Prospa

Prospa is a fintech company that provides banking and financial services for small and medium-sized businesses in Africa. Its branchless banking offering includes business bank accounts enabled for transfers and bill payments, combined with business and financial management features such as invoicing, inventory management, customer management and ecommerce tools. The company positions the combined offering as an operating system for entrepreneurs rather than a standalone payments or banking product.

Founded in 2019, Prospa participated in Y Combinator's Winter 2021 batch and is listed by Y Combinator under a London, United Kingdom location with a team size of 70. Its customer base and operations are described in press coverage as Nigerian and, more broadly, African.

Founding story

The company was founded in 2019 by a team including co-founder and CEO Frederik Obasi, who has said the product was shaped by the founders' own experience building and scaling businesses and their view that payments and traditional banking cover only a fraction of what entrepreneurs need.

Business model

Prospa offers business banking accounts and adjacent software tools to SMEs, with customers signed up to a monthly subscription service.

Monthly subscription fees paid by business users, per the company's own statements reported in 2021.

Traction

As reported in September 2021, Prospa had thousands of users on its monthly subscription, users growing 35 per cent month on month, and had processed 360,000 invoices and 20,000 unique inventory items on a monthly basis.

Latest developments

In September 2021 Prospa announced a $3.8 million pre-seed round, reported as oversubscribed by 380 per cent, from Global Founders Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures and a group of angel investors.