of clients do you primarily serve in different regions?

Elizabeth: At that time, it was clear that the biggest buyers of African currencies were remittance companies. The remittances flowing into Africa were about $34 billion at that time, and now I quickly checked, and the annual remittance volume in Africa has exceeded $500 billion, which is truly astonishing growth over these 13 years.

In the early years when we started, the remittance market was very attractive, and our idea was to get a piece of the pie. Because these cross-border remittance companies were the real "buyers of African currencies." On the other hand, we also had many corporate clients "selling African currencies."

Initially, we focused on individual retail business, but later we realized we simply didn't have enough market budget to scale up, so we decided to move up the chain and shift our focus to institutional and wholesale clients.

We truly recognized the value of this shift when a client sent $35,000 through us to Harvard University—an amount far better than a retail client sending just $5. So we began to focus on B2B and sought partnerships with remittance companies.

Our first major breakthrough was partnering with a U.S.-listed cross-border remittance company that was preparing to launch in the Nigerian market. Their finance team quietly decided to pay us in Bitcoin, and we settled in naira for their accounts in Nigeria, while we were still connecting via Skype. They were surprised to find that our exchange rates and settlement speed far exceeded traditional methods, and the overall product performance was excellent.

Later, we continuously improved our compliance capabilities, obtained a financial license in the UK, secured a license in Spain, and acquired some companies with local licenses. We chose to prioritize entering the Nigerian market because it is the largest remittance-receiving country in Africa, and then we entered Ghana, which is also an important remittance market.

We mainly evaluated two factors: first, whether the local remittance market was large; second, whether it was convenient to access the banking system for settlement. This was the basic logic behind our market expansion at that time.

However, Nigeria later experienced a politically unfriendly phase for fintech and cross-border remittances. So we decided to turn our attention to Francophone Africa—an area that was almost untouched at that time. We were among the first fintech companies to enter the Francophone African market, launching operations in Senegal in 2016, very early on.

Today, Senegal, the entire West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) region, as well as Cameroon and the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) region, have become some of the hottest markets for fintech in Africa.

So the situation is completely different now. Just this morning, I finished a conference call, and we marveled at how many market makers and competitors there are in the market now; seeing this is truly gratifying. You have to understand that when we first started, there were almost no others, and we only collaborated with one or two remittance companies.

Now, we have established partnerships with 35 of the largest cross-border remittance companies globally, including Western Union and MoneyGram, who now also trade on our platform. Of course, most of them have not yet started using cryptocurrencies or stablecoins; only a few have tried (I won't name names). However, many of our corporate clients on the other side are now primarily using stablecoins, which has indeed changed significantly over the past few years.

How to Transition from Bitcoin to Stablecoins?

Laura Shen: So talk about the process of this transition. How did you move from Bitcoin to stablecoins? I guess you started with stablecoins like USDT? When did you make this transition? Why? And how did it affect your business?

Elizabeth: Initially, market demand was mainly focused on Bitcoin and Ethereum. Other smaller coins didn't have much demand. Many clients initially entered through us and then went to other global trading platforms for short-term trading or other operations. We were more like an entry point, allowing them to exchange local African currencies for crypto assets or vice versa, and they could get good exchange rates.

However, to make this model work, a large amount of liquidity was needed, so we basically insisted on only dealing with mainstream coins. Occasionally, a particularly popular token would emerge, and people would ask us about it, and we would sell it, but overall, we have always focused on the most liquid coins.

About four or five years ago, clients began to actively ask us if we had USDT, so we started selling it. Unexpectedly, later on, about 95% of our crypto trading volume flowed into stablecoins. This indeed surprised us; we were thinking, "Do you really think this is more stable than other cryptocurrencies?"

This question still doesn't have a definitive answer today, but clearly, the market believes it is "safer." We don't judge users' choices; we just listen to their needs and adapt to them.

Laura Shen: When you said, "the market thinks it is safer," what exactly do you mean? Are you saying that these reserve-backed stablecoins have centralization risks? Or are you talking about the dollar itself, for example, its relationship with the Federal Reserve?

Elizabeth: I just feel that stablecoins are essentially privately issued coins, right? And they have not been regulated for a long time. So… how should I put it? I was initially very confident in the security and stability of Bitcoin. So I was quite surprised at that time—why did everyone think a stablecoin issued by a private company was more stable, even ten times more stable?

Many companies used to kick us out of their offices when they heard us talk about Bitcoin, but later they were incredibly excited about stablecoins. This was something I initially found hard to understand. But in any case, I think this is largely due to the successful marketing of stablecoins, and people find it easier to accept.

So I completely don't judge; this is the choice of the customers. After we started selling, we indeed saw a large market demand.

Now even the remittance industry—which was originally the slowest to adopt new technologies (except for one or two early adopters)—is starting to say, "Using stablecoins for transactions is very convenient, especially during weekends, on Fridays, and during Ramadan when our transaction volumes surge."

