REasy, a Cameroonian trade finance platform that offers cross-border payments, logistics, and compliance services to SME importers, has raised $1.8 million in pre-seed funding to support its West African expansion and strengthen its trade infrastructure.
Ingressive Capital, Launch Africa, and 54 Collective backed the round, with participation from Digital Africa, Christophe Chausson (Chausson Partners), Mathias Léopoldie (Julaya), and Joël Nana Kontchou (Cameroon Network Angels).
“We will use the funding to accelerate customer acquisition, strengthen our technology infrastructure, and secure new licenses in our target markets, particularly in West Africa,” said Brice Mba, Co-CEO of REasy. “Our goal is simple: to enable more African businesses to trade globally, without friction.”
The funding follows REasy’s breakthrough in developing a foreign exchange mechanism in collaboration with the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) to enable small and mid-sized businesses in Central Africa to make multi-currency cross-border payments without relying on traditional banks.
REasy’s platform directly connects African payment systems, including Orange Money, MTN Mobile Money, and bank transfers, with international methods suppliers using Alipay, WeChat Pay, and UnionPay. It also integrates customs brokerage and freight forwarding, enabling traders to complete end-to-end import transactions without navigating multiple intermediaries.
The company collects payments from clients in Central African Franc (XAF) and through its hubs in the UK, France, and Hong Kong, and helps clients settle their suppliers almost instantly after funds are received in Africa. The company added that the final foreign exchange takes place through the Central Bank channel, where XAF is converted into Euro.
“An African entrepreneur should be able to pay a foreign supplier as easily as a merchant in Europe or Asia,” said Mba. “By making these transactions frictionless, we unlock both capital and confidence for the millions of SMEs that form the backbone of Africa’s economy.”
Founded in 2023 by Mba and Mathieu Wing, rapidly joined by two co-founders, Richard Kue and Stéphane Meng, REasy was built to tackle the long-standing barriers facing African importers: high transaction costs, fraud risks, and limited access to trade finance. Its integrated trade finance app combines payments in foreign exchange, logistics, and regulatory compliance to help small businesses settle international transactions.
In 2023, Africa’s imports increased from approximately $27.6 billion in 2000 to over $600 billion, yet small and mid-sized businesses still face systemic barriers, including payment delays of up to two weeks, high transaction costs of up to 8%, and fraud risks approaching.
“Their BEAC regulatory breakthrough creates a defensible competitive moat – this is about unlocking billions in trade currently blocked by infrastructure gaps,” said Lina Kacyem, Investment Manager at Launch Africa.
The company says it already serves thousands of importers on the China-Cameroon trade corridor, which saw $3.71 billion in imports in 2023. For many of these traders, REasy has reduced settlement time from weeks to minutes.
The company’s long-term strategy focuses on expanding beyond Central Africa, starting with Nigeria, which records over $25 billion in annual imports from China. Between 2027 and 2028, it plans to tap into intra-African trade corridors through integration with the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), and later expand into South-South routes such as India–East Africa and Brazil–West Africa by 2030. It targets to serve over one million importing businesses across the continent by the end of 2030.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include all four co-founders.
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