Benjamin Fernandes

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Benjamin Fernandes is the founder and CEO of NALA, a Tanzanian-founded fintech building cross-border payment infrastructure for emerging markets. Customers in the UK, US and EU use NALA to send money to 11 African countries via mobile wallets and bank rails.

NALA's consumer remittance app is paired with Rafiki, a B2B payments platform that lets global businesses route payments into Africa through a single API. Rafiki has more recently expanded into stablecoin-enabled settlement, with MoneyGram among the partners using its rails.

Fernandes is a Stanford MBA and was the first East African founder admitted to Y Combinator, in 2019. NALA has raised more than $50M to date, including a $40M Series A in 2024 led by Acrew Capital with participation from DST Global, Norrsken22 and HOF Capital. He was previously a national television host in Tanzania before moving into fintech.