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Umba, an Irish fintech startup that serves micro-finance loans to markets across Africa, just raised a small seed round backed by Frontline Ventures and ACT Venture Capital, . The size of the round was .

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While this deal would usually fly under our radar due to the lack of financial disclosure, Umba is the latest confirmation of a trend we鈥檝e seen bubbling up: companies trying to tackle the issue of mobile payments in Africa. Tiernan Kennedy, co-founder of Umba, told that 鈥渢raditional banking doesn鈥檛 work in developing markets.鈥� He said that factors like poor transportation options, the lack of physical banks, and low average incomes are all 鈥渃ontributory factors to less than 40 per cent of the population having bank accounts.鈥�

While Ireland attempts to cash in on this weakness, it鈥檚 important to note that over 200 startups within Africa are making aggressive plays at streamlining e-commerce, hailing from countries like Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Kenya, .

Take Fawry, an Egyptian electronic payment and services platform that has raised $1 billion in funding. It is reportedly eyeing an IPO next year, . Capetown鈥檚 Jumo, a mobile money marketplace, has raised $91.7 million from investors like Goldman Sachs and Mastercard, according to 附近上门 data.

These startups are going against Kenya鈥檚 massive M-Pesa, a mobile payment platform that launched in 2007, and has 30 million users across 10 countries, . Companies rising to surpass this giant tend to define themselves as tackling 鈥渆merging markets.鈥� At least one, Paga, founded in 2012, is making moves: it processed 57 million transactions worth $3.6 billion, it told .

Small news like this helps big trends get on our radar (especially when it鈥檚 not in our backyard). We鈥檒l keep watching how companies in and out of the continent try to tackle Africa鈥檚 many countries and their e-commerce issues, and what startup cracks the code.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect a correct spelling of Fawry.聽