We have advised Kuda, Nigeria's first mobile only bank, on its Series B funding round of $55 million, money that it plans to use to prepare its expansion into more countries on the continent. The round was led by Valar Ventures and Target Global and included SBI and a number of previous angels.
This fundraise follows on from Kuda's $25 million Series A funding round in March of this year, which was preceded by its $10 million seed round in November 2020 - the largest ever seed round to be raised in Africa. Our team advised on both of these rounds.
Kuda is a London-based, Nigerian operating start-up which is taking on incumbents in the country with a mobile-first, personalised and often cheaper set of banking services built on newer, API-based infrastructure. The start-up has seen some impressive early growth, now boasting 1.4 million registered users, more than double the number it had in March.
Commenting on the deal, corporate partner Siobhán Langwade said: "Kuda continues to take the fintech world by storm - it's great to be a part of that journey and work with such a fantastic team."
Babs Ogundeyi, CEO and Co-Founder of Kuda, added: "This is a significant step for Kuda as we look to accelerate our plans for growth. The team at Taylor Wessing has always matched our ambition and vision and, once again, they have provided outstanding and commercially focused advice on this latest transaction."
The team was led by corporate partners Angus Miln and Siobhán Langwade, with support from associate Harry Ruffell.
Kuda is unique among the neobanks in that it is building its services with its own banking license in hand. This means that it can be more flexible and fast-moving when it comes to creating new products or tweaking existing ones, and it gives the company another level of credibility in a region where those who were already banking with incumbents might be more wary of new players.