For example, during holidays like Memorial Day and Labor Day in the U.S., the dollar system is closed. But people might forget that once the U.S. banking system enters a weekend or holiday, companies making transactions must bear two to three days of credit risk, or even longer. If you add in the fact that local banking systems can be slow, such as in some countries in Francophone West Africa where domestic transfers take 24 to 48 hours, the overall clearing cycle could extend by another two days.

So who is "prefunding" the liquidity for these days? This is no longer just a remittance issue; it’s a problem for the entire financial system.

Therefore, tools that can achieve 24/7 clearing truly align with the operational logic of this world. In China, they say "seven-day work system," and in many places in Africa, people indeed work seven days a week.

A few years ago, when I spoke on the stage at Money 20/20, a very famous fintech CEO told me, "Elizabeth, only illegal activities happen on weekends." I wanted to refute her on the spot—though I still won’t name names. But you see, the market operates around the clock, and transactions don’t care whether it’s 2 PM at the settlement deadline.

Laura Shen: I feel like I've learned something new again. I really didn't know that Africa and China actually have a seven-day work system. I used to live in Indonesia, where it’s a six-day system, but I wasn't aware of this.

Elizabeth: Yes, for example, Nigeria's banking system supports 24/7 clearing.

Laura Shen: That's interesting. So you're saying Nigeria can do this, but other regions in Africa might still be slower. In other words, even your "internal African business" has to deal with different clearing cycles, right?

Elizabeth: Sometimes banks may not be open all day, but they generally operate on Saturdays, and in many places in Africa, people do work on Saturdays as well. Especially in East Africa, Saturdays often involve at least a half-day of work, and in many places, even more. Besides market operations, people also schedule business meetings on Sundays. Not everyone spends every weekend playing golf. For many, weekends are also work time.

Moreover, remittances are often for celebrating holidays or family gatherings, and these activities usually occur on weekends or holidays. Therefore, the remittance volume on weekends is actually very high, and business activities are quite frequent.

Laura Shen: I understand. So your business structure must have been constantly changing over the years. Can you talk about the approximate distribution between your remittance business and B2B business at that time? How many different types of payments did you actually handle?

Elizabeth: We actually have a very balanced structure—50% are buyers of African currencies, and 50% are sellers.

Remittance companies have always been the "buyers"—they need to exchange foreign currencies like dollars or euros for local African currencies. However, there are very few remittance companies that can actually "send money out of Africa," with only a few exceptions, such as some cross-border remittances within Africa.

So, roughly half of our business comes from remittance companies, and the other half comes from corporate clients. Corporate clients include fintech companies, cryptocurrency trading platforms, banks, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, and so on. Over the years, the client structure has also changed—from initially being dominated by traditional enterprises to now being primarily fintech companies and banks. This has been a very interesting evolution over the past 13 years.

On the inflow side, remittance companies still dominate, but we have also started to connect with some payment companies.

I think payment networks like Circle, or other past attempts to integrate remittance flows, initially had a lot of ambition and excitement, but the biggest problem was that they ultimately failed to truly "connect" with these companies.

Their networks might have been built beautifully, but the roads were paved without any vehicles to drive on them.

What sets us apart is that we have genuinely executed these remittance transactions and have already connected these companies.

So when you want to establish a middle-layer network and say, "Everyone come use my network," others will wonder: why should I switch? We are already collaborating with these companies.

Many people want to create a "remittance infrastructure network" or "payment channel network," claiming that everyone will come to connect. But the problem is, you have to pull in clients one by one, offering competitive exchange rates, stable services, and good APIs, while embedding yourself into their payment chains to become a trusted intermediary.

Currently, there are not many companies globally that have completed this entire process like we have. For example, Bitso—they started in Latin America around the same time as us and can be considered parallel universe peers, and they are now very successful.

There are a few other companies that have also achieved this deep integration, but they are indeed in the minority.

Laura Shen: Back to the topic of stablecoins, you mentioned that many people are starting to request USDT. Did they specify which chain they wanted to use? After all, USDT has gradually expanded from the original Omni network to more chains. Do you handle these choices in the background based on transaction fees and other factors, or do users explicitly request, for example, "I want a specific type of USDT"?

Elizabeth: I don’t have a particularly "smart" answer to this question (laughs). This trend has gradually evolved, and in most cases, users choose the most basic networks, such as the Ethereum ERC-20 chain; we hardly see much diversified demand.

In fact, the vast majority of trading volume is concentrated in a few mainstream wallets and trading platforms. People might find this answer boring, but that’s the reality. Many day traders or those chasing new projects might think the ecosystem is flourishing and technology is constantly innovating, but for most users, they are just repeatedly using the same three wallets and three trading platforms.

Changes in the African Environment?

