Waza CEO Maxwell Obi & CTO Emmanuel Igbodudu
Waza, is a payment and liquidity service Fin-tech platform that has recently raised $8 million in seed money, claims to make it easier for African businesses and traders to manage and pay their suppliers globally. The company is targeting a large $7 trillion payment market that has the potential of growing into a $250 billion market by 2027.
Emerging economies regularly have trade deficits that in turn creates dollar scarcity, where global trade then exceeds supply. These shortages have severe consequences for businesses in Africa which results in increased costs and long delays in securing goods needed for the businesses to trade successfully. While Africa has seen a lot of new Fin-Tech developments, liquidity needs of large enterprises and multinationals, is often not accommodated by existing global payment platforms or are simply too costly.
Limited access to hard currencies, complex regulatory frameworks, and high transaction fees are just a few of the hurdles that can make cross-border payments a daunting task. That’s why we built Waza, a platform that leverages cutting-edge technology to streamline B2B payments and make cross-border transactions as simple and efficient as possible.
Waza, which began its operations in January 2023 will aim to capitalize on this trend and make its mark in the global payments market, starting with Africa.
In its first month, Waza’s total payment volume amounted to $280,000, according to co-founder and CEO Maxwell Obi. In May 2024, the fin-tech reportedly processed up to $70 million in monthly payment volume, amounting to $700 million in annualized transaction volume. The CEO also said that Waza’s transaction volumes and revenues, which come from FX spread and a 0.75% to 1% take rate, are growing by a healthy monthly average of 20%.
The Fin-tech start-up facilitates business payments and liquidity management across six continents for hundreds of clients, cutting across three main categories of businesses, each with varying requirements; 1. Multinational organizations like international airlines that operate locally in Africa with liquidity issues. 2. Importers and traders that transact with suppliers from across the globe. 3. Other fin-techs and developers that need API infrastructure to build their cross-border payment solutions.
Before founding Waza, Maxwell had held various roles as a founder and operator. He co-founded Amplify, a Nigerian fin-tech acquired by Carbon, and later joined Zepz subsidiary Sendwave, and it was here where he identified the need for an improved global supplier service, that were creating massive pain points for companies in Africa and formulated the business concept for Waza.
Obi’s co-founder, CTO Emmanuel Igbodudu, was a senior engineer at Revolut who led the company’s Vaults team. He also worked at Carbon and held engineering roles at prominent Nigerian fintechs like Moniepoint and Fairmoney.
Both founders have strong technical backgrounds in Fin-tech, which have been invaluable as the fin-tech start-up expands into diverse tech finance and cross-border payment solutions to diversify its revenue streams.
According to the founders, they “Want to do one thing and do it well before evolving into other verticals,” “And that’s moving money from point A to point B in the fastest, cheapest way possible”. But they acknowledge that the company is at the point where they need to build products that cut across other verticals addressing B2B payments. The seed investment they have raised will fund these initiatives and expand into new markets beyond its current operations.
