Zazu, a digital banking startup built specifically for African entrepreneurs and small businesses, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding as it steps up plans to become a pan-continental SME banking platform.
The fresh capital will be used to accelerate its rollout in South Africa and Morocco and prepare for a wider African expansion planned for 2026.
Zazu: A Banking Platform Built Only for SMEs
Unlike most digital banks that start with consumers and later add business accounts, Zazu is positioning itself from day one as a platform “built exclusively for entrepreneurs and SMEs.”
The startup is trying to create what its founders describe as a “Mercury-style” experience for African business owners – streamlined, digital-first banking designed around the daily realities of running a small company rather than around retail customers.
Zazu has already onboarded 50 SMEs in a beta phase and has more than 1,000 businesses on its waitlist, an early signal of pent-up demand for banking tools tailored to smaller firms.
Behind the company are co-founders Germain Bahri and Rinse Jacobs, both former executives at European banking-as-a-service player Solarisbank. They are combining that European fintech experience with what they describe as a deep focus on African business realities, targeting a market of an estimated 50 million underserved SMEs across the continent.
A Cap Table Stacked With Fintech Veterans
The $1 million round brings together a mix of African and European backers that reads like a who’s who of the region’s fintech ecosystem. The round is led by Plug and Play Ventures, with participation from a high-profile group of angel investors and founders.
Backers include:
- Zachariah George of Launch Africa Ventures
- Axel Peyriere, co-founder of AUTO24.africa
- Akshay Patel, founder of Paymentology
- Ismael Belkhayat, founder of Moroccan commerce startup Chari
- Sophie Guibaud, founder of Fiat Republic
- Several founding members of European fintech unicorns Qonto and Solarisbank
For a pre-seed round, that lineup gives Zazu one of the more experienced cap tables in African fintech, bringing not just capital but deep operational and regulatory know-how from multiple markets.
Early Traction: From Integrations to Recognition
Zazu is already live in South Africa and Morocco, where it has integrated with major ecosystem players including Paystack, Shopstar, and Ozow. It has also secured more than 20 partnerships with other ecosystem participants, embedding itself into the wider payment and commerce stack used by SMEs.
The young startup is beginning to attract institutional attention as well. It has:
- Been selected for the Visa Accelerator Program
- Named a finalist for KPMG Enterprise Innovator of the Year 2025
- Featured on PwC’s “Fintechs to Watch” list
These nods from global financial and professional-services firms give the company early validation as it seeks to scale beyond its first two markets.
Why South Africa and Morocco Come First
Bahri and Jacobs chose South Africa and Morocco as launch pads because of a combination of factors: fast-growing SME sectors, relatively mature fintech infrastructure, and their positions as gateways into Southern and North Africa.
Together, the two countries are home to more than 5 million SMEs and represent a combined market worth tens of billions of dollars in annual business payments.
For Zazu, they are effectively live testing grounds: if the product can be refined and scaled across these two very different but strategically central markets, the team believes it can then expand more confidently into the rest of the continent.
Seed Round and Pan-African Push
On the back of its early traction, Zazu plans to open a Seed round in early 2026, targeting a limited group of strategic investors. The goal for that upcoming raise is to fund a broader pan-African rollout and support the launch of new financial products designed around entrepreneurs’ needs.
In the near term, the newly secured $1 million gives the startup room to deepen its presence in South Africa and Morocco, grow its base beyond the current beta customers, and strengthen its ecosystem partnerships, all while refining what it hopes will become a continent-wide “business banking OS” for Africa’s millions of small and medium-sized enterprises.
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