NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, September 8, 2014

Cignifi, which is helping to meet the needs of more than 1 billion people worldwide who have mobile phones but no access to formal financial services, today announced the closing of a Series B funding round. The capital raise was led by existing investor Omidyar Network, a Redwood City, CA-based philanthropic investment firm, established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, with additional investments from American Express Ventures and other existing investors.

Cignifi is based in Cambridge, MA with offices in Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Accra, Ghana.

“We’re very excited to have Omidyar Network continue with Cignifi as a strategic partner and to have American Express Ventures join us as an important contributor to our growth plans,” said Jonathan Hakim, President and CEO of Cignifi. “This financing represents a major step forward for Cignifi and for our proven big data engine, which delivers credit and marketing scores for consumers using mobile phone behavior data.”