Shows
The Startup Leap PodcastHe Quit MTN to Build Africa's Biggest Fintech Empire | $300m+ Raised | Dare Okoudjou, Onafriq In this episode, we hear from Dare Okodjou, founder of Onafriq, Africa’s largest digital payments network, formerly MFS Africa. 500 million wallets across 42 countries, over $300m raised in funding. This episode is drenched in depth of experience. Perfect for founders whether early or later in their journey.Dare shares his entrepreneurial journey from working at MTN Group, leading mobile money innovations, to founding Onafriq in 2009 with the vision of making cross-border payments seamless.The conversation delves into the challenges faced in the early days, including navigating work permits and bond loan issues, assembling a team, an...
2025-05-2753 min
Building The Future Podcast#84 - Dare Okoudjou - On Fundraising, Scaling a Pan-African Payment Network and Acquiring StartupsThis season of Building the Future was made possible by MoniepointMy guest today is Dare Okoudjou, Founder & CEO of Onafriq (formerly known as MFS Africa). Dare has built a long-running startup success streak on the continent, having started the business over a decade ago to become a multimillion dollar revenue company today. Onafriq is building a “network of networks” to enable payments interoperability across the continent. After finding product-market fit, the company went through rapid expansion, completing four startup acquisitions in a two-year period (2020 - 22): Beyonic, Baxi, SimbaPay, & GTP...
2024-07-2450 min
The FlipMaking Borders Matter Less with Onafriq's Dare OkoudjouToday's guest is Dare Okoudjou, the Founder and CEO of MFS Africa, which this week has rebranded to Onafriq. The new name represents a new chapter in the company, which is a very different looking company than when we first had Dare on the show back in 2020, after their acquisition of Beyonic. Since then, they've also acquired the card issuer, GTP in the US, and the agent network Baxi in Nigeria. This current period of the African tech ecosystem is one of increased consolidation and company shutdowns amidst a fu...
2023-11-0242 min
Wharton FinTech PodcastDare Okoudjou, Founder & CEO of MFS Africa - Empowering African cross-border money transferRussell Matambo hosts Dare Okoudjou, Founder and CEO of MFS Africa, a leading Pan-African Fintech company, operating the largest digital payments hub on the continent.
They discuss how Dare’s telecom networking experience influenced is journey into Fintech, the importance of mobile money in Africa, MFS Africa's role as a connector of mobile money networks, and much more!
About Dare:
Dare is the Founder and CEO of MFS Africa, a leading Pan-African Fintech company, operating the largest digital payments hub on the continent. The MFS Africa Hub connects over 400 million mobile wallets in Africa, offering unparalleled reach into the growing Af...
2023-05-1148 min
The FlipThe Future of Work Starts with FarmingHow are jobs created? While throughout the season we're going to be looking at that question primarily through a technology and innovation lens, in this episode we're going to start by exploring this jobs question through a more traditional development and economics lens. Because as we'll see, though the future of work might be remote work or the creator economy or any other nascent categories, the future of work in Africa is also a traditional development story. And it starts with farming.4:11 - Africa's population is 1.4 billion people. It will double by 2050. Where are the jobs going...
2023-02-1631 min
Built ToughS1, EP1 - Dare Okoudjou, Founder and CEO of MFS Africa - Building a pan-African payments company"When we talk about mobile money, everybody thinks about the mobile technology and the user interface and how cool this is. Whereas the bedrock of it, the unsung heroes of mobile money, the giants on whose shoulders we are standing, are those agents across the continent," Dare Okoudjou, MFS AFrica CEO and Founder. That was Dare's response when we asked him about the biggest myth about mobile money, the payments system that Africa pioneered. As much as Dare is a techie, he cares more about people. Dare is a mission-driven CEO, who is passionate about "making borders...
2022-08-2533 min
Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS636. News: Have Apple pressed the Buy Now Pay Later nuke button?
Our expert hosts, Gwera Kiwana and Nicole Perry, are joined by some great guests to talk about the most notable fintech, financial services and banking news from the past week.
This week's guests include:
Lena Hackelöer, CEO & Founder, Brite Payments
Tim Waterman, Chief Commercial Officer, Zopa
With soundclips from:
Dare Okoudjou, Founder & CEO, MFS Africa
Daniel Kjellén, CEO and Co-Founder, Tink
Peter Lord, CEO, Codat
Myles Stephenson, Founder & Chief Executive, Modulr
We cover the following stories from the fintech and financial services space:
Apple Pay Later is the company’s take...
