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Inside Wave’s Journey: Francophone Africa’s First Unicorn

October 28, 2025

Inside Wave’s Journey: Francophone Africa’s First Unicorn

Wave Mobile Money (known as Wave) has rapidly rewritten the rules of mobile payments in West Africa.

Launched in Senegal by Americans Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk, Wave set out to fix what they saw as a broken system, mobile money run by telecom monopolies charging high fees for cumbersome USSD-based services.

Within four years, Wave dethroned incumbents like Orange Money in Senegal, smashed through regional barriers, and earned a $1.7 billion valuation.

Its story blends Silicon Valley tech ambition with local grit: an app-based platform, a sea of blue agents on motorbikes, and a fanatical focus on affordability that forced rivals to cut their fees by 80%.

This inside Wave’s journey traces Wave’s origin and evolution, funding and strategy, competitive context, social impact, and the challenges it overcame.

Disclaimer: Based on publicly available information as of October 2025 from reliable sources such as Finextra, Techcabal, African Business, IFC, Quartz, founders’ interviews, and publications.

Founding story

Wave’s origins lie in the Sendwave remittance app.

Founders Drew Durbin (CEO) and Lincoln Quirk met as roommates at Brown University and, in 2014, built Sendwave to simplify sending money from the US to East Africa.

After Sendwave was acquired by WorldRemit in 2020 for roughly $500 million, the pair turned their sights homeward. They recognized that domestic mobile payments in Francophone Africa suffered from high costs and poor user experience, a gap not addressed by M-Pesa-style wallets.

In their words, “customers can make deposits and withdrawals at physical agent locations without paying a fee, or they can use a smartphone app that takes a flat 1% cut of the money sent,” Durbin explained.

In other words, Wave was conceived as a “radically affordable” alternative to telecom-led platforms.

Wave’s pilot began around 2016, built out of the Sendwave infrastructure and team.

According to one profile, “Wave was piloted in Senegal from within the Sendwave ecosystem, but the spin-off allowed it to become an independent company focused exclusively on domestic transfers”.

The official launch took place in Senegal in early 2018, with Senegal as the beachhead market (Coura Sène, Wave’s West Africa director, confirms “we started our activities in February 2018 in Senegal”).

They rolled out an app-based service backed by a network of cash agents: customers deposit money with a local agent or via bank integration, hold it in a digital wallet, and send it to other users.

Crucially, unlike legacy services (Orange Money, Free Money, MTN Mobile Money, etc.), Wave charged no fees on cash in/out and only a flat 1% fee on peer-to-peer transfers.

This pricing, about 70% cheaper than incumbent tariffs, was made possible by building Wave’s own technology stack, from the mobile app to the agent portal and QR code cards – rather than piggybacking on telco systems.

Why were fees so high before? In Senegal and much of Francophone Africa, telecom firms held de facto monopolies on mobile money. Orange, Free (Empremdoor’s brand), and Expresso controlled the networks and charged 5 – 10% or more for transactions.

Their systems still relied on USSD codes and often ran into liquidity hiccups at agents.

Durbin and Quirk saw a market riddled with customer pain: outdated technology, opaque charges, and agents’ inconsistent cash availability.

Quirk later recalled that “the technology was out of date, the customer experience and agent liquidity were lacking,” motivating them to innovate.

By contrast, Wave’s founders envisioned a modern wallet that would democratize payments. As one investor put it, Wave aimed “to bring a modern financial network to everyone in Africa”.

Wave’s Senegal pilot delivered immediate buzz. The bright blue kiosks of Wave began popping up in Dakar and towns across the country, signalling a new player.

Early user adoption was rapid. Within a few years, Wave grew to millions of users in Senegal alone. Wave’s own estimates put 4 – 6 million active users in Senegal, roughly half the adult population.

By mid-2023, Wave claimed over 6 million users (75% of Senegal’s adults) and, in six countries (Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali, Gambia, Uganda), over 10 million users.

