South African FinTech Sava Raises $2M in Pre-Seed Funding

South African FinTech Sava has raised pre-seed funding worth $2 million, which will go towards the company’s business-to-business (B2B) spending and budgeting solution, a report from Techbuild.africa said Thursday (June 30).

The company focuses on two specific business problems: Companies don’t have the tools to manage expenses and business owners and employees spend too much time on recordkeeping and reconciliations.

The report said the founders started the company because of problems they experienced in their previous businesses.

CEO Yoeal Haile says the spend management approach the company uses helps businesses of various sizes get tools to run a financial operating system in the background.

The report noted that banks have been reluctant to lend, especially in Africa, so it’s often hard to assist and underwrite smaller enterprises. That has led to businesses being turned away, which in turn leads to the credit gap that has been worsening every year.

Sava says its software will integrate bank accounts, mobile wallets, payments and accounting. Haile has also said the company intends to issue credit cards to clients’ employees.

The round sees participation from investors including Quona Capital, Breega, CRE Ventures, Ingressive Capital, RaliCap, Unicorn Growth Capital, and Sherpa Ventures.

See also: Proxtera Debuts Financial Education for MSMEs in Asia, Africa

There have been many efforts to help out startups in Africa, including Proxtera’s work with various entities on financial education programs for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in that region.

The initiative will see Proxtera teaming with the Monetary Authority of Singapore, The International Finance Corporation and the United Nations Development Programme, on new programs to build financial literacy skills for the digital world.

According to Saurav Bhattacharyya, CEO of Proxtera, the program “stays true to our mission of supporting MSMEs, by upskilling them to understand financial services and how best to tap into the digital marketplace effectively and globally.”