The independent mobile money leader in Senegal has just completed the largest Series A fundraising for a fintech operating exclusively in Africa. This investment brings the value of Wave to $1.7 billion.

The $200 million Series A investment was led by Sequoia Heritage, Founders Fund, Stripe and Ribbit. Former Y-Combinator Director Sam Altman and Partech Africa, already a Wave investor, also participated. With this fundraising, Wave will also expand into new African markets, such as Uganda and Mali, and strengthen its presence in existing markets. Wave will also use this investment to strengthen its digital services offering and expand its local operations, development, engineering and sales teams. Indeed, founded in 2018, Wave provides an easy-to-use and radically affordable mobile financial service. Similar to PayPal, the app runs a network of agents who use cash to serve its users. Wave makes all deposits and withdrawals free. What's more, its users only pay a 1% transfer fee to send money, almost 70% less than telecom operators' mobile money services. Users without a smartphone benefit from a free QR card that allows anyone to make transactions at an agent.