Growth accelerated after Wave introduced free deposits/withdrawals and the 1% rule from the start, effectively undercutting incumbents’ prices by 70 – 90%. (At one point, Senegalese activists even staged rallies shouting that Wave was “crushing monopolies and bringing down costs.”)

Building trust in cash-centric communities was critical. Wave opened local offices with Senegalese and regional leadership.

It partnered with banks – initially UBA (Nigeria-based) and Ecobank – to anchor its operations in the regulated financial system.

Until 2022, Wave operated under these bank e-money licenses, but it spent several years working with regulators.

In April 2022, Wave won a groundbreaking Electronic Money Institution license from the BCEAO (West Africa’s central bank), becoming “the first non-banking structure, non-telecommunications operator, to be granted [an e-money] license” in the WAEMU zone.

This gave Wave direct regulatory status, freeing it from dependence on partner banks.

Wave also localized aggressively. Its app and materials were translated into local languages (Wolof, French, etc.) and dialects to reach rural and non-literate users.

Crucially, Wave deployed squads of “digital ambassadors” – young tech-savvy Senegalese – who roved markets and neighborhoods explaining how to use the system.

As Sène explained, “We have teams of young people who go out into the field to explain to customers how to use Wave. They go out to market with vendors, artisans, and informal shopkeepers to describe the product.”

These teams demonstrated the QR code card and app in person, bridging the gap for people who mistrusted digital finance.

Early milestones

Key early milestones included the rollout of QR-code cards and USSD. Recognizing that many Senegalese use basic phones, Wave issued free QR cards that store a customer’s account information as a barcode.

Customers simply present the Wave card at an agent; the agent scans it and enters the transaction with their own Wave app or interface. (Wave also added a USSD fallback so even simple phones can dial codes to use the service.)

By mid-2019, the app had over a million downloads, and Wave regularly surfaced in headlines. In Côte d’Ivoire, Wave launched in 2021 after tightening its model in Senegal, quickly capturing market share and forcing Orange Ivory Coast and MTN to slash fees.

Other innovations included free bill payments and Airtime top-ups; Wave absorbed the telcos’ airtime fees instead of passing them to customers, even when that drew protests from telecom operators.

By the end of 2021, Wave had firmly established itself in Senegal, with an agent network sprawling across every region (estimates later cited 150,000+ agents in West Africa).

Signage and branding helped visibility: bright sky-blue kiosks and even brand‑logo motorbikes have become a common sight.

Funding history & investors

Wave’s funding journey has been as rapid as its growth. The founders initially financed Wave’s Senegal pilot with a modest $13.8 million in seed funding (reported as “just $13.8 million since its creation” before Series A).

Early backers included Partech Africa, a key seed investor, and impact funds through the IFC. Notably, IFC committed $5 million as part of the 2021 Series A (co-investing alongside Partech).

The decisive wave of capital came in September 2021, when Wave closed a $200 million Series A round at a $1.7 billion valuation.

This was, at the time, the largest Series A ever raised by an African startup.

The round was led by heavyweights – Sequoia Heritage (Sequoia’s evergreen fund), Founders Fund (Peter Thiel’s firm), Stripe (the payments giant, which had recently expanded into Africa), and Ribbit Capital – with participation from Partech Africa and Sam Altman (ex-Y Combinator, then OpenAI CEO).

IFC’s press release noted that this financing package included $25 million in direct loans from IFC and €65 million of B-loans syndicate from impact investors like Symbiotics, BlueOrchard, responsAbility, Lendable, Finnfund and Norfund.

Investors were drawn by Wave’s mission and metrics. Sam Altman lauded Wave for “solving the root problem with financial services in Africa by making it easy and affordable for anyone to save and send money”.

Partech’s Tidjane Dème said Wave had “great product design, stellar execution, and a strong financial trajectory,” making it “the first unicorn from Senegal”.

Sequoia’s interest (via Heritage) and Stripe’s participation signalled that global tech investors now saw African mobile money as a major market, especially in under-penetrated Francophone countries.

