Eversend was born out of the need for a simple, convenient, and affordable way to send money to Uganda from abroad. Stone Atwine, one of the FinTech start-up cofounders, had experienced firsthand the cumbersome and expensive nature of sending money to her grandmother while working in multiple African countries. 

Western Union, the only means available to him then, took 15– 20% as commission, and then grandma needed to take a one-hour bus ride to collect the money, which she could then have to hog back home on a crowded bus. 

With Eversend, Stone Atwine and his co-founder Ronald Kasendwa hoped the nightmare of sending money back home by African expatriates would become a thing of the past. The company, launched in 2019, has since grown beyond its basic cross-border money transfers. Today, it functions as a one-stop shop for financial services, offering diverse services, from virtual cards to bill payments and stock trading, among other financial services. “The idea behind Eversend is that we’ve become more valuable to our customers because they do a lot more things in the app. As a result, giving us more revenue per user,” Stone says.

Launching in 2019, Eversend entered an already competitive marketplace dominated by giants like Flutterwave, Ukheshe, and M-Pesa. The much larger peers, however, didn’t intimidate Steve even a bit as he believed his company was offering unique services that were more complementary than competitive to the ones provided by existing companies like Flutterwave and M-Pesa. 

His company is already engaged in partnerships to drive financial inclusion in Uganda and other African countries where it has operations. Stone reveals that his company relies on the payment rails and the agents of mobile money companies like MTN, Airtel, and M-Pesa to deliver money to some of their customers for withdrawal and onboard cash into the Eversend application. 

“I believe that when one company introduces their services, it helps all the other companies in terms of adoption down the road. It’s a fight of us fighting against cash instead of us fighting against each other necessarily,” he adds. 

As the value of transactions in FinTech grows to around US$5 billion by 2025, according to an FSD Africa report, Stone believes that Eversend is well positioned to grab a market pie. “We are positioning ourselves as a leading player using STABLECOINS for cross-border business payments. But for now, we are playing the normal traditional fiat currency game and see a huge opportunity in that cross-border payments space, both for retail and business,” he says.

Eversend differentiates itself from its peers by enabling exchange in exotic currencies, essentially normally not traded against each other. “And this is where we have excelled,” Stone reveals. 

The effect to customers is a simplified and more affordable way of repatriating money home from wherever they may be on the continent. “For example, if you’re banking through traditional means and you want to send money, let’s say from Ghana to Kenya, usually what will happen is that money has to be exchanged for US dollars at very bad rates and sent to New York. Then, the dollars have to be exchanged into another local African currency. That’s the only way we can move money across Africa, which is a shame,” he says. 

Without involving the US dollar, the process becomes much simpler and significantly cheaper. “That’s one thing that we have done well, and right now, we are one of the leading foreign exchange platforms on the continent.” 

Starting with an annual transaction volume of US$800,000, Eversend has recorded rapid growth in under two years, with a transaction volume of US$230 million in 2021. Much of the company’s growth came from aggressive expansion into Ghana and Nigerian markets. Having set a solid base, Stone can only hope for more growth in the coming years. “We hope we keep growing at the same pace in the future. And if that happens, we will build a very strong and successful company.” 

Apart from hope, Stone is also working by laying the ground for expansion into new markets within and without the continent. He revealed that the company would start operations in the United States and had received the green light to operate in Canada. According to the CEO, plans are also underway for a possible launch in the UK and other European countries. 

“The idea is to serve as many Africans as possible and make it seamless for them to do any of the financial services they would like. That’s why there is a quick geographical expansion,” he elaborates. 

He adds that in the coming years, they will examine Francophone Africa, including countries like Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, and Senegal.

However, Expansion in Africa comes with challenges, which require Eversend to be innovative in its approach. “You have to hire local teams and get to understand the markets well, as each financial regulator has its own rules and regulations, and complying is difficult,” he says. 

Where approval is given, Eversend starts operations by partnering with existing regulated entities to ease the market entry process. “It’s a big challenge, but Somebody has to do it if you want the cross-border payments.

Steve highlights that Eversend doesn’t play the “old Silicon Valley game of FinTech companies or technology companies,” which is to raise as much money as possible and grow as fast as possible. Then, you can figure out revenue later. His company is rather focused on actually making money from the very beginning. 

As a FinTech, external capital injections have also come in handy, particularly in driving expansion into new markets. “In our lifetime, we’ve raised only US$1 million, and we’ve done this through venture capital and angel investors. Also, crowdfunding from some of our customers is needed to be shareholders of the business,” he adds. 

As plans for launch into new markets get underway, Eversend is eager for more capital injections. “At some point this year, we will be raising more money, especially through venture capital,, so that we can grow more rapidly.” 

More aggressive startups usually go the mergers and acquisitions way in search of growth. Stone thinks that Eversend is still a small business that is responsible for mergers and acquisitions. “Things are going well. So, we are not in a hurry to acquire. Maybe if we see a great company at a great value, we might consider it. We are being bought, and I think it’s in the very early days. We still have a lot of value to build for our shareholders, and that’s what we will do,” he concludes. 

This feature appeared in the December 2022 edition of CEO Business Africa magazine. You can access the full digital magazine HERE.