Wala, a San Francisco, CA-based blockchain-powered financial services platform for the unbanked and underbanked, received an equity investment from Newtown Partners.
Newtown Partners is the venture capital firm founded by Llew Claasen, the Managing Partner of Newtown Partners and also the Executive Director of the the Bitcoin Foundation, and Vinny Lingham, the Founder of mobile gift card company Gyft, sold to First Data in 2015 and Civic, a Silicon Valley-based startup that completed a $33m token sale for a digital identity management platform in July 2017.
The company intends to use the funds to continue to develop its platform.
Led by founder and CEO Tricia Martinez, Wala provides access to transactional banking, remittances, loans and insurance for the unbanked and underbanked. Wala works with specialist providers in each market they’re operational in, including banks, to offer a full suite of financial services. It has already grown its financial services community to 1 million consumers in over 100 countries.
The roll out of the platform is initially planned for emerging markets in Africa, before expanding globally.
FinSMEs
04/10/2017