Indeed, Wave’s valuation at $1.7 billion in 2021 (unicorn status) underscored investor confidence in its low-fee model and growth prospects.

How Wave deployed these funds

The company has emphasized scale and market expansion. A key priority was growing the agent network and customer base, building more “blue kiosks” on every street corner and recruiting tens of thousands of agents.

Funds also went into enhancing the product and technology: further developing the mobile apps, QR-code infrastructure, USSD support, and fraud/compliance systems.

With a regional team headcount (reaching ~800) already large, Wave invested heavily in hiring product, engineering and business teams across Senegal, Ivory Coast, and beyond.

Geographic expansion was another clear use of capital. After Senegal, Wave used Series A funds to turbocharge its rollout in Côte d’Ivoire (launched late 2021), and to lay groundwork in Burkina Faso, Mali and Uganda (authorities gave Wave clearance in those countries).

In mid-2022, IFC noted the Series A was explicitly intended to “substantially grow [Wave’s] operations in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, deepen its product offering, and expand its customer base”.

More recently, the company has signaled plans for Cameroon (authorised in June 2025 via a deal with Commercial Bank Cameroon) and, as 2025 draws on, dreams of other Francophone markets if regulations allow.

Operating capital and infrastructure were also on the agenda. In June 2025, Wave secured a $137 million debt facility led by Rand Merchant Bank and development finance institutions (BII, Finnfund, Norfund).

This debt is earmarked for “working capital” – essentially fueling cash liquidity for agents and broadening services in existing markets.

CEO Durbin hailed the debt raise as enabling Wave to deliver “the best possible product at the lowest possible price” to more people. After this round, Wave had raised over $300 million in total financing.

Importantly, Wave is now also moving toward owning banking infrastructure.

In 2025, the company incorporated an Ivorian bank – Wave Bank Africa S.A. with €35 million (CFA20 billion) in capital.

This move, funded partly by Wave’s treasury, aims to secure a formal banking license for taking deposits and making loans.

Investors expect Wave to use that license to expand into savings and credit products, thereby improving unit economics beyond the razor-thin 1% transfer fee model.

Wave funding timeline

Date	Funding Round	Amount Raised	Key Investors	Purpose / Use of Funds
Pre-2021	Seed / Early Capital	$13.8 million	Partech Africa, early angel investors	Pilot in Senegal, initial team and tech buildout
Sept 2021	Series A	$200 million	Sequoia Heritage, Founders Fund, Stripe, Ribbit Capital, Partech, Sam Altman	Scale in Senegal, expand to Côte d’Ivoire, tech and agent network development, regulatory groundwork
Sept 2021	IFC Commitment (within Series A)	$5 million (equity) + $25 million (direct loan) + €65 million (syndicated loans)	IFC, Symbiotics, BlueOrchard, responsAbility, Lendable, Finnfund, Norfund	Geographic expansion, deeper product stack, agent liquidity, working capital
June 2025	Debt Facility	$137 million (approx.)	Rand Merchant Bank, BII, Finnfund, Norfund, Lendable (debt financiers)	Agent float and working capital, regional growth support
Mid–2025	Capitalization for Wave Bank Africa S.A.	€35 million (CFA 20 billion)	Internal capital from Wave’s treasury	Launch of regulated banking entity in Côte d’Ivoire; expansion into savings, credit, compliance infrastructure

Growth strategies used by Wave

Wave’s meteoric growth rests on several deliberate strategies – often described by the founders as a “playbook” – that shattered industry norms:

1. Radical affordability

Wave’s cornerstone is transparent, ultra-low fees. From day one, deposits and cash-outs at Wave agents have been free.

Money transfers between individuals incur only a flat 1% fee – roughly 70–90% lower than what incumbents charged. (Wave even passes additional bill-payment fees onto the vendor rather than the user.)

CEO Durbin says they were “relentlessly focused on building mobile money that’s easy-to-use and radically affordable”.

