Payments for the Next Billion
With Benjamin Fernandes, founder & CEO of NALA.
Benjamin had just been hit with a major setback. For weeks, he had been preparing for the famous Y Combinator Demo Day, the highly anticipated event for any startup founder accepted into the prestigious California accelerator. It was his chance to pitch NALA to top investors and secure funding. But things didn’t go as planned. Just one week before the event, his co-founder and CTO—an engineer he had met while working at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—announced that he was stepping down. This unexpected event completely disrupted the startup’s trajectory.
Benjamin grew up in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. At 17, he earned a scholarship to study in the United States at the University of Northwestern – St. Paul in Roseville. But alongside his studies, a very different career path began for the young student. In his home country, Benjamin became a TV presenter. Yes, you read that right. He hosted sports shows and talk shows, gaining a fair amount of recognition in Tanzania. And amassing 450,000 followers on Instagram. This career lasted a few years, but he finished to ended up, tired of this industry. During that time, Benjamin continued his studies in the U.S. and eventually earned another full scholarship for African students that got him into Stanford.
It was during these years that Benjamin began developing an interest in entrepreneurship. While studying at Stanford, he worked at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, focusing on payments in emerging markets. This experience sparked the idea of building a business around this issue. In 2018, he launched NALA. One year later, he joined the Y Combinator accelerator with a mobile payment project designed for Africa.
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The Demo Day didn’t go as planned. But Benjamin, despite being without a co-founder, managed to raise a small pre-seed round, led by Sameer Gandhi at Accel Partners. He then decided to return to Tanzania to save money, as the cost of living in the U.S. was extremely high. There, he would be able to focus on building NALA for East African markets. “I was staying in my mom's house, living in my tiny bedroom, trying to build this company. I was eating free food from my mom and trying a few things, failing, trying a few things, failing.” Benjamin says.
Progress was slow, and the startup frequently changed direction. Benjamin was looking for a strong market signal. “We pivoted like five or six times between 2018 and 2021.” It was a long and difficult period for the young entrepreneur, who started questioning whether he was truly cut out for entrepreneurship. “You really start to question all your abilities as a founder. And that's really tough. I really was very low. The hardest part was one of my VCs telling me, ‘You've tried your best. You should just join one of my portfolio companies.’” But Benjamin refused. He had another idea, one that stemmed from his own experience while living in the U.S.: sending money to his family back in Africa.
Benjamin traveled to London to test his idea. “I bought a flight on a tourist visa. I was trying to find customers in East London. I’d go to random churches, mosques, stand outside, wait for people to leave, and ask them, ‘Hey, can you try this app?’ I’d approach them, get them to test the product, and ask for feedback. And they did. That’s how we started growing.” During our conversation, on Google Meet, Benjamin showed me the list of his first 200 customers on his phone. It’s still there, like a reminder of the moment that changed NALA’s trajectory.
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In 2022, the company was starting to experience growth that shows no signs of slowing down. To support this momentum, the startup raised $10 million from Amplo, Accel, and Bessemer Partners, along with prominent angel investors like the founders of Monzo and Robinhood. NALA’s mission was now crystal clear: to build payments for the next billion, starting with Africa, then other emerging markets after. The market is huge. The United Nations projects that the population on the African continent will nearly double to reach 2.5 billion people by 2050, making it home to nearly one in four people of working age. Approximately one million Africans leave Africa each year to go abroad, to Europe, the UK, the US or the Middle East for employment opportunities.
Despite the opportunities on the horizon, the global fintech market began to decline at the end of 2022. Funding was no longer assured, and NALA's competitors had secured significantly more capital. Benjamin was determined to achieve profitability before accelerating growth or raising more funds. “I don’t want to stay forgotten. So I said ‘let’s learn how to become cash-generating’. I really had to make tough decisions. Do we expand to this country? No, we can’t. Do we launch this? No, we can’t. Saying no was tough because I was obviously excited and wanted to do those things. The team would propose something that might cost us $100,000, and I had to say ‘No, let’s become profitable.’” Benjamin explains.
Eighteen months later from launching, NALA hit $10 million in revenue and, more importantly, became profitable. This set the stage for a $40 million fundraising round, closed within weeks. The round was led by Acrew Capital with participation from DST Global, Norrsken22, Amplo, HOF Capital and notable angels like, Vlad Tener, the founder of Robinhood, Alex Bouaziz, the founder of Deel, or Ryan King, the founder of Chime. Today, NALA has over 500,000 users. The startup enables people in the UK, Europe, and the US to send money to 11 African countries, across 249 banks and 26 mobile banking services. The company’s ambition is to extend its footprint in the world, with plans to expand into Asia and South America.
Benjamin travels a lot. When we spoke, he was in Nairobi. But the company also has offices in London, New York, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Kigali, Kampala, and a few other locations. Over the past 18 months, the team has grown from 7 to 120 people, and a new business line – Rafiki, a payment infrastructure service for businesses – was launched. Africa remains one of the most expensive continents for sending money due to regulatory issues, currency fluctuations, limited competition, and a lack of payment infrastructure specifically designed for international businesses. NALA wants to fix this.
As a ghostwriter for the fintech industry, I work with many entrepreneurs daily. One thing is clear: their roles evolve significantly as their companies grow. Among all the responsibilities that change, people management often stands out as one of the biggest challenges, especially for young entrepreneurs. “People management is tough. I’ve never managed this many people in my life. I’d never fired people in my life. It’s not easy. It’s not given to you. You’ve got to earn it.” Fortunately, Benjamin can rely on the support of fellow entrepreneurs, with whom he regularly discusses challenges and exchanges advice.
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Now, NALA’s ambition is to reach a $1 billion valuation by the end of 2026. Over the past two years, the company has received four acquisition offers. But the Tanzanian entrepreneur has his sights set much higher. Potentially all the way to an IPO. Benjamin ended our conversation with a simple yet profound statement: “The reward of hard work is more work.” Like a never-ending loop where good results lead to new, often greater responsibilities. With higher stakes, as well. “One FX mistake last year used to cost us $3,000. Today, one FX mistake can cost us $150,000.” It’s important to celebrate successes, but the journey is far from over. Back to work.
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