Segovia's Next Step

The best way to combat global poverty at scale is to put money directly into the hands of millions of people who have very little of it.

That’s the simple, powerful vision that Segovia CEO Michael Faye and his co-founder Paul Niehaus pitched me in 2015, and the reason I was excited to lead their Series A round with a personal impact investment from my foundation.

From their experiences building the innovative nonprofit GiveDirectly together, Michael and Paul learned how transformative money can be for people long on creativity and short on capital. (And as a venture capitalist, I know the same!) But their experiences also taught Michael and Paul how difficult it can be to move money into and around emerging markets. Together with an exceptional team, they set out to make it much easier.

Over the last four years, Segovia has made great progress in making this vision a reality. In addition, it has done so while simultaneously building both an enterprise business and a consumer payments business. Such an undertaking is not for the faint of heart, but the paths to scale in both instances were compelling — so Segovia pursued this opportunity. Now, the core infrastructure the company built is being used in a wide range of use cases, including everything from international agribusinesses working to digitize their supply chains to individual migrants sending money back to their relatives at home.

That’s why I’m excited about the deal Segovia announced this week to accelerate both its enterprise and consumer efforts.

As part of the deal, the enterprise part of Segovia’s business will be acquired by Crown Agent’s Bank, a trusted leader in emerging market payments that has both a rich history and a rapid growth trajectory. CAB and its CEO Albert Maasland are extremely well-aligned with Segovia’s vision. They bring scale, strong relationships throughout Africa, and strengths in areas such as FX and B2B payments services that will perfectly complement Segovia’s world-class tech. Michael will join CAB’s board to work with Albert to fully leverage the synergies between the two organizations.

Meanwhile, Segovia's consumer remittance team, Taptap Send, will be spun out as a separate company. This will enable it to focus on managing its own rapid growth. Taptap aims to slash the cost to individual users when sending money home. So far, so good: Taptap is establishing strong new benchmarks for remittance company growth while focusing on corridors that others have neglected. Moving forward, the team will need to navigate the challenges of explosive growth, including understanding whether and when to “blitzscale.”

I’m proud to have journeyed alongside Michael, Paul and board member Chris Schroeder, who has brought his unique experience and perspective as both a technology executive and emerging market investor and mentor. I am excited to see the next phase of growth for both organizations.