This pricing strategy won public favor and forced competitors to match prices: within months of Wave’s entry, Orange Money and MTN Money cut their standard P2P fees to 1% in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

Surveys show that before Wave, Senegalese often paid 6–10% per transfer; one architect in Côte d’Ivoire noted, “We were paying fees between 6 and 10%… However, when Wave entered the scene everything changed.”.

2. Mass agent network

Wave aggressively built a dense, decentralized network of cash agents. These are ordinary businesses (shops, kiosks, or mobile vendor stands) equipped to handle Wave deposits and withdrawals.

By mid-2025, Wave boasted over 150,000 agents across West Africa, each emblazoned with Wave’s signature blue. The agents are often young people, some navigating Dakar on Wave-branded motorbikes or carts, ensuring even remote communities have access points.

Wave’s executives stress that this agent-driven model was key to building trust: agents educate users on the spot and guarantee cash liquidity.

(Notably, Wave absorbs the agent commission; users pay none on cash-in/out, which lowers agents’ revenue per transaction but drives volumes and customer traffic.)

3. Distinctive branding

Visibility has been part of Wave’s approach. Its bright blue color scheme stands out on street corners and in adverts. Early marketing showed everyday people using the app, emphasizing simplicity and savings.

The company’s logo and campaigns often framed Wave as the “people’s mobile money,” contrasting it with old guard brands.

One anecdote, couriers wearing Wave jerseys on motorbikes delivering cash to rural agents became a familiar sight, signaling a new kind of fintech mobility.

While we do not have a formal citation for the motorbikes, media coverage frequently highlights Wave’s street-level presence (agents, pop-up kiosks, and vibrant branding) as a factor in customer uptake.

Indeed, a Rest of World profile noted that Wave has tried to “copy Amazon’s playbook” by focusing on distribution and accessibility.

4. Local tailoring

Understanding local context has been a priority. Wave localized its product by supporting Wolof and other local languages in addition to French, and by allowing users to register with IDs common in Senegal.

Customer support is staffed with Senegalese agents who speak local dialects.

The company also embedded itself in informal economic networks: sales teams penetrated weekly markets and artisan fairs to train merchants, and Wave offered small incentives for early users (like free SIM swaps or branded cash vouchers) to encourage trial.

Coura Sène emphasizes that Wave pitched its service to both urban professionals and rural vendors:

“Our services allow people to send and receive money, pay bills and securely make purchases… tailored to a wide range of customers… rural communities as well as urban centers, the more educated as well as the less-educated groups, the young and technology-savvy as well as those that are not”.

5. Technology mix: app, QR card, and USSD

Wave’s core is a smartphone app, but it has consciously bridged the digital divide. Every customer, even with a feature phone, gets a free QR-code card that represents their account.

Any Wave agent can scan this card to credit or debit the account. In this way, Wave sidesteps smartphone limitations: even unbanked, illiterate individuals can pay by handing over a card to a merchant.

Behind the scenes, the app also supports USSD dialing, so basic phones can dial codes to check balance or send money when the internet is spotty. This multi-channel strategy ensures broad reach.

As one Wave user noted, QR scanning “is easier to carry out transactions. We still have a huge population that cannot read and write. Dialing USSD codes… was difficult for many.

My mother… used to send her grandchildren to do her mobile money transfers, but now she takes her plastic card and goes to the agent to carry out transactions”.

6. Partnerships and regulation

While Wave defined itself as a non-telco player, it nonetheless sought cooperation with key institutions. It formed partnerships with banks for compliance (the UBA/Ecobank tie-ups at launch) and pursued a regional license.

By securing a direct e-money license from the BCEAO in 2022, Wave positioned itself as a regulated institution rather than a fringe startup.

It has also worked with local governments for public services: for example, Wave won a contract with Dakar Mobilité to implement Senegal’s first city-wide e-ticketing system (allowing passengers to pay bus fares with Wave).

Such moves deepen Wave’s ecosystem integration beyond peer-to-peer transfers.

7. Brand as challenger

From the outset, Wave consciously marketed itself as the underdog taking on telecom giants. Its narrative – “bring Africa the first cashless continent”, resonated with public frustration.

