Dealflow | February 2, 2017

What do you get when you cross Bitcoin and MPesa?

ImpactAlpha
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ImpactAlpha

Kenya’s BitPesa raised $2.5 million in financing from Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper’s Draper VC, Greycroft Partners, and numerous existing investors.

MPesa, of course, is Kenya’s wildly successful mobile money service.

BitPesa can make financial transactions, particularly international remittances, cheaper and more accessible by using bitcoins, which the service then exchanges into local currencies for deposit into bank or mobile money accounts.

The new funding will help BitPesa expand in Africa and Europe; the company currently operates in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, the DRC, the UK and Senegal.

It claims to be the cheapest way to send money between Africa and China.

Photo credit: Smartkenya.co.uk