Today Monisnap, a French-based fintech providing remittance services, announces a €10 million funding round from Serena and existing investors. The newly secured funding will support Monisap to expand its B2B offer, further develop its ‘Mobile Money’ service, and support its geographic expansion.
Created in 2017, Monisnap offers a large set of financial services to diaspora communities living in Europe eager to help their unbanked relatives. The company provides one of the fastest and cheapest mobile money services in the market, whereby users can instantly send money to their relatives’ cell phones in 150 countries, with fees about three times cheaper than those charged by traditional players.
Currently, more than 200,000 people use the Monisnap platform to send cash to emerging countries through more than 100,000 local partners in over 100 countries. On the back of strong customer growth, Monisnap entered the UK last February to provide communities settled in the country with its reliable and easy-to-use Mobile Money service, targeting diasporas from West Africa, Middle East, and Asia.
In addition to its ‘Mobile Money’ service, the company also offers a ready-to-use money platform to numerous B2B partners. Neo-banks, such as Nickel, or various fintech players, can provide their existing clients with an international money transfers service, fully secured and seamlessly integrated, while offering the best user experience possible.
Since its last €2.5 million round in April 2019 from Truffle Capital, Evolem and Notus Technologies, Monisnap multiplied its transaction volume by 40. Despite the health crisis, the fintech also deployed in 2 countries in Europe and developed its solution on the B2B market.
With today’s funding round, Monisnap plans to consolidate its position in 4 main areas: expand its customer base worldwide; double the engineering team; develop its B2B offer, and strengthen its mobile money offer.
As digitalization in emerging economies pairs with smartphone adoption, Monisnap has also designed a mobile app to simplify money transfers while reducing costs. Monisnap will further develop its mobile solution in the months to come while targeting West Africa and the Maghreb.
Raphaël Rivière, CEO of Monisnap, explained: “We are delighted to welcome Serena and we thank our historical investors for their renewed support. This fundraising will allow us to pursue Monisnap’s goal: create the easiest and the most secured money transfer service for diasporas while ensuring the lowest costs. This new funding will help us strengthen our existing solutions and bring our services to millions of additional customers worldwide, thus promoting financial inclusion in many countries.”
Sébastien Le Roy, Investment Director at Serena, added: “The international money transfer market is undergoing profound changes, in particular with the rise of mobile money in emerging countries. Monisnap is taking a unique position in this market. In a few months, they have enabled more than 200,000 people to make transfers to unbanked countries. Their modular architecture allows them to offer this financial service to B2B players such as neo banks. We were impressed by the team’s vision and ability to execute, and are excited to participate in this round of funding to build a major global player in the industry.”
Thomas Rival, Partner at Evolem, added: “International money transfers represent almost $600 billion per year. Unfortunately, the historical players offer a disappointing experience (negative NPS) as they charge high fees for cash withdrawal services. With a mobile phone penetration rate of over 90%, the advent of mobile money seems inevitable, Monisnap intends to be a major player in this transition.”
Bernard-Louis Roques, Co-founder and Managing Director of Truffle Capital, added: “We are thrilled to participate in this new round of financing and to support Monisnap’s international development. In just three years, Monisnap has developed an unrivaled digital remittance service. The key to this success? A mobile-first service that is faster, simpler, and cheaper than the competition. Today, we are convinced this French money transfer champion has everything it takes to become a world leader in this sector.”