Senegalese consumers, who once boycotted Orange for high fees, embraced Wave as a rebel champion. Media profiles (Quartz, TechCabal, African Business, etc.) cast Wave as a “digital payments rebel” that “dethroned Orange Money”.

This positioning generated free PR and a grass-roots vibe: customers saw Wave not just as a product, but as a movement lowering the cost of living.

One local activist even declared during a 2022 protest, “We want to see more of this, where newcomers crush monopolies and bring down the costs of goods and services to the delight of all”.

Competition in Francophone Africa’s mobile money ecosystem

Before Wave arrived, the Francophone West African mobile-money landscape was dominated by telecom carriers and a few long-standing players.

In Senegal, for example, Orange (via Orange Money) is the incumbent with roughly 50% mobile market share, followed by Free (Empremdoor’s Free Money) at about 25%, and Expresso Telecom’s e-Money service.

All three offered mobile wallets, often linking only within their own subscriber bases. Likewise, in Côte d’Ivoire, Orange and MTN each ran mobile-money products with double-digit fees.

These telcos had sprawling coverage but had little incentive to lower prices. As one analyst noted, “these fees happened to be the standard across the region”, meaning Orange and MTN were charging 5 – 10% everywhere.

Emerging fintechs also existed.

In Senegal, services like Wari Money (Free Money’s parent Wari), Wizall, and bank-linked wallets provided alternatives, but on a much smaller scale. Across WAEMU, startups like Wari (Senegal) and MoneyZob (Mali) had limited reach.

None approached Wave’s footprint. In East Africa, solutions like Flutterwave or Safaricom’s M-Pesa operated, but currency differences and markets separate them from Wave’s primary zone (WAEMU).

What made Wave stand out

1. Fee structure and UX

Wave’s 1% flat fee and zero-fee deposits/withdrawals undercut every competitor by miles.

Incumbents watching their margins evaporate had to react. Within months of Wave’s launch, Orange Money in Senegal and Ivory Coast slashed its transfer and bill-payment fees to match Wave’s level.

In Burkina Faso and Mali, MFIs and rival operators similarly had to rethink pricing.

MTN in Côte d’Ivoire eventually removed withdrawal fees entirely, and Orange in Cameroon set P2P transfers to zero, effectively nullifying Wave’s price advantage.

2. Accessibility

Whereas telecom wallets often required SIM cards with that network (and sometimes a linked bank account for larger transfers), Wave accounts are independent and use QR cards or phone numbers only.

Its bright branding and agent spread gave the impression of an alternative financial system, not merely a telco service.

Customers could even use Wave to pay other networks’ bills without extra charge, which Orange and MTN forced customers to route through expensive top-ups instead.

Other fintechs also responded with regulatory and technical countermeasures.

For example, Orange Senegal reportedly suspended Wave’s ability to sell Orange airtime through the Wave app, a move Wave cried “anti-competitive”.

Regulatory bodies were called in when protests flared; some in Senegal accused the government of colluding with Orange by allowing high fees.

In response, Wave tried to negotiate with regulators and ultimately secured its own bank-level license to avoid telco intermediaries.

Meanwhile, established players lobbied for equal footing: in 2024 BCEAO implemented stringent licensing rules for all fintechs, which pushed Wave to pivot into banking (see Challenges below).

New local fintech challengers have even copied Wave’s model. Reports note that small startups in neighboring markets “copy [Wave’s] playbook” of low fees to capture customers.

While some offered similar pricing, none had Wave’s start-up funding or scale to match it immediately.

Regional strategy in this competitive context has been pragmatic. Wave focused on Francophone markets first because of currency commonality (CFA franc zone) and perhaps less competition than English-speaking giants.

For example, Nigeria’s fintech market is already saturated with bank-backed apps and robust remittance services, making entry harder.

Instead, Wave pushed into WAEMU countries (Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina, Mali) where mobile money was still regaining momentum. It recently went even beyond the CFA zone to Uganda, signaling some appetite for English markets – though growth there is still nascent.