Laura Shen: I understand. So from a more macro perspective, now that it has been twelve years since your company was founded, what changes do you think have occurred in the use of cryptocurrency across Africa?

Elizabeth: Actually, the changes are not as significant as people imagine. Yes, from the early days of Bitcoin and Ethereum, we have indeed shifted more towards USDT, using ERC-20 wallets. But overall, the variety of wallets hasn’t changed much, and users don’t seem to care much about wallet types because their transfer actions are very quick, and they don’t hold for long periods.

Laura Shen: OK, I get it. But I actually want to ask—setting aside your company, from your perspective living in Africa, do you feel that the overall environment has changed?

Elizabeth: Oh, absolutely. Now when you walk into Lagos airport, there are advertisements for fintech and cryptocurrency everywhere, with slogans like "Crypto is legal." Although from a legal standpoint, it’s not entirely legal, the scene you see is completely different.

There’s a huge advertisement for Binance on an entire wall of the airport, and even when Nigeria was cracking down on cryptocurrency at that time, they didn’t care and covered the place anyway. There was even a Nigerian superstar participating in an American variety show, sponsored by Binance.

That period was truly crazy—every company was rushing into this field, all claiming, "I am the only one with a license," "I am the only one who can do this business," with slogans everywhere, and few truly understood the industry. But a lot of capital indeed flowed into this market, and startups sprang up like mushrooms after rain.

We just attended an event called Africa Tech Summit in April, with hundreds of companies present, half of which were related to cryptocurrency. This happened even before the so-called "summer of stablecoins," and can be seen as a prelude. You can see a wave of trends happening in Africa, which subsequently influenced the world.

Everyone was there, and the scene was truly impressive. The venue was just a kilometer away from the café where we held our Bitcoin Meetup years ago. At that moment, I really felt like a grandmother crying at her grandson's kindergarten graduation: "Oh my God, this is all so beautiful." My team was also there, and at that time, we were already in the acquisition process with dLocal, just not publicly announced yet. Some people knew, but we hadn’t fully disclosed it. Others couldn’t get into the cryptocurrency-themed party because they didn’t have tickets, and we were in line when someone said, "We know her; she’s the lady from the crypto circle, let her in." I didn’t know whether to feel proud or amused.

Our team joked, "Are we attending a boring event?" But you know, at that moment, we all realized—this ecosystem is completely different now.

This is not the world I emailed you about ten years ago. We have truly entered a new era. Now I hear that many banks in Nigeria are asking, "How do we enter this field? How do we provide these services?"

This is already a completely different planet.

Laura Shen: That explosive period was around 2021, right?

Elizabeth: It definitely was after COVID. You could say it was "PC"—Pre-Covid and "AC"—After-Covid; there’s a significant difference between the two. During the pandemic, companies with digital capabilities basically dominated the entire market. We also had one of our best years at that time, while many traditional banks suffered a blow. Meanwhile, wallet services that didn’t rely on SIM cards or telecom operators rapidly emerged.

At that time, many payment companies focused on local payments emerged, such as Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, and wallets like Wave, which did not rely on SIM cards. That was also the first time these large payment companies received massive investments, rapidly expanding and proving to telecom operators that they could "overtake"—I’ll use that term—challenge the original monopoly. It was an exciting time.

Of course, we didn’t go for that kind of large-scale financing of $300 million, which is usually done by retail payment companies; retail payments are a completely different game—high funding needs, high profitability, but also astonishing expenses. We followed a different business model, always focusing on the B2B sector. But indeed, during that time, some unicorn companies began to emerge, and although some later went bankrupt, they at least attempted "moonshot" breakthroughs and did enter the market.

Now you will see more and more regulatory bodies starting to issue licenses. South Africa is usually the first country to act, issuing licenses to 50 trading platforms at once last year, which is very good. And Nigeria, after years of discussion and a decade-long round of white papers, finally issued two licenses—though not to the companies you might think. You can check; hardly anyone has heard of these two companies. So now many companies claiming to be "legal and compliant" in Nigeria actually do not hold licenses.

In Central Africa, the so-called "VASP" licenses (Virtual Asset Service Provider) are also starting to be issued. So the current market is no longer a chaotic free competition but is gradually moving towards a regulated space. I believe this is a necessary good thing for future development.

How Does the Acquisition Process Work?

Laura Shen: You just mentioned that you acquired two companies, which seems to be aimed at obtaining relevant licenses. Can you talk about how you decided which companies to acquire and how these acquisitions have driven your business development?

Elizabeth: Yes, the first acquisition was during Brexit. At that time, we were concerned that we would lose our market access in the UK, and we happened to hold a UK payment license. So we began to consider acquiring one of our client companies, TransferZero. They hold a license from the Bank of Spain, and the founder is outstanding—his father also worked in the remittance business and has deep connections and background in this field. We ultimately completed the acquisition of TransferZero in 2016, and it was a very successful merger. Now we have an office in Spain and use it as a base. The whole process went very smoothly and is quite a beautiful story.

