Hizo, a fintech startup building digital infrastructure for intra-Africa remittances, has successfully closed a $100,000 Friends & Family (F&F) seed round. The funding will accelerate product development, market expansion, and the company’s bold vision of creating seamless intra-African remittance channels, enabling users to spend their local currencies across African borders.

The round, capped at $100,000 and led by a local angel investor, officially closed on June 4, 2025.

A Pan-African Vision Rooted in Local Empowerment

Hizo was founded with the goal of enabling Africans to spend their local currencies across Africa. The goal is to promote local spending across Africa minimizing the over-reliance on the USD and the difficulties that come with it.

“Most remittance platforms are externally focused, prioritising dollar inflows from the West,” said Victor Chiedu, CEO of Hizo Africa. “But Africans are sending value to each other everyday—through trade, services, and informal networks. We’re building for that real, everyday economy.”

“This funding empowers us to accelerate our vision of a truly borderless Africa. We’re not just moving money; we are uniting communities through seamless, secure digital transactions.” Said Chiedu Victor, Hizo CEO. It empowers us to accelerate our vision of a truly borderless Africa where intra-Africa spending is simplified yet effective, enabling Hizo to be better positioned to solve the problem of complete bi-directional exchange among African currencies.

Currently piloting in Nigeria, Hizo`s remittance layer allows individuals and small businesses to seamlessly move money across African countries in local currencies. The Nigerian Naira serves as the company’s first supported corridor, with planned expansion into East and West Africa in the coming quarters.

Strategic Use of Seed Capital

The newly raised capital will be deployed to scale operations and improve platform functionality in three key areas:

Enhance Platform Capabilities: Invest in Product development, technical innovation and develop user-friendly features that better cater to their rapidly increasing customer base. 

Expand Market Reach: Implement marketing strategies that drive Growth and market expansion to attract a wider audience and increase platform adoption leading to an increase in Customer acquisition and brand positioning

Provide Training and Support: Offer training resources to the team to enable operational scaling and team enhancement, helping them adapt to digital tools and improve their business operations.

Ground-Up Capital with Community Buy-In

The choice to raise through a Friends & Family round reflects Hizo Africa’s commitment to inclusive local capital and ownership. “We deliberately raised this first round from people who understand our mission and are personally aligned with our long-term impact in Africa,” the CEO noted. “It wasn’t just about capital—it was about building a community around our vision.”

This early-stage funding creates a foundation for future institutional rounds as the company targets strategic partnerships with financial service providers and mobile money operators across the continent.

Reinventing African Money Movement 

Hizo is positioning itself at the intersection of not just fintech but also cross-border remittances for Africans in Africa —two fast-growing sectors on the continent. While commerce drives local livelihoods, cross-border money movement within the continent remains a major friction point. Hizo Africa’s solution aims to solve the problem by making African currencies interoperable.

“Ultimately, we want to build a bidirectional corridor for African currencies—not just sending from Lagos to Nairobi, but also from Nairobi back to Lagos in local tender,” said the CEO. “We’re imagining a future where Africans can trade, support, and grow with one another without needing dollars as an intermediary.”

Looking Ahead

Hizo is already in talks with remittance aggregators and regional partners to accelerate cross-border wallet integrations. With the recent funding secured, the company is preparing to expand technical teams, deepen local onboarding, and test remittance flows in several additional markets by the end of 2025.

This seed round marks the beginning of what the company hopes will be a transformative journey, not for Nigerians alone but for the broader pan-African economy.

About Hizo Technology Limited**

Hizo is a Nigerian-founded fintech that enables its users spend their local currency across multiple African countries, starting with Nigeria. Hizo is committed to building digital infrastructure that makes Africa’s economies more connected, visible, and financially inclusive. We are building the first Pan-African Neo bank.

For more information, visit Hizo Africa’s website or follow @Hizohq on social media.*