Wave’s strategy leveraged a first-mover advantage in underserved Francophone markets, applying lessons from East Africa’s successes but adapting to local conditions.

TL;DR

Company	Key Markets in Francophone Africa	Pricing Model	Core Strengths	Weaknesses/ Challenges	Notable Strategies/ Moves
Wave	Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire (plans for Mali, Burkina Faso)	1% transfer fee; free deposits and withdrawals	Radical affordability, strong brand visibility, simple UX, agent-first network, USSD & app access	Regulatory friction (BCEAO licensing), heavy cash management, telecom lobbying, slow multi-country scaling	Agent-led onboarding, local-language interfaces, distinctive motorbike branding, digital-first but inclusive of feature phones
Orange Money	All Francophone West Africa (Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, etc.)	5 – 10% fees depending on transaction	Telecom trust, wide agent network, interoperability in some regions	Complex fee structure, slower innovation, customer service issues	Introduced mini-loans, savings, and international remittance integration
MTN Mobile Money (MoMo)	Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Benin, Guinea, etc.	3 – 5% fees	Scale, telecom integration, regional reach	Less dominance in Francophone markets, high cost perception	MoMoPay for merchants, interoperability partnerships
Free Money	Senegal	2 – 3% fees	Local telecom backing, strong data-bundle tie-ins	Limited cross-border reach, weaker brand loyalty	Leveraging telecom offers and bundling incentives
UBA Mobile Banking / Ecobank Mobile	West and Central Africa	Variable	Regulatory credibility, integrated with banking systems	Not mass-market enough, limited agent network	Integration with cross-border banking rails
Local Fintechs (e.g., Wizall, Korapay, Julaya)	Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali	1 – 3% fees	Tailored B2B services, flexibility, partnerships with NGOs	Small scale, regulatory limitations, funding constraints	Focused niche plays (B2B payments, salary distribution, social transfers)

Impact on society

Financial inclusion

Wave’s mission is explicitly to build “a modern financial network to everyone in Africa.”

In Senegal, by 2023 they estimated 75 % of adults had a Wave account. In 2022, Wave reportedly recorded 12,000 milliards CFA in transactions (~US$18-20 billion) in Senegal.

By lowering cost and increasing accessibility (via agents and QR cards), Wave helped informal merchants, rural users, women (often unbanked) get access to digital payments, transfers, and eventually broader financial services.

Economic empowerment

SMEs and informal merchants benefit from being able to receive payments digitally, move money cheaply, withdraw near them via agents, thus reducing reliance on cash, physical transport of cash, or costly transfers.

Agents themselves become micro-entrepreneurs: opening a kiosk, facilitating deposits/withdrawals, collecting fees, earning a livelihood.

Wave’s West Africa director said: “Our job is to digitize the informal sector… For example, a fish seller at the market needs to grow her business and buy supplies. How can we give her access to financing?”

Gender and youth impact

While I did not find as detailed publicly-disclosed breakdowns of women vs men users, the informal economy in Senegal and WAEMU involves many women (market traders, vendors).

By building easily accessible mobile wallets and driver-agent networks, Wave indirectly supports women’s financial access. Youth also tend to adopt mobile apps faster, so Wave’s smartphone + QR strategy helps younger users join the digital economy.

Government payments and social transfers

Wave partnered with Senegal’s government outreach: For instance the article quoted the partnership with the “Délégation Générale à l’Entrepreneuriat Rapide des Femmes et des Jeunes (DER/FJ)” enabling funding via the Wave app.

Changing public perception

Where mobile money used to be seen as expensive/telecom-only, Wave’s model shifted the narrative toward “mobile money that’s simple and cheap.”

This matters; trust and perception are huge in digital finance. Visible kiosks, low fees, and quick transfers help shift users from cash to digital.

Finally, the social impact is evident in Wave’s own workforce and hiring. In 2025, Wave has built a regional team of about 3,000 employees (recruited across Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, etc.).

Many are local tech and finance professionals, suggesting Wave has also helped grow the tech ecosystem in these countries.