The second acquisition occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically when we previously discussed the outbreak of the crisis in Nigeria. At that time, 90% of our transaction volume came from Nigeria, and Nigeria suddenly closed the relevant channels, so we had to quickly diversify our business. We adopted two strategies: one was to expand into Francophone Africa, and the other was to acquire a company based in South Africa. This company was also one of our clients, and the acquisition process was very natural; we got a good price, and the team on the other side was excellent. We integrated their team of about 50 people and became one of the largest remittance processing service providers in South Africa.

We still focus on the remittance sector. In South Africa, we had also engaged in some cryptocurrency-related transactions early on when the market was in a regulatory gray area—sometimes saying it was regulated, sometimes not. At times, regulators even expressed that they did not want remittance companies to engage in crypto trading, but in reality, they left some legal gaps. Therefore, our strategy in South Africa has always been very cautious and conservative. You could say we never really "hit the start button," but rather maintained a wait-and-see approach. South Africa is a country with a very hot crypto market, and we did participate in some early activities, but once the South African Reserve Bank's stance became clearer, we decided to refrain from any business that might walk the gray line.

Laura Shen: I remember you were also involved in FTX's payment services in Africa, and it seems there was a bit of a misunderstanding regarding your role when they later went bankrupt. Can you explain that experience?

Elizabeth: Yes, my personal history has become like a biography with too many chapters, and to be honest, this chapter was completely unnecessary and quite chaotic. At that time, we announced our partnership with FTX, and the internet never forgets—there are still some promotional materials with the FTX Africa logo available online. We had high hopes for this company, believing they could provide funding support for regulatory advancement in Africa. They were indeed actively lobbying many banks, and their compliance team was very active, engaging deeply in four, five, or six countries to discuss the legalization of crypto derivatives with local regulators.

This was very attractive to us because the cost of obtaining licenses in multiple countries is very high. It’s not like North American trading platforms, where getting licensed in Canada and the U.S. is almost sufficient, with just state-by-state applications. But we had to deal with Francophone, Anglophone, South America, South Africa… it was just too heavy a burden for a startup.

So when FTX entered this market and was willing to push for regulatory efforts, lobbying central banks, and seeking licenses for securities and futures, we were very supportive and signed a cooperation agreement to help them launch their business in several markets. But when FTX collapsed, everything fell apart, and we were affected as well.

We spent a lot of time helping them "clean up," having to communicate again with regulators, clients, and partners to explain what our relationship was. This was a huge restructuring for us and an emotional blow. Because we had been working hard to prove that African companies can operate legally and compliantly and can stand on the right side of the law.

We spent a lot of time lobbying regulators and actively cooperating with policies, never wanting to play in the gray area, let alone rashly launch when regulations were unclear. But FTX's collapse implicated everyone associated with it, making it look like we were "accomplices," and external trust vanished overnight.

That period was very difficult for us, and we spent a lot of energy rebuilding trust. Fortunately, many clients and partners eventually returned. But the environment was completely different—many banks were closing one after another, Silvergate collapsed, Reserve Trust collapsed, Silicon Valley Bank also collapsed… it was a series of chain explosions, and financing almost came to a halt.

That time was truly very tough. If we were a new company, we might not have survived. But because we had already gone through so much, we ultimately pulled through and achieved our current beautiful exit (merger or IPO) result.

Laura Shen: Let’s talk about this exit then. How was this deal negotiated? Also, please introduce who dLocal is.

Elizabeth: dLocal is a company that has achieved great success in its home region and is a leader in its field. They started in Uruguay—a small country in central South America—but are full of innovative spirit.

Initially, their business model was "buying local currency," which is a foreign exchange term—they acquired local currency from merchants and then sold hard currencies like dollars and euros to payment processors. For example, companies like Netflix and Alibaba receive local currency payments from users, and they need to convert that currency into dollars or euros. dLocal does this very well and quickly expanded into core markets like Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.

Later, they soared and even successfully listed on NASDAQ, which is very admirable and made them one of the earliest unicorn cases in the region. Their performance can be described as a "home run."

Over the years, they, like some other global South companies from Asia and Latin America, have tried to enter the African market. Many global companies say they want to enter Africa, but they have been saying this for many years—"Africa is always two years away"—they say this every year. So in reality, we haven’t seen those North American or European companies truly step into Africa, with the only exception being Stripe's acquisition of Paystack, which they recognized back when they were still in YC (Y Combinator). But even so, we should applaud Stripe for actually doing it.

Many other companies just talk without taking action and have not truly invested resources. In recent years, we have started to see some Asian companies and a few Latin American companies genuinely start to invest heavily in Africa, and dLocal is one of them.

