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A Look at Up and Coming Fintechs in India and Africa

A Look at Up and Coming Fintechs in India and Africa

With 2021 underway, fintech analysts and observers have begun sharing their lists of companies they expect to do big things in the coming year. This week, Finovate Global Lists shares two compilations of fintech startups from India and Africa that are raising millions in capital and bringing a variety of digital financial services to underserved consumers and businesses.

In India, these innovators range from online payments and banking technology company Cashfree to crypto trading platform CoinDCX (which we profiled in Finovate Global last spring). Inc42’s Suprita Anupam notes that the global health crisis of COVID-19 served “as a booster” for India’s fintech sector, citing year-on-year growth in transaction volumes of 70%.

Looking at fintech in sub-Saharan Africa, TechCabal’s Alexander Onukwue leverages Disrupt Africa’s 2020 tech startups funding report to highlight emerging African fintechs. Fara Jituboh-Ashiru’s Okra, which enables bank accountholders to link their accounts with lending and banking apps, and P2P mobile payments company Chipper Cash, were among the companies highlighted in Onukwue’s survey.


Javier García

This week our Finovate Global Voices feature comes to us courtesy of Nathan Lustig, entrepreneur, investor, and managing partner at Magma Partners. Launched in 2014 and headquartered in Santiago, Chile, Magma Partners is an early stage investment company that specializes in Latin American startups innovating in fintech, insurtech, and infrastructure.

Among the firm’s portfolio companies are Billpocket, the “Square of Latin America”; Albo, a mobile banking service for the unbanked; and an Ecuadorian/Colombian fintech, Kushki, based in U.S. that seeks to be the “Stripe of Latin America.”

Lustig is also a podcaster, and in his most recent Crossing Borders Podcast, he talks with Javier García, Director of Corporate Venturing and Growth Capital at the corporate VC fund of Mexican conglomerate FEMSA.

The two discuss the work of FEMSA’s fund in Latin America, including the firm’s investment strategy, recommendations for fintechs working with incumbents, and lessons García has learned in working with startups.


Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa


Photo by Harsha Vardhan from Pexels