As founders like to point out, Wave’s success story, becoming the first unicorn outside Nigeria/East Africa, has inspired local entrepreneurs. For example, Wave is frequently cited in conversations about building tech outside Lagos and Nairobi.

Challenges faced by Wave

Wave’s ascent has not been without turbulence. Disrupting entrenched players invited pushback and imposed new obstacles:

1. Regulatory hurdles and licenses

Initially, Wave operated under partner banks’ licenses, but to scale, it needed its own clearance.

As of early 2022, it finally obtained an e-money institution license from the BCEAO, a landmark that allowed it to issue and manage electronic money independently.

However, regulatory conditions in Francophone Africa tightened afterwards. In late 2025, the regional central bank enforced a hard deadline for all mobile-money providers to get direct payment licenses (the PI-SPI scheme).

Wave was not on the initial list of approved operators for the new instant-payments system, putting it on the back foot. To address this, Wave raised capital to establish Wave Bank Africa in Côte d’Ivoire, aiming to secure a full banking license.

This pivot, costly and time-consuming, reflects how shifting regulatory sands forced Wave to rethink its structure.

2. Telecom dominance and tactics

Incumbent operators wielded various levers to hinder Wave. In 2021, Orange Senegal blocked Wave users from buying airtime through the Wave app, a small but telling move, since airtime transactions represented upsell revenue.

Wave publicly called this “anti-competitive” and took the dispute to the regulator.

Similarly, in some markets, telco agents were instructed to prioritize their own wallets over Wave, or lobby authorities to enforce expensive transaction tariffs.

Wave’s dependence on carriers was thus a vulnerability: as one analyst noted, the Orange blockage “exposed the vulnerability of Wave… it kept it at the disposal of those it is competing with”.

On the positive side, Wave’s success has since pressured regulators to more evenly apply fee caps and to certify fintechs like Wave as legitimate financial actors.

3. Competitive fee wars

Wave’s ultra-low fees, while consumer-friendly, squeezed industry margins. Many small agent-owners – who traditionally earned commissions of 5 – 10% per transaction – saw their revenues vanish.

In Senegal, this led to intermittent protests and complaints. The Quartz team reported that “more than 20,000” mobile money agents in Senegal (and thousands more in Ivory Coast) were put under severe strain, with many agents suspending Wave service for days due to unprofitability,

One Dakar agent lamented: “Most of my friends have abandoned the business. I hope things will change but if not I will say goodbye to mobile money…”.

Wave responded by promising to review agent commissions and adjusting its system, but agents’ backlash highlighted a major challenge: how do you run a high-volume, low-margin business in a cash economy?

Wave’s answer has been to aim for extremely high transaction volumes (and cross-subsidize via bill-payment fees and potential future lending) to keep the network sustainable.

4. Operations and cash logistics

Operating over 150,000 cash agents poses logistical headaches. Agents must keep their e-wallet accounts and physical cash balanced; if one runs out of cash or e-float, service is disrupted locally.

Wave has had to build internal tools for real-time liquidity management and staff markets to rebalance cash flow.

This is a ubiquitous challenge noted by mobile money observers; agent networks often face intermittent liquidity shortages, which can frustrate users.

To mitigate this, Wave agents are encouraged to be mini-entrepreneurs (selling goods to earn revenue) to keep cash on hand.

Still, events like the agent fee protests suggest this remains an area Wave must continuously manage.

5. Funding environment

Wave raised record funding during the 2021 fintech boom, but the subsequent global downturn in tech investment posed new pressures.

African fintech funding fell sharply in 2022 – 2023, making mega-rounds rare. Despite this, Wave has proven resilient in fundraising, closing its 2025 debt round and continuing pilots.

However, the shift in sentiment likely affected exit timelines and valuations of peers. Notably, although Wave remains well-capitalized (and is even on Y Combinator’s “top-earning” list for 2023 – 2024), it has to justify sustainability.

External investors are more cautious, so Wave must demonstrate profitability sooner.

