The Kuda journey began with what seemed like an impossible mission: To give all Africans on the planet access to the best banking services at prices they can comfortably afford.

With determination, a team of dedicated people and a lot of faith, we have taken several steps toward making that mission a reality, and this raise is intended to accelerate our progress.

In the past year, we have launched several useful features, my personal favourite being Spend+Save which has literally saved me on more than one occasion. We have also secured several progressive partnerships and delivered tens of thousands of free debit cards across Nigeria even as we continue to grow consistently in customers and transactions. We know we are not perfect yet, and our desire to continuously improve our services is a huge factor in why we raised capital.

People continue to be our greatest asset at Kuda and I cannot put a price on the great homegrown talent I have worked with to build the bank of the free. As we grow into the next phase of our journey, we will be recruiting the best people from all around the world to make sure that best-in-class knowledge is shared across the entire organisation.

I am grateful to my co-founder, Musty, and the rest of my team for their tireless commitment to making Kuda work in the way we have all pictured. Our consistent effort is only just beginning to pay off. We have come this far together and we will go even farther as a cohesive unit.

My appreciation to our backers knows no bounds. Thank you for putting your money behind our dream. We look forward to your continued support as we begin the next phase of our journey.

Finally, I am thankful for all our customers, from those who have trusted us with their money since day one to the most recent believers in our mission. You have motivated us to keep going in the face of great odds and you make our efforts worthwhile. We will keep improving to become the bank of your dreams.

We are committed to expanding our services considerably in 2021 and we will use this fresh injection of capital to fine-tune our offerings, build on recent improvements to our card production and delivery speed, and launch a product for small and medium-sized businesses.

The mission continues, and we will continue to work as hard as ever to build a bank all Africans can be proud of.