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Hey Startup Leapers 👋

This week, we’re spotlighting a founder who went from a TV studio in Tanzania to building one of the most ambitious fintechs out of Africa.

Benjamin Fernandes has lived multiple lives.

He was once the youngest national TV presenter in Tanzania. Then a scholar at Stanford GSB. Then a remittance founder with no tech background, building out of living rooms and WiFi cafes.

But he’s never stopped asking the same question:

Today, he’s the CEO of Nala - a fintech company building cross-border payments and financial infrastructure across Africa and beyond.

Their journey started in remittances.

But as they scaled, they realised: the biggest problem wasn’t the app layer. It was the underlying rails.

So they built Rafiki, Nala’s B2B payment platform powering reliable, high-speed payouts across 15+ African markets - serving other fintechs, global companies, and institutions.

Nala has raised from a16z, Bessemer, Y Combinator and a network of 60+ early believers - including Tanzanian diaspora, Stanford classmates, and ecosystem allies.

But Benjamin's story is far more than product and capital.

If you're building something out of personal pain, with limited resources, and sky-high ambition - this one is for you.

In this episode, we explore:

• How Benjamin pivoted from TV host to fintech founder (00:06:00)

• What happened when his co-founder quit a week before YC Demo Day (00:26:00)

• Why focusing on FX and reliability helped them outpace better-funded competitors (00:41:00)

• The origin of Rafiki, Nala’s infrastructure play and why B2B is now core to their growth (00:43:00)

• His reflections on faith, self-doubt, and what it really takes to build across borders (00:57:00)

….and so much more!

💎 Key Takeaways: Building World-Class Fintech on “Hard Mode”

• 1️⃣ He didn’t build for “Africa” as a market - he built for a use case with life-or-death consequences.
  
  When Benjamin pivoted into remittances, everyone told him not to.

  
  “The margins are thin. TransferWise already won. It’s a regulatory mess.”
  
  But he wasn’t chasing TAM (Total Addressable Market). He was chasing urgency.
  
  He spent weeks sitting outside churches and mosques in East London - talking to migrants sending money home.
  
  What he heard changed the course of Nala:

  • A mother’s payment to cover hospital fees failed and was delayed by 72 hours.

  • Someone paid £6 to send £20-30% in fees gone instantly.

  • People relied on trust-based agents instead of formal apps because they didn’t believe the tech would work.
    
    That last mile (the moment money must arrive) was where incumbents were failing.

  
  So Nala focused on one thing: being obsessively reliable.

  
  “We don't compete on price. We compete on the moment of need. If you need it to land at 9:03am, it lands.”
  
  That single-minded focus on reliability built their moat and later enabled them to serve institutional clients who needed exactly that.
  
  

• 2️⃣ He used consumer learnings to build infrastructure and now powers other fintechs.
  
  Rafiki, Nala’s B2B payments platform, didn’t start as a separate product.

  It emerged from pain.
  
  Benji described how Nala’s ops team was constantly battling failed transactions, unstable FX, and long payout delays.
  
  It wasn’t a UI issue - it was the rails.
  
  So they built it:
  

  • Their own FX engine, so they weren’t dependent on external providers with bad rates or latency.

  • Their own transaction routing layer, managing retries and reroutes dynamically.

  • Local compliance and licensing in 11 markets (Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, etc), with their own in-country treasury teams.
    
    They built because they had to. And now they monetise it.
    
    This is an underrated founder lesson: your internal pains may hold your next product line.
    
    If you’re spending too much time fixing something operationally - someone else probably is too.
    
    

• 3️⃣He raised from 65 friends (not VCs) when the deal fell apart.
  
  Here’s a scene no founder wants:

  • You’ve just pitched at YC Demo Day.

  • You’re one of two African founders in the batch.

  • You finally get a term sheet.

  • The VC pulls out. Cold. No explanation.
    
    That happened to Benji.
    
    His co-founder had just quit. He was solo. Visa running out. Zero margin for error.
    
    So what did he do?
    
    He went back to his network. Called everyone he knew. Even emailed a guy he met once at a wedding. He raised $900k from 65 friends and believers.
    
    That became Nala’s pre-seed round.
    
    Benji’s reflection?
    
    “It taught me to be resourceful. And to only raise what we could turn into real traction.”

• 4️⃣He views faith and mission as operational assets, not just personal beliefs.
  

  Benji speaks openly about his Christian faith and how it drives his mission.
  
  “If I die tomorrow, someone will replace me at work. But what will they remember me for?”
  
  That sense of accountability (to something bigger than ego or valuation) shapes how he hires, manages, and leads.
  
  It shows up in:

  • His obsession with impact stories (he still responds to customer WhatsApps himself)

  • His culture of humility (he starts investor decks with failures, not just wins)

  • His ability to inspire top-tier talent to move across the world for a mission
    
    When the mission is that real, you build longer-term.
    
    You inspire more loyalty. You withstand more turbulence.

Want to hear more? Dive into the full conversation on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

🎥 Get a Glimpse of the Action Below…

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Let’s keep the conversation going!

📚 Interesting Reads, Resources & Opportunities

1. Maria: The rarely admitted reasons VCs pass on deals.

2. Tech in Africa: How to Raise Your First $100K in Africa

3. Women Who Build Africa: Founders Day and Assembly

4. Open Source AI Fellowship Call 2025

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