Fintech | Morocco
The finance OS for entrepreneurs, freelancers and scaling businesses
What they do:
Zazu is building the next-generation business banking platform for African entrepreneurs and SMEs. We combine a powerful online business account with invoicing, bookkeeping, cash flow management, and integrated financial tools making banking feel less like an obstacle and more like a catalyst for growth.
Their mission is to simplify financial operations for Africa’s businesses so founders can focus on building the next great companies.
Why we Invested:
Zazu operates a composable BaaS-powered architecture, partnering with regulated institutions (Chari/Bank of Africa in Morocco; Sava/Access Bank in South Africa) for licensing and infrastructure, while owning the full customer experience, product orchestration, and third-party integrations. This asset-light model enables rapid multi-market deployment.
SME prosperity in Africa is stunted by antiquated banking infrastructure. Incumbent banks offer fragmented, paper-heavy experiences: 70% of SA SMEs use personal accounts for business, 60%+ still do bookkeeping with pen and paper, 97% of payments are cash-based, and NPS scores for the Big 4 SA banks hover at 1.4–1.5/5. No African bank offers the integrated financial operating system that SMEs in Europe (Qonto, Spendesk) or the US (Mercury, Brex) take for granted.
The Founder:
Rinse Jacobs is CEO and co-founder of Zazu. He was part of the founding team at Solaris, one of Europe’s leading Banking-as-a-Service platforms, where he helped build and scale the commercial organisation during years of triple-digit growth. Over time, he led international expansion across France, Italy, and Spain, and ultimately managed a portfolio of strategic clients representing more than €100M in ARR, including brands such as Samsung, American Express, Renault, and leading fintechs like Penta (later acquired by Qonto).
Germain Bahri is co-founder and CGO of Zazu. A former professional tennis player, he began his career at the Swiss private bank UBS before joining some of Europe’s leading fintech pioneers, including Fidor Bank and Solaris, where he contributed to the launch and growth of more than 30 digital banking and fintech propositions, including Spendesk, Anytime, O2 Banking and Fidor Bank. Today, Germain combines deep fintech infrastructure expertise and strategic experience to help build the next generation of business banking for African entrepreneurs and SMEs
Active in:
South Africa and Morocco
