The Venture Codex

Participated · Seed · Aug 2026

Blockops Network builds blockchain infrastructure that allows banks, fintechs and payment companies to plug into blockchain rails via APIs, wallet infrastructure, and treasury management tools. Its Onchain Stacks product is focused specifically on stablecoin operations for institutional clients. The company targets institutional use cases such as cross-border settlement, treasury transfers, supplier payments, remittances, and payouts in emerging markets. Blockops reports dozens of enterprises in its pilot programme and says it has more than $100 million in potential stablecoin settlement volume in its pipeline. It is operating within Nigeria's fintech sector and is positioning itself as backend infrastructure for financial institutions rather than a consumer-facing crypto product.

Led · Equity · Jun 2026

Founded in 2022 by Kingsley Ibe and Lionel Orishane, CreditChek supplies lenders—banks, fintechs and microfinance institutions—with alternative-data credit infrastructure including products called Credit Insight (cross-border credit history) and Income Insight (an AI tool that analyses bank statements to verify income and cash flows). The company says loans underwritten using its data have exhibited default rates more than 75% lower than traditional underwriting. CreditChek generates revenue through a pay-per-use pricing model and reported processing over $60 million of loan applications for one million unique customer profiles in 2025. It has partnerships and support from organizations such as Baobab Network and Bboxx and participates in Nigeria initiatives like the DARES project. The startup is already profitable in Nigeria and is using recent funding to expand its infrastructure and partnerships into Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda to serve growing digital-lending ecosystems there.

Led · Seed · Jan 2026

GoCab is a London-based mobility and financial services company that combines ride-hailing, vehicle financing, and embedded fintech tools on a single platform. Its core product lets drivers and couriers acquire electric or traditional vehicles via Shariah-compliant, ethical financing structures, integrating repayment with their earnings. The company currently operates in five African countries, employs 120 people, and reports more than $17 million in annual recurring revenue while serving thousands of drivers. Management plans to expand into additional cities, increase the share of electric vehicles in its fleet, and roll out AI-powered credit-scoring and risk-management tools. The platform’s focus on ownership over rental aims to improve driver economics and loyalty. By linking mobility services with financial products, GoCab positions itself at the intersection of transportation and inclusive finance. The recent funding round strengthens its balance sheet with both growth equity and debt capacity to scale operations.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2025

Thunder Code is a generative AI-powered software testing platform founded by Karim Jouini and Jihed Othmani. The product uses AI "agents" to mimic human testers, surface subtle UI/UX issues, and learn from feedback to automate web application testing. The team shipped an MVP in week six and, six months in, reports paying customers and pilot programs across the U.S., Canada, France, and Tunisia. The company is headquartered in Paris and maintains an office in Tunis. Thunder Code is focused on web testing today with plans to expand into mobile, desktop, and API testing by late 2025. The startup raised $9 million in seed funding to accelerate product development and go-to-market expansion.

Led · Equity · Apr 2025

Djamo is a mobile-first neobank founded in 2020 to expand financial access across French-speaking Africa, initially focusing on Ivory Coast and recently expanding into Senegal. The app combines the accessibility of mobile money with deeper banking features such as cards, peer-to-peer transfers, savings vaults, investment products (enabled by a fintech-issued brokerage license), and salary-linked accounts. Djamo also serves small businesses with bulk payments, payment links and QR code tools, and counts roughly 10,000 merchants among its users. The company reports over 1 million customers, that more than 55% of its base are previously unbanked users, a 250-person team, and that it has processed more than $4.5 billion in transactions since launch. Revenue has grown 5x since 2022, and 25% of users pay for a premium tier; Djamo generates income from merchant fees and premium subscriptions and is exploring lending and interest-bearing savings as additional revenue streams. The startup is pursuing licenses to offer interest-bearing accounts and credit and uses a hybrid model of app services plus offline agents to reach harder-to-activate customers. Djamo is a fintech building a financial super app for underbanked consumers in Francophone Africa, offering a Visa-powered debit card, virtual accounts, a salary receipt product and an autosaving feature. Launched last year by Régis Bamba and Hassan Bourgi, the platform enables interoperability between banks and mobile money wallets, allowing transfers between bank accounts and mobile money. The app has registered over 500,000 customers (up from 90,000 in Feb 2021) and has processed over $400 million since inception. Djamo reports revenue growth of 20%–25% month-on-month and operates a freemium pricing model with $2 and $3.50 monthly premium tiers that it says are ~80% cheaper than competing bank accounts in Ivory Coast. The company says 60% of customers had never used a Visa debit card before joining and that growth has been largely organic via word of mouth. With the new funding Djamo plans to expand into two other Francophone African countries before the end of next year and to add investments and lending products. Djamo builds a mobile-first financial super app aimed at expanding affordable banking access across Francophone Africa, with a focus on better front-end experiences and faster customer service. The product offers Visa debit cards with a zero-fee tier and a premium plan around $4 per month for higher limits. Founders Hassan Bourgi and Régis Bamba designed tailored layers to serve different user needs and to enable payments for services like Amazon, Alibaba and Netflix. Djamo claims about 90,000 registered users and processes over 50,000 transactions monthly. The company raised a $350,000 pre-seed in June 2019 from private investors and later received backing from Y Combinator. Operationally, Djamo routes between payment providers to keep services running and built an in-house delivery app and agent network to deliver cards quickly. After YC, Djamo is set to participate in Visa’s Fintech Fast Track program to leverage Visa’s network for new payment experiences.