Afrobility: Africa Tech and Business

#28: Sendwave - How the mobile remittances service scaled from Y Combinator to a $500M WorldRemit exit

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Overview: Today, we're going to talk about Sendwave - the mobile remittances service that was acquired by WorldRemit in 2020-Aug. We start with the context of African remittances, discuss Sendwave's early history, growth, acquisition by WorldRemit & end with our overall outlook. This episode was recorded on May 2nd, 2021


Companies discussed: Sendwave (Remittances), Wave (Mobile money / Consumer FinTech), WorldRemit (Zepz), Chipper Cash, Transferwise, Remitly, Western Union, MoneyGram & Safaricom


Business concepts discussed: African remittances, personal finance OS, neobanks, Market expansion entry & Consumer Fintech (WealthTech) entry strategy


Conversation highlights:

  • (01:15) - What is Sendwave and why we’re talking about it
  • (05:10) - Global Remittances context, size and trends
  • (11:30) - Remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • (21:00) - Sendwave founding and early history
  • (25:15) - Product strategy - UX, fees, disbursement speed, integrations
  • (31:12) - Fundraising - Seed, series A and expansion
  • (43:20) - WorldRemit's $500M acquisition
  • (49:40) - Bankole’s overall thoughts and outlook
  • (58:30) - Olumide’s overall thoughts and outlook
  • (1:09:38) - Recommendations and small wins


    • Olumide’s recommendations, small wins & open questions:

    • Recommendation: Software is eating the rest of the world (By Derin Adebayo): Fabulous.
    • Recommendation: The Simple Path to Wealth (JL Collins). Amazing.
    • Small win: Flew to ATL to catch-up with a friend visiting. Awesome.



      • Bankole’s recommendations, small wins & open questions:

      • Recommendation: Promising Young Woman
      • Small win: Started a garden to grow vegetables
      • Other content: Symplifi & Wave Mobile Money Engineering blog


        • We’d love to hear from you. Please email [email protected] to share feedback or propose topics you’d like to hear.


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        Afrobility: Africa Tech and BusinessBy Olumide Ogunsanwo and Bankole Makanju
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