FOUNDER CONVERSATIONS WITH FLUNA
Fluna, a Zrosk Venture Portfolio and brand is out to become the full treasury stack for all mid-market African businesses.
It is a B2B focused ‘Treasury Software Solution’ brand that helps mid-market companies manage cashflows and unlock capital.
Fluna is founded by Miguel Sousa Dias, whose challenging experience regarding the renewal of his work permit led to an interesting reconnection and an opportunity to birth something new.
As investors, we are happy to reveal the details of this short interview by our team at Zrosk Investment Management. Enjoy.
About the Founder and CEO of Fluna.
I am Miguel Sousa Dias. I’ve spent the past five (5) years helping launch digital commercial banks and B2B SaaS digital businesses at McKinsey. Prior to that I did a short stint at the World Bank, and a few healthcare organizations. I’m passionate about building technology-enabled solutions for impactful challenges.
The big Idea Behind Fluna.
In 2020 I got kicked out of the US because I didn’t get my work visa which resulted in me moving to London and re-connecting with my university friend, Yadel. That same friend, introduced me to his former co-worker, Tomiwa, who had been lending growth capital to businesses in Africa as a form of passive income at a small scale.
At the time, I had just spent close to a year launching a digital transaction bank, and was very curious around how one could scale Tomiwa’s model.
One thing led to another, and we decided to launch ‘Fluna’ – a B2B focused ‘Treasury Software Solution’ that helps mid-market companies manage cashflows and unlock capital.
The Eureka Moment for Fluna.
We realized early on that given how underserved the mid-market space is across Africa, it was not hard to generate a healthy pipeline of initial customers who organically became referral engines to other peer companies. That customer referral model was a big validation data point in showing how we were on to something.
Choosing Partners and Teams.
We’ve been very intentional on hiring very talented people that complement our existing skills.
Given our early traction, the initial focus was hiring top-tier engineering talent to build our platform, and then focusing on building the business side of the team.
We are extremely excited by the full team we’ve now assembled and the collective passion we all have to build the future of treasury in Africa.
Scaling and Investments.
It’s been very powerful to engage with customers, capital providers and ecosystem players since each stakeholder sees our solution quite differently. Those perspectives have helped shape our roadmap and drastically improved our ability to scale.
Future Projections and Expectations for Fluna.
In a span of 5 years, we want to become the financial operating system for any mid-market African business, and serve them across the full treasury stack.
For more about Fluna, explore their website by visiting: https://www.fluna.co/