This latest fund was Quona’s third, and it far exceeded the firm’s initial target of $250 million. Quona started to raise the fund a year ago, taking an extra quarter to close the deal. Its last Fund 2 was announced in 2020 at $203 million.��

We spoke with , a co-founder and general partner at the firm, who confirmed that 75% of Quona’s existing LP base backed the new fund alongside new investors. Engel credited Quona’s success to both fund performance and the firm’s thesis to “radically improve access and quality of financial services to the unbanked.”

The firm operates in emerging markets across Latin America, India, Southeast Asia, Africa and MENA. Brazil and India are anchor countries with Mexico, Indonesia and South Africa secondary markets. These five countries represent three-quarters of Quona’s investment capital with people on the ground.����

“These countries have been really overlooked and ignored and underinvested in for many, many decades,” Engel said.

‘A thriving ecosystem’

Quona is always looking at newer market opportunities and seeks out markets with three crucial factors: an enabling regulatory environment; emerging low- and middle-income class; and mobile penetration and internet access to serve these markets.��

The firm has been in the top quartile performance for venture funds since its inception, a fact that demonstrates�� “impact and profits don’t necessarily need to be mutually exclusive,” Engel said.

Engel co-founded the firm with and in 2015, spinning out from Massachusetts-based global nonprofit .

Quona invests an initial check size of $1 million to $5 million at Series A. As the firm has gained experience and conviction, it has started investing earlier at seed. It reserves funds for follow-on investments to support portfolio companies. The firm has an additional five partners with a total of 14 investment professionals.

“Everyone at Quona is trying to build something bigger than themselves, and this notion that our legacy really is to leave a thriving ecosystem,” said Engel.��

Quona’s portfolio companies have raised $4 billion in capital in total. Investments include: Brazil-based , which allows consumers to get loans against property; digital banking platforms from Mexico and from Jakarta; and South Africa-based mobile point-of-sale company . All of these companies target underserved markets.

Illustration:

The round was led by , with participation from , , , (aka Spike Ventures) and , among other investors.��

The round is tied for the largest raise by a VC-backed Africa-based startup, matching crypto exchange ’s $150 million Series B in May, according to Crunchbase data.

On-demand services

Founded in 2017, Yassir offers a variety of on-demand services via its app, such as ride hailing, banking, and food and grocery delivery. The company operates in six countries and 45 cities, being particularly popular in the Maghreb region — Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia — and parts of French-speaking Africa.

The app has more than 8 million users, according to the company. Yassir plans to use the new proceeds to expand its reach into the region.��

“Yassir means ‘easy’ in Arabic, and our mission as a company is to make people’s lives easy,” said , founder and CEO, in a .

“In the markets where we operate, we are already having a considerable impact on how people manage their day-to-day lives,” said Tayebi, a alumnus. “We look forward to expanding our presence into other geographies to become the first super app to achieve mass adoption.”��

Fundraising in Africa is often overlooked when discussing venture investment. Only a half-dozen VC-backed startups in the region have raised rounds of $100 million or more this year, per Crunchbase.��

While Yassir did not release a valuation, the company did say it is one of the highest valued companies in Africa and the Middle East.��

��The company has now raised $193.25 million. It last raised a $30 million Series A nearly 12 months ago led by .

Illustration:

Nigerian payment and ride-hailing app it has raised $120 million in a Series B of funding just a few months after raising .

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

Besides being a large Series B, the round is notable in its size for the African market, which has seen an uptick in venture funding as of late, as our own Alex Wilhelm noted last month. The investment ranks raised on the continent so far this year, according to Crunchbase data, and brings the company’s since it was founded last year to $170 million.

Lagos-based OPay, which was incubated by Norwegian publicly traded internet company Opera, describes itself as a mobile wallet and motorbike ride-hailing provider. (Opera operates a web browser of the same name that is popular in Africa.) China’s , DragonBall Capital (an investment fund backed by Meituan-Dianping), , , , , , , and all participated in the round.

OPay’s services range from mobile payments and transfers to ride-hailing and food/grocery delivery.

In a statement, the company said it plans to use its new capital to “further accelerate its expansion across its multiple verticals, as well as entering new African markets.”

OPay CEO Yahui Zhou said in particular the startup is eyeing expansion in its home country, South Africa, and Kenya, as well as “other African countries… where local regulation is supportive of scientific and technological entrepreneurship in the fintech space.”

“We see ourselves as a key contributor to expanding financial inclusion in Africa, and helping local businesses and workforces to thrive from opportunities created by new, digital business models,” Zhou added.

OPay launched its mobile payment service in August 2018, with an initial focus on “the massive unbanked population of Nigeria.” The company said that since its Series A funding in May, it’s tripled its active agents to over 140,000 and saw daily transaction volumes double to over $10 million per day.

Meanwhile, it claims that its ride-hailing service has become the largest of its kind in Nigeria, seeing a more than tripling of daily rides over the past three months. OPay recently launched additional services around food delivery and cashless payments for offline businesses.

Illustration: