[Transcript] #50: Wave - From Sendwave remittances to disrupting Francophone Africa with mobile money & financial services

Transcript for podcast originally recorded on May 1, 2022

😉 In May 2022, we explored the story of Wave, the African consumer payments company. Wave is an important company in African tech, they are one of the 7-10 unicorns and the first and only unicorn in Francophone Africa. They are arguably the fastest-growing startup in Africa.

Founded between 2016 and 2018, Wave reached a $1.7 billion valuation in a September 2021 funding round. Achieving unicorn status in just five years is remarkable anywhere, but especially in Africa.

The Wave episode marked a milestone for Afrobility, as it was one of the first time to see second time founders with with successful exits (the founders previously exited Sendwave (Afrobility episode 23) successfully).

Companies discussed: Wave, Sendwave, Safaricom (M-PESA), bKash, TeamApt, Chipper Cash, Orange (Sonatel), Free (Tigo), Opay, Paga, MTN, Airtel, Zedbank & Kuda Bank

Business concepts discussed: Consumer Fintech (Agency banking & mobile money), International expansion, banking regulation, low cost pricing strategy, customer acquisition strategy, innovator’s dilemma & low end disruption

Enjoy!

Olumide Ogunsanwo

• Personal: Website

• Afrobility Podcast: Stories and analyses of African technology companies (Website, Listen: Apple podcasts, Spotify & Google podcasts & Read: Substack Newsletter)

• Adamantium Fund: African B2B fund focused on education, health, finance, food and transportation (Website & memo)

• Firedom Book: Financial Independence stories of African Immigrants (Website, Substack Newsletter & Buy: Print, eBook or Audiobook)

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Transcript starts here

[00:00:00] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Welcome to Afrobility, a conversation about African business and technology. Today, we're going to talk about Wave, the African Consumer Payments Company. We'll explore the Wave story across five different areas. One, we'll start with some context about payments in Africa. Two, we'll talk about WAVE's launch and early history. Three, Wave’s products and monetization strategy. Four, Four, Wave's competitive position and potential exit options, and then fifth, we'll end with our views on its overall outlook.

This episode was recorded on May 1st, 2022. How’s it going? 

[00:00:27] Bankole Makanju: I'm good, man. First of all, why don't I have a name anymore? If I'm not going to get a name, I'd rather you just called me, I don't know what's funny, I'd rather you just called me like B money, B cash.

We’re recycle some of the old ones. B for billions. B for billions. I can go on. So that when people see me, when people see me, they know who I am, you get. 

[00:00:49] Olumide Ogunsanwo: I should actually recycle some of the former ones. We had a lot of great ones. It takes a long time to come up with that so I stopped, but it was a fan favorite. Maybe we'll bring it back. On that note… 

[00:01:02] Bankole Makanju: We are talking about Wave Mobile Money, Senegal. Not to be confused with. This was interesting for me in the research, not to be confused with SendWave, the remittances company with whom they share the same origin story, or WaveMoney, a joint venture in Myanmar owned by Telenor Group and Yoma Bank, or WaveMoney, an American product of Wave Financial, a small business banking and bookkeeping solution.

We are talking about Wave Mobile Money, Senegal. You are more of an Africa theme.  

[00:01:36] Olumide Ogunsanwo: First, shout out, shout out to Wave for having the actual domain wave.com links to this company.

Wave, consumer payments company, AKA mobile money company, AKA Francophone Africa payments company. They're basically an agency banking player. So think about them like M Pesa that we spoke about in our, in our If you're not so familiar with Africa and you're an American, think about them like PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, but they're agency banking, which means they use humans as agents, which help like many banks or many ATMs.

And your financial identity is linked with your SIM card, your phone number, not with a bank account company, not with a bank company. So that's the company we're going to talk about today. Wave Mobile Money.

[00:02:20] Bankole Makanju: The reason we're talking about them amongst others, not just because they've grown in a relatively short amount of time. They also raised a $200 million round in August 2021, which is pretty, pretty big as far as rounds go.