6. Regulatory uncertainty and compliance

Beyond the BCEAO, Wave operates in multiple jurisdictions (Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina, etc.), each with its own regulators and legal quirks. Ensuring compliance (KYC/AML, local taxes, consumer protection) is a non-trivial task.

For instance, Wave voluntarily disclosed tax payments to preempt government claims (one report noted Wave paid CFA30 billion in local taxes to fend off rumored special levies).

Managing cross-border interoperability is also complex; West Africa’s newer instant-payment switch (PI-SPI) initially excluded fintechs like Wave, limiting cross-border transfers.

These policy shifts and uncertainties require constant agility from Wave’s legal and regulatory team.

7. Local vs. global leadership dynamics

Building a cohesive team across cultures is itself a challenge. Wave’s founders are American, but most executives on the ground are African (e.g. Coura Sène in Senegal, Bamba Katier in Côte d’Ivoire).

Balancing global tech practices with local understanding takes effort.

There’s little public reporting on internal friction, but organizational scaling from a handful of ex-Sendwave people to thousands inevitably involves growing pains in communication, incentive structures, and corporate culture.

We do know Wave fosters local management (Senegal’s CEO is Nigerian-born Anyele Nsude, for instance) to bridge these gaps.

8. Macro-economic and infrastructure limits

Wave operates in largely cash economies. Poor road infrastructure and intermittent electricity can slow cash delivery, particularly in the rainy season.

Mobile network outages can also disrupt USSD or app functionality.

Although Wave’s QR system can work offline (agents can batch process transactions when back online), these infrastructural factors temper service quality.

On the macro side, currency risk is mitigated by WAEMU’s fixed exchange regime, but expanding beyond CFA countries would expose Wave to forex volatility.

Lessons from Wave’s journey

Wave’s journey offers rich lessons for African fintech entrepreneurs.

First, solve a real consumer problem with transparency. Wave’s breakthrough was being obvious to customers, “We only charge 1%,” contrasting with hidden telecom fees. This radical clarity built trust quickly.

Second, combine global expertise with local understanding. The American founders brought tech know-how, but they heavily leaned on Senegalese partners, languages and on-the-ground staff to tailor Wave to local behavior.

Third, embrace simplicity and customer delight. Wave eschewed overly complex products; its core service (send money cheaply) did not require accounts or paperwork. As an African Business interviewee noted, Wave’s design emphasized a “simplified customer journey” and responsive support, which was key to adoption.

Fourth, build your own rails if needed. Wave avoided relying on incumbents by building its own technology and seeking direct licenses. This full-stack approach (agent network, apps, QR cards) allowed it to scale without being held back by others’ systems.

Fifth, be prepared for pushback. When challenging monopolies, expect politicians and rivals to push back (through regulation or sabotage). Wave’s handling of Orange’s block, and its securing of a bank license, illustrate a balancing act between confrontation and accommodation. Its persistence paid off, by obtaining full regulatory recognition, Wave converted legal obstacles into strategic assets.

Conclusion

Wave began as a bold experiment by two U.S. founders who saw that domestic money movement in Africa was broken.

They built a model around ultra-low fees, strong agent networks, local adaptation and regional focus. With global capital backing, and a regulatory milestone, Wave scaled rapidly into the “unicorn” club of African fintech.

The company disrupted telecom-led incumbents, changed user expectations about cost and service, and pushed financial inclusion at scale in Francophone West Africa.

Yet the work is far from over. Sustaining profitability, managing agent liquidity, diversifying products, navigating regulation and competition, all are real challenges.

But if Wave executes well, it could become the blueprint for the next generation of African fintechs: local in reach, global in ambition, built for the many, not just the few.

For a continent where banking penetration is still low and mobile money is rapidly evolving, Wave’s story suggests that the “first million users” may soon be followed by “first million micro-merchants” and “first million savings accounts”, and that matters.

Sources: Include founder and executive interviews (African Business), investor and company press releases (Finextra and IFC), and independent journalism (Quartz and TechCabal).

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