Initially, we maintained a cooperative relationship with them, starting as a client-service provider model. Later, we gradually deepened our cooperation, and it became smoother. Their investment in us and the plan to officially acquire the company after regulatory approval is very exciting for us. This means that perhaps we no longer need to "go north" to seek development momentum; maybe the strength of the global South is already strong enough.

This resonates deeply with me—there is indeed great potential in the global South; it can not only operate compliantly but also engage in cross-border business, and the innovation here is not about "overtaking" but is genuinely an upgrade iteration built on existing foundations, a constructive innovation that carries existing energy.

Laura Shen: So will your role in the company change going forward, or will it basically remain the same? What does all this mean for you?

Elizabeth: For now, my role has not changed. We are still waiting for regulatory approval, the company's products are still online, clients remain active, and products are continuously iterating. We have many synergies with the dLocal team in terms of cooperation, such as partner networks and transaction interoperability. They are already one of our largest trading partners, which is very exciting.

Additionally, dLocal's investment is very timely for us, especially after everyone has experienced a long period of "fintech capital drought." Now being able to obtain capital support is truly rare; having an important trading partner is also very valuable. More importantly, they have rich experience in local collections and merchant payment processing, which perfectly complements our business—we primarily serve buyers of local currencies, such as remittance companies and payment companies, while they mainly serve the "sellers" of currencies, which are various merchants.

So it’s like a perfect marriage, with both sides having their strengths and natural synergy.

The Relationship Between Stablecoins and Fintech

Laura Shen: Alright, let’s talk about a more macro topic, such as the integration of cryptocurrency and Asia, as well as the intersections between stablecoins, crypto, and fintech. In my view, the U.S. is gradually entering a new phase where these areas, although seemingly competitive, are actually approaching the market from different angles and may gradually converge in the future.

But I feel that in Africa, this process may have already occurred long ago. You must have witnessed this evolutionary process firsthand. I’m particularly interested in your perspective on these different participants—what advantages do you think they each possess? How do they ultimately compete or coexist?

For example, I might casually suggest that fintech companies have an advantage in compliance because they have more banking partners, while pure crypto companies might be more tech-savvy and sensitive to innovation? What trends have you observed in this competitive landscape? How do these trends affect various market participants?

Elizabeth: First of all, I no longer categorize companies as "crypto-savvy" and "non-crypto-savvy." At least among emerging fintech companies, I see that they generally possess crypto knowledge. I have hardly seen any new fintech company say, "We don’t touch crypto; we don’t do this." Of course, some traditional companies still say this, just like some startups now say, "We don’t do AI"—but you know, they still use it to some extent in certain areas, especially younger employees who have already been exposed to and are proficient in these technologies during their university years.

So the entrepreneurial growth we see today cannot be completely unrelated to crypto. And the older generation of companies still exists; for example, I won’t name names, but Airwallex's founder recently publicly stated that he has no interest in crypto and does not want to enter this field. But I believe the new generation of entrepreneurs is becoming increasingly mature and pragmatic in this regard.

Especially now that the U.S. has introduced new legislation, the attitude of banks has also changed significantly; they are starting to cooperate more openly with companies involved in crypto. On one hand, it’s because the number of people using crypto is increasing, and it’s no longer a marginal behavior; on the other hand, they have to accept reality. The time is no longer "Elizabeth is in the corner doing Pesa, and no one is talking to you about crypto."

In the past, when I attended conferences, I might have been the only speaker discussing crypto, and everyone looked at me as if to say, "What is this person doing?" I really felt like an outsider. But now it's different—wherever I go, everyone is using it. I recently attended the Money20/20 conference, and crypto was everywhere. This indicates that banks have no reason to reject it anymore, and investors can no longer say, "I won't invest in crypto," because, after all, every company is involved in some crypto elements to some extent. This is the biggest change.

I also observe that Asia's influence is growing. Many products imported into Africa actually come from Asia, such as pharmaceuticals, daily necessities, and electronics. We have a client who is one of the largest mobile device importers in Africa, and the number of components they import from China is astonishing.

What truly drives the demand for technology applications are the exporters who hold market dominance. If a Chinese supplier says, "I only accept QR code payments" or "Please use a specific app to pay," then clients in Africa will come to us, asking for help with these payment processes. So, the demand actually comes from the "seller's market."

I find this very interesting and exciting; it is completely different from the narrative many people imagine.

Laura Shen: So in a sense, you initially started as a "crypto + mobile payment" company, which gradually evolved into a "crypto + fintech" company. Traditional fintech companies, on the other hand, started from "fintech" and gradually evolved into "fintech + crypto." Everyone has actually entered the same competitive arena from different paths, right?

Elizabeth: First, we must remember that mobile payment itself is actually one of the earliest forms of fintech. Back then, people working on mobile payments at conferences were the "outliers," and they would say, "I have a MIS management system"—that’s what it was called at the time. They were reluctant to use mobile wallets. For example, when we entered Senegal in 2015, there was not even any legislation regarding mobile payment wallets; it was gradually introduced later.

