Drawing on more than 15 years of experience in fintech and telecommunications, he is a tech entrepreneur committed to revolutionizing Africa's financial sector.

DRC tech entrepreneur Fabrice Kabongolo Lukumu founded Araka, an electronic payment platform that facilitates online financial transactions with an emphasis on speed, security, and accessibility for both users and merchants.

Launched in 2019, Araka enables individuals to perform various payments and transactions through its digital platform. Users can pay bills, buy phone credit, or transfer money between different mobile money operators and banks.

The platform also offers a payment gateway (API) that merchants can integrate into their e-commerce sites to accept mobile and Visa card payments. Among its features, Araka includes a chatbot that allows all platform operations to be performed directly via WhatsApp, making the service accessible anytime, anywhere.

Lukumu holds a bachelor’s degree in international business and economics from Aston University in England, which he earned in 2008. He began his professional career in 2009 at the sports platform Sportshq as a strategic client manager.

In 2011, he joined the audit and consulting firm PwC as an auditor. Between 2012 and 2014, he worked at Helios Towers Africa, a London-based telecommunications company, where he served as both a financial manager and a senior client manager in Kinshasa. From 2019 to 2023, he was the business and product development manager at Rawbank in Kinshasa.

Melchior Koba