Pan-African trade-finance startup REasy secures backing from Launch Africa, Ingressive Capital, 54 Collective and others; co-designs BEAC FX framework for small importers.
REasy’s Raise
REasy, a pan-African trade-finance platform, has raised $1.8 million in a pre-seed following a regulatory milestone. REasy co-developed with the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) the region’s first foreign-exchange mechanism tailored to importing SMEs, enabling compliant, instant international payments even for amounts below $10,000.
“Our belief is simple: an African entrepreneur should be able to pay a foreign supplier as easily as a merchant in Europe or Asia,” says Brice Mba, co-CEO of REasy.
Importers face Systemic Barriers
Small and mid-sized African importers face systemic barriers: payment delays of seven to 14 days, transaction costs of 5% to 8%, fraud risks of up to 40%, and banks rejecting transactions below $50,000, the traditional threshold for trade-finance processing. To address these issues, the BEAC framework enables compliant FX operations for SME transactions under $10,000 with real-time regulatory reporting.
Product and Rails
REasy operates an integrated platform linking African payment systems, such as Orange Money, MTN Mobile Money and bank transfers, with international methods used by suppliers, including Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay, with plans to offer licensed customs brokerage and freight forwarding through a single platform, with the goal of traceability, compliance and speed.
Traction and Corridor Focus
According to the company, “thousands of importers already use REasy to pay overseas suppliers,” noting that typical transactions often fall under the $10,000 mark. Due to its offerings, the platform has drawn interest from importers on the China–Cameroon corridor, representing $3.71 billion in imports in 2023.
Investor Line-up
Investors include Ingressive Capital, Launch Africa, 54 Collective, Digital Africa, and Techmind alongside prominent fintech angels including Christophe Chausson (Chausson Partners), Mathias Léopoldie (Julaya), Marième Diop (Dakar Network Angels), and Joël Nana Kontchou (Makoe Ventures).
The new funding will enable REasy to widen its regional presence, enhance its technological infrastructure, and reinforce its regulatory framework across major trade corridors. Its growth plan includes deeper integrations with banks and regulators, advanced compliance and risk-management tools, improved onboarding automation, and more sophisticated dashboards for merchants to manage reconciliation and documentation. At the same time, REasy aims to expand its currency options and payout channels to better align with supplier preferences in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
“REasy’s BEAC regulatory breakthrough creates a defensible competitive moat – this is about unlocking billions in trade currently blocked by infrastructure gaps,” said Lina Kacyem, investment manager at Launch Africa.
Maya Horgan Famodu, partner at Ingressive Capital said of REasy, “REasy delivers a complete solution combining ease and security for importers, while providing traceability and compliance for regulators.”
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