2022-06-1357 min
Africa Tech NewsMFS Africa To Acquire US-based GTP For $34 MillionWe frequently hear of foreign companies acquiring African companies however, we rarely hear of African companies acquiring foreign companies. Africa’s largest fintech interoperability hub, MFS Africa, will reportedly acquire US-based payments software company Global Technology Partners in a $34 million deal. MFS Africa’s acquisition of GTP will allow MFS Africa to offer its users prepaid cards, and the fintech will expand into the US. MFS Africa CEO Dare Okoudjou, says it’s mostly for international e-commerce platforms, which are not able or willing to create the user experience that will accept mobile.Become a suppor...
2022-06-1001 min
The FlipMaking Borders Matter Less - A Conversation with Dare OkoudjouAs MFS Africa announces its $100 million Series C, The Flip's Justin Norman and Sayo Folawiyo sit down for a conversation with MFS Africa's Founder and CEO, Dare Okoudjou.[02:34]- First question, on MFS Africa's recent acquisition of Baxi, and their expansion into Nigeria.[05:36] - Why Nigeria? And why now?[09:15] - On MFS Africa's expansion capabilities. [12:49] - Beyond remittances. - on trade clusters and markets.[18:05] - How does MFS Africa think about collaboration in the ecosystem while keeping the discipline to focus strictly on a B2B service? [22:26] - On sexiness and fundraising.
2021-11-1144 min
Talking Success | The Home of FintechDare Okoudjou, CEO of MFS Africa - All things FinTech, hiring talent pre-revenue in Africa, & how you know if the startup world is for youSend us a textIn this episode, we sit down with Dare Okoudjou, CEO of MFS Africa. Africa's largest mobile payments platform. Making borders matter less.Dare discusses all things FinTech, hiring talent pre-revenue in Africa, & how you know if the startup world is for you.TalentintheCloud's Website: https://talentinthecloud.io/TalentintheCloud's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talentinthecloud/Dare Okoudjou's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dokoudjou/#MFS Africa's Website: https://mfsafrica.com/Stacey Japhta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com...
2021-08-1222 min
The FlipInside the Stripe Acquisition of Paystack with Shola Akinlade & Matt HendersonOn October 15, 2020, Paystack and Stripe announced the acquisition of the former by the latter, in a deal reported to be worth over $200 million. This marks Stripe's largest acquisition to date and is an incredibly meaningful exit for the African tech ecosystem. To unpack the deal, we spoke to Shola Akinlade, Paystack's Co-founder and CEO, and Matt Henderson, Stripe's Business Lead for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. 3:43 - We start our story of the Stripe acquisition of Paystack in the Winter of 2016. Paystack becomes the first Nigerian startup to participate in Y Combinator, where Shola is introduced...
2020-12-0328 min
The FlipA Fintech Exit - Inside the MFS Africa Acquisition of BeyonicLast episode, we went on a hypothetical startup journey from idea to exit. In this episode, we go on a real one.In June of 2020, MFS Africa announced the acquisition of Beyonic. Together, the combined company of 95 employees now enables mobile money interoperability between markets and mobile network operators, and offers a suite of tools for SMEs, in 30-plus African markets. We go inside the acquisition - how it came together, why it makes sense, and what it means - both for the two companies and their stakeholders and for the ecosystem as a whole. 2:27...
2020-08-2738 min
African Tech Roundup PodcastDare Okoudjou of MFS Africa on the future of mobile money in AfricaDare Okoudjou is the CEO of MFS Africa-- a firm which specialises in “making simple and relevant financial services accessible through mobile phones across Africa”. His international consulting background and current role as overseer of MFS Africa’s business across 22 African countries inform his perspectives on what might be next for the continent’s fintech scene. In this chat with Andile Masuku, Dare factors in on a broad range of topics, including what financial services incumbents might be doing that makes them ripe for disruption, and why he reckons Africa is poised to lead the world in terms of fintech...
2016-03-2519 min
African Tech Roundup PodcastWill These FinTech Startups Disrupt Incumbents?Last week, the Standard Bank Incubator in Johannesburg played host to Nest.vc’s forum on finance and technology. The gathering formed part Nest’s monthly entrepreneurship speaker series and showcase dubbed #WhatsNext. It is the very first #WhatsNext event that Nest has hosted in Southern Africa— doing so in partnership with Standard Bank South Africa, and with support provided by iAfrikan and the African Tech Round Up. In this week’s discussion, Zimbabwean tech entrepreneur and Business Analyst Team Leader at Digital Planet, Nzwisisa Chidembo joins Andile Masuku to unpack some of the weightier insights shared by the panelist...
2016-03-2153 min