It is January 1994. Many families in Africa wake up to a typical day. There has been a light overnight drizzle, and leaves carry the scent of rain. Children head to school, and parents go to work.
In the evening, what starts as a simple day becomes unforgettable. In Cameroon, the Finance Minister appears on TV to inform citizens of the decision to devalue the CFA franc, which is pegged to the French franc. This means that 100 CFA francs, previously two French francs, would now be worth one French franc. Fourteen West and Central African countries that share the CFA franc are plunged into confusion. The cost of living skyrockets while wages remain stagnant, and individuals and families see their wealth cut by half overnight. Chaute-Diop was only a girl in Cameroon at this time.
“I looked at my dad, my hero, and I could read the pain on his face. I watched him as tears started dripping down his cheeks. What was happening? My chest felt tight like a knot, and I couldn’t breathe. In the following days, weeks and months, I was part of the despair and collective trauma as everyone I knew struggled to survive,” she recalls in a TEDx talk.
In 2020, Ejara was born out of this experience.
A new day in Francophone Africa
After graduating from school in Europe and spending ten years working in organisations, where she encountered blockchain and cryptocurrencies as a form of financial payment and investments, Chaute-Diop felt it was an opportunity for ordinary people in Central Africa to own assets without going through intermediaries.
Financial inclusion in Central Africa remains low. According to a 2021 report, it was at 32% in Central Africa, with many countries in the region having less than 20% of adults with a bank account or a formal relationship with a financial institution.
In contrast, mobile money has thrived in the region, with 60 million registered mobile money accounts and 19 million active accounts, in a population of over 60 million people.
However, mobile money is limited to basic transactions, such as sending and receiving funds with no avenue for cross-border transactions. Investment opportunities are scarce, and access to wealth-building financial tools is primarily reserved for the elite.
“People learn to trust in mobile money. But with mobile money, what they typically do is deposit money and then withdraw. But when it comes to saving and investment, there were really no offerings. So, that’s where Ejara came to fill the gap,” Chaute-Diop tells Techpoint Africa.
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She built Ejara to provide people in Francophone Africa and the diaspora with a safe investment tool against a financial downturn and potential scams. The platform is designed to give individuals and merchants control over their finances and wealth regardless of their economic backgrounds.
It offers diversified assets from local bonds with returns of 5% onwards to cryptocurrencies that are not domiciled in the local currency and ensures that a sudden currency devaluation does not affect its users.
“Before Ejara, to invest or save money into those safe bonds, you needed to have at least tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars before any banks could even propose this kind of product.
“So, we sliced them into bits of $1.5, allowing the mass market to be able to participate in this market and enjoy. Ensuring that financial freedom is not a privilege for the few, but a right for all,” Chaute-Diop tells Techpoint Africa.
Financial inclusion for women
Ejara is committed to ensuring that women have access to its financial tools. Over half of its field agents and 50% of its technical team are women.
The company relies on its majority female field agents to visit markets to start financial conversations with women. The goal is often to introduce them to a savings and investment culture via Ejara.
“Because our agents also look like these women in the markets and on the streets, they can engage in meaningful conversations and talk to them about starting to save, even if it is a bit.
“Usually, they start with $1.5 and try to withdraw the same day or the day after to see how it works. And as they do it, they build their knowledge on handling their finances, and we see them saving more and more,” Chaute-Diop tells Techpoint Africa.
In a 2024 survey of its users, Chaute-Diop found that 52% of the women who used Ejara said it was their first time saving money.
The blessing and curse of the first mover
The Cameroonian tech ecosystem is still in its infancy; in 2020, it was even more so. As the first mover, Chaute-Diop built Ejara with minimally defined pathways for fintech in the country.
“Laws generally in Africa and especially in my geography were not drawn to address the digital economy and the fintech ecosystem. So, all the time, you have to interpret laws that already exist and be comfortable with building something that doesn’t have a clear path to a license,” Chaute-Diop tells Techpoint Africa.
She also notes that while innovating in this nascent space, she had to overcome challenges specific to being a woman in tech.
“For that, it felt very lonely at the beginning. And I am happy to see that five years in, we have so many great women fintech founders in Cameroon, and they usually tell me that I played a role in that because I have been an inspiration and model,” Chaute-Diop tells Techpoint Africa.
But in all these challenges, she found a silver lining. As a first mover in that environment, she was able to participate in meaningful conversations with policymakers and contribute to enacting laws that would be the blueprint for building the ecosystem.
The future outlook
With about 250,000 active users on the platform, Ejara has raised $10 million over two rounds.
“I was very lucky that I met with some women in crypto who already did what I was trying to do and who I managed to convince to come on board. And for the second one, I think I have to hand it to my team because we really delivered and over-delivered what we promised during the seed,” Chaute-Diop tells Techpoint Africa.
Raising funds accelerated Ejara’s growth, allowing them to deploy in Central Africa, West Africa, and Europe.
“And it would never have happened at this pace if we never raised money,” Chaute-Diop says. “Raising funds was the best thing that happened to us.”
As Ejara continues to provide Francophone Africans with secure savings and investment opportunities, Chuate-Diop envisions that it will become the one-stop platform for every financial need, from savings and investments to payments and insurance.
She also wants Ejara to become a community platform equally accessible to Africans in the diaspora and in the most remote areas, where people without smartphones and an Internet connection can use it.
“I want it to be accessible to my grandmother in the village,” Chaute-Diop tells Techpoint Africa.
“I really want to see Ejara as a tool for the community. If you are an African living in Canada, the US, or Europe, you need to be able to transact on the same Ejara platform so that when you go there, you can be able to do stuff with your community.”