So, mobile payment is essentially a form of fintech, just relying on USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) or SIM cards. Later, fintech began to enter the web-based and online phase, with many companies embedding hardware systems directly into smartphones made in China or operating purely online.

Now we see it developing towards the metaverse and even further into the future. But essentially, they are still performing those basic financial actions: lending, transferring, saving, and paying. These core services have not changed; it’s just the way you access them that has changed—perhaps through telephone lines, the internet, blockchain, or even the metaverse. Regardless of how the channels change, the core products remain the same.

I believe that as long as the infrastructure is not forcibly controlled by the government (such as state-owned telecom companies or internet service providers), the barriers to entering this field will continue to lower. This also means that market competition will become increasingly fierce, and the number of participants will grow.

In the past, there might have been only one mobile payment service provider covering ten countries in a region; now, thousands of companies are creating their own mobile financial apps, and even more companies have moved onto blockchain or into the metaverse. This process of market opening is very exciting.

Laura Shen: In the current field, where almost all companies provide increasingly similar services and even have similar backend operating models, what do you think the ultimate focus of competition will be? Will it turn into a pure price war? Or will it be about efficiency? What factors determine who the winner is and who gets eliminated?

Elizabeth: Regardless of which company it is, they still need to engage with local currency at some point. Because we have not yet reached an era where "everyone pays rent with cryptocurrency," right? You might be able to transfer money using cryptocurrency, but ultimately you still need to convert it to local currency for payment; you can also transfer money through mobile payments, but it still lands in local currency. We are still in an era of "local currency economy"—mark this down as June 2025. Perhaps the situation will change in a few years, but that’s how it is now.

When you are conducting currency exchange transactions, whoever has the most liquidity wins. So the core of competition lies in: who has the most liquidity on their platform, and how many companies are frequently trading on that platform—this way, transactions won’t have "big ups and downs," slippage will be smaller, and quotes will be more accurate.

This logic is simple. You will see many new players entering the market, but they may not necessarily acquire customers. So how do customers come? The reality is that many of these customers are regulated institutions, and the onboarding process is slow. Therefore, whoever can complete customer compliance integration the fastest has the advantage.

Additionally, the technical integration for these customers can be cumbersome; for example, integrating APIs may take some clients four to five development cycles, or even longer, to finalize. So whoever has the strongest engineering team that can smoothly complete the integration will be more competitive.

Moreover, if you have compliance issues, banks will immediately shut their doors to you. Conversely, if you have very strong compliance capabilities, banks will be more willing to cooperate. So now it has become a matter of whose compliance is the strongest—whoever wins.

Ultimately, these elements are the fundamentals of a good company: customer relationships, compliance capabilities, sales processes, and onboarding efficiency. These are the core aspects, not which company uses some flashy technology—now everyone’s technology is becoming increasingly similar, and the real differentiation lies in these operational fundamentals.

I often talk about these things, and some people say, "Elizabeth is always pouring cold water; she is pessimistic about those rapidly growing, innovative companies." But I want to say that Africa has infrastructure, real people, and rules. This is not a market where you can come and do whatever you want, breaking all the rules.

Because you ultimately still need to settle in local currency, and that operates through the banking system, which is regulated by the government. In this reality, regardless of whether you hope for "everything to be tokenized" in the future, before that day arrives, you must participate in this "local currency economy" game, which requires companies to have solid fundamentals and good governance structures.

Laura Shen: I want to add a point before moving on to the next question—sounds like your acquisition with dLocal is actually aimed at enhancing overall liquidity, right? This should be one of your key strategic considerations behind the scenes.

Next, I’d like to ask you about the current situation of users or businesses in these countries using stablecoins. How do you observe their decision-making process when choosing between stablecoins, mobile payments, local fiat currencies, or more broadly, cryptocurrencies? What roles do these different tools play in their lives and operations?

Elizabeth: That’s a very good question. I have been saying for years that mobile payments perform exceptionally well in certain countries. For example, in some countries, the penetration rate of mobile payments can exceed 95% of the entire economy, although it may fluctuate based on seasons and time periods.

In these countries, promoting the use of cryptocurrency for domestic payments, especially for peer-to-peer (P2P) small payments, is very difficult. Because mobile payments are deeply ingrained, running well, and users are accustomed to using them. They not only have a high penetration rate but also offer various discounts and conveniences, making them hard to replace.

However, when it comes to cross-border payments, that is, remitting money from one country to another, cryptocurrencies or "internet wallets" have a significant role to play. For example, you might have a great digital wallet in Nigeria provided by a local fintech company, but if that company has not successfully expanded its wallet services to Kenya, you won’t be able to remit money from Nigeria to Kenya. Similarly, if it hasn’t integrated with a certain wallet in China, you won’t be able to transact between Central Africa and China.

