Cleva builds a banking platform that lets African individuals and businesses open U.S. dollar accounts to receive international payments. The company launched in Nigeria and requires a Bank Verification Number (BVN) and government ID for onboarding. Cleva currently generates revenue from currency swaps/exchanges and charges a 0.9% fee on deposits into USD accounts, capped at $20, and says it has seen month-on-month revenue growth of 100%. In the four months since launch it has enabled “thousands” of Nigerians to open U.S.-based accounts and is processing over $1 million in monthly payments. The founding team — Tolu Alabi and Philip Abel — bring product and engineering experience from Stripe, AWS, Amazon and Twilio, and the startup is participating in Y Combinator’s winter 2024 batch. Planned product roadmap items include USD cards, savings in U.S. assets, invoicing tools and global USD send capabilities to target Africans and the diaspora.

Total raised

$2M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Jan 2024