Caantin replaces call centres with voice agents and is raising $4million to scale up its AI infrastructure and expand beyond Africa. The startup, which claims to be close to $1,000,000 in monthly revenue, projects $10,000,000 in annual recurring revenues by the end 2025.
This round comes only six months after Caantin relaunched its core focus, automating high-volume operations for banks and fintechs. The startup is on its fourth attempt to find product-market fit since pivoting from the hotel sector to artificial intelligence.
It is Caantin’s first raise but its CEO’s second. He raised $2.16 for TopUp Mama a Kenyan restaurant procurement management startup.
This version of Caantin, founded in 2025 and capable of handling over one million calls per day, already counts fintechs such as Fairmoney and Carbon among its customers. Chijioke dozie, CEO of Carbon, is a Caantin investor. These financial institutions have large teams of agents who provide customer service in African markets. Each requires office space and power infrastructure, laptops, internet, and constant overhead management. Caantin believes that AI will reduce costs while increasing scale and consistency.
Njawa Mutambo is the CEO of Caantin. He told TechCabal that if these banks stop calling their borrowers, they will lose money. “But managing this operation is expensive and fragile. AI isn’t a nice-to have. It’s essential to scale. In South Africa, they charge 4 rands (2cents) per second while in Nigeria the rate is N185 (12cents) per minute. This is nine times more than what local operators charge.
Caantin targets banks and financial service firms with its voice-AI product due to their large customer bases and revenue scale. Banks account for at least 5 of the 6 positions are held by 26% of the 250 top-listed African companies . The startup’s usage based monetisation, charging based upon the volume of calls, mirrors what infrastructure providers like Paystack or Flutterwave do for Africa’s payments sector. However, Caantin builds on top of voice.
By serving banks and fintechs we are effectively hedged in a high-yielding vertical,” Mutambo stated. “We are a specialized telecoms company for financial services.” Caantin will use the funds to expand into new markets, improve its infrastructure and deepen enterprise integrations. The company is optimistic about Latin America because labour costs there are higher than in Africa and businesses face the same challenges in customer engagement as in Africa. The minimum wage for Brazil is $262 compared to Nigeria’s $46.
In Brazil, call centre labour costs are around $2 per hour. Mutambo stated that the cost of call centre labour in Nigeria is closer to 25 cents. “So, the ROI for AI in LATAM is even stronger.”
Caantin serves internet service providers and insurance companies. Recent clients include South Africa’s Africa Hosting and Kenya’s Turaco. Mark your calendars for
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