Many people overlook this point: to achieve cross-border payments, you actually need to establish physical companies in various countries, pay taxes, and build local compliance structures, which is a very heavy infrastructure task. The advantage of cryptocurrencies is that they bypass these obstacles, allowing for global transfers without being restricted by borders.

But that said, if you ultimately still need to convert cryptocurrency back to fiat for use, you will still need "on-ramp" and "off-ramp" channels; these infrastructures must still be built.

So our observation is:

For small P2P payments locally, if the country is already a "mobile payment country," people will generally choose mobile payments first. For example, countries like Ghana, Tanzania, and Kenya.

But in countries like Nigeria and South Africa, the penetration of mobile payments is not as high, although their banking systems are very advanced. For instance, Nigeria's NIPS (National Payment System) can settle seven days a week, and South Africa's clearing system is also very efficient. Therefore, in these countries, local payments tend to favor bank transfers.

If it involves intra-Africa cross-border payments, it becomes more complex. The traditional Swift cross-border banking system is still in use, but many emerging alternatives are also rising, such as services provided by fintech companies, some using cryptocurrencies, some like us adopting a pooling mechanism, and others using a broker model.

Although it is currently difficult to have accurate statistical data, given that Africa's informal economy is very large, we have indeed become increasingly competitive in this field.

Laura Shen: Recently, there has been a wave of "stablecoin frenzy" in the U.S., and I’m quite curious about your perspective. For example, Circle has just completed its IPO, and I remember its stock price was around $240 recently, significantly higher than the issue price. At the same time, the U.S. may soon introduce legislation related to stablecoins.

From your experience, how do you view this current wave of development in the U.S.? How do you think the competitive landscape for stablecoins will evolve? What impact will this rise in usage bring?

Elizabeth: Well, many of my clients' trading partners are in Asia, not the U.S., so they are more concerned about stablecoins that can settle in Asia.

Laura Shen: Are they still using USD for transactions, or other currencies?

Elizabeth: Yes, currently it is mainly USDT; many transactions are completed through USDT. Will that change in the future? Maybe, I can't say for sure. But the reality is that they are primarily importing from Asia, not from the U.S.

However, if you need to make USD payments outside of Asia, such as sending money to Europe or the U.S., you will rely on the U.S. banking system, and these banks clearly prefer USDC over USDT. So globally, there is somewhat of a "divided state"—different regions use different stablecoins, and we happen to be caught in the middle of this.

We must operate based on actual trade flows, and currently, the trade volume between Africa and Asia is the largest and continues to grow. So we cannot imagine a scenario where 100% of the world only uses U.S.-dominated stablecoins (like USDC) while completely ignoring the preferences for stablecoins used in Asia.

Of course, we still use many services from U.S. banks, and indeed many clients need to remit money to banks in the U.S. and Europe, but that is not the entirety of it.

Laura Shen: So to summarize, USDT is more commonly used to bypass the U.S. or payment paths not involving the U.S., while USDC is more suitable for connecting with the U.S. or U.S.-dominated banking systems? It sounds like most people understand it this way now.

Recently, there has been speculation that China may promote the digital yuan (e-CNY) overseas, especially in regions like Africa where Chinese enterprises are active. For example, China might say, "If you want to do business with us, you must pay with digital yuan." Have you seen any signs of this happening?

Elizabeth: I can only provide some personal observations, as there are no specific statistics. For instance, when I moved to Nigeria in 2015, I often went to the market for about six months and found that many vendors were using Chinese phones, with Chinese native apps installed, and they would even communicate directly in Chinese with suppliers.

Many of these merchants already spoke four or five languages, so this was not a barrier for them. At that time, many people were traveling back and forth to Guangzhou, and locals referred to that area as "Chocolate City" or "Mong Kok," as there were a large number of Nigerians frequently traveling between Central Africa and China.

I also know many young people from West Africa who studied in China, and even in our company, there are quite a few job applicants with backgrounds in studying in China. Clearly, China is their largest trading partner, so it makes sense that they would speak the language, use their applications, and adopt their preferred payment methods—this is a normal operational logic of global business. So we have actually seen this trend for a long time.

When I lived in Senegal, I also encountered many people who had returned from studying in China. I believe the connections between China and Africa are becoming stronger at the government level as well. For example, China once held a local currency sovereign bond issued by Zambia, which is one of the earliest examples of a major country holding African local currency debt, and it was denominated in RMB. Later, there was also a large-scale currency swap agreement between the kwacha (Zambian currency) and the RMB.

I remember that early on, there were payment products like the Pompey wallet that were used with handheld devices, and many people began to turn to these new tools. So I believe this trend will continue.

Laura Shen: But have you observed whether the Chinese government is trying to promote their digital yuan (e-CNY) through these business activities in Africa?

