Selma Ribica
Selma Ribica is a Fintech entrepreneur and VC investor. Founder of First Circle, a venture capital fund and a global community, backing FinTech companies in key African tech hubs. A veteran of the fintech industry, Selma founded an award-winning money transfer service Lebara Money and was an early executive at M-Pesa, the pioneer mobile money service.
Previously, Selma oversaw growth for M-Pesa, scaling mobile money through geographic expansion and product innovation, expanding M-Pesa to new use cases and industries: international remittances, savings, agriculture, and setting up foundations for mobile money industry interoperability.
After moving to