Elizabeth: I can't comment on that. As far as I know, no major clients have actively requested to use the digital yuan.

Laura Shen: Alright. Then my last question— as a female practitioner, I actually don't like to ask other women this question, but you probably already guessed what I'm going to ask (laughs).

Elizabeth: Are you going to ask me how I balance work and life?

Laura Shen: No (laughs), don’t worry, it’s a bit better than that question.

Elizabeth: I thought you were going to say, "Laura, oh my…"

Laura Shen: Haha, something like "How to be a mom and still start a business." No, I just want to ask, you mentioned at the beginning of the interview that you might have been the first cryptocurrency trading platform founded by women at that time. I just want to hear your thoughts on your journey, as I believe it must be very different from most of your male counterparts.

Of course, this topic could be discussed for a long time, with many dimensions to explore. But I want to hear what your most immediate feelings are right now.

Elizabeth: You know, I’m not just a female founder; I’m also a founder who is a woman in her thirties and a mother. I’m not the type of female entrepreneur who wears a bikini and has a hacker vibe; I’m more like the "middle-aged female boss" type (laughs). That in itself is already an alternative. I still remember the first time I attended an event in the cryptocurrency space, the "Satoshi Roundtable." They said, "We have a party tonight," and when I arrived, every man was accompanied by three or four girls. Meanwhile, I had to call a babysitter to take care of my child, then sit in the bedroom exchanging naira for dollars before going back to talk to them about investments.

So this is not just a matter of "female identity," but the entire environment one is in is very subtle.

I also tried to "integrate" into the circle, telling everyone, "I’m cool too, let’s go out together," but it was hard to judge where I truly belonged.

Being a female entrepreneur in the financial industry, if you want to "fit in," you might have to tolerate some behaviors that you normally wouldn’t tolerate from the same gender; sometimes you even have to "gender yourself" or default to being gendered, like "Do you want to go to a nightclub to discuss cooperation?" or "Let’s have a meeting by the pool tonight." If you want to participate, you have to say, "Okay, then I’ll put on a dress," or "I’ll jump in the pool too."

I will always remember one event where a female representative from the European Parliament attended, dressed in formal trousers, while everyone else was in swimsuits. She said, "I wouldn’t wear a swimsuit to the European Parliament, so why would I wear one to an investment forum?" I admired her greatly at that moment.

But I also wonder, what is the culture of the tech circle, the crypto circle, or the American venture capital circle? At that time, I couldn’t figure it out myself. Sometimes I would set boundaries, and sometimes I wouldn’t; sometimes I would participate, and sometimes I would choose to withdraw. To be honest, that experience was both strange and difficult.

We did our best to hold on, but I often felt that I didn’t belong to the "boys' club."

Sometimes they would say, "We really want to help you; we support Africa. We’re investing not because of you as a person, nor your product or data, but because we love the theme of Africa." There were times when that was helpful. But ultimately, we are an infrastructure company, which is not the kind of model that venture capitalists typically love to support. We need to build a lot of on/off-ramps, obtain a bunch of licenses, and the entire project took thirteen years, which is clearly not the kind of 3-4 year quick exit that VCs are accustomed to.

So I feel that at that time, the market paid too little attention to such projects, and there were not many who truly understood them. I mistakenly thought I had "integrated" into that crypto community, but what we were doing was very different from them, and this misalignment was not easy.

Of course, I learned a lot from it. For a time, I built a nearly all-female team, and later gradually added male members. We now have 55% of our employees as women, and we also have many great male allies. Our team culture has also won several awards.

This has become my "safe haven." When I experience chaos and the outside world doesn’t understand, I can always find support within the team, which has really helped me a lot.

Laura Shen: That’s wonderful, Elizabeth. Is there anything I haven’t asked that you particularly want everyone to know?

Elizabeth: I want to say that one of the hardest parts of the entire entrepreneurial process is obtaining investment for Africa. I have always been very grateful for the support from the early crypto community—they were far more open to Africa than traditional tech investors.

I think this is precisely because cryptocurrency itself pursues "globality" and "inclusiveness," so it was really touching to have so many investors willing to try the African market at that time. We were the first African project in many investment portfolios, and I am very proud of that. We did a lot of educational work for investors, bringing them into this ecosystem. But I feel that many investors did not realize how early they were entering.

Now, after experiencing the fintech bubble, some people say, "Oh, we’ve tried Africa; we want to look elsewhere." But I want to say, don’t give up on this region; please continue to come back. When you invested back then, Africa was still in a very early stage—not like Silicon Valley, which has a development history of two to three decades. What Africa needs is time.

By the end of this century, the majority of the world’s population will be African. Now is the best time to gain a deep understanding and establish roots. Of course, don’t be easily swayed by entrepreneurs who come with pitch decks saying, "We’re expanding to 50 countries in a year," but rather truly understand what is needed for the growth behind this continent and how long it will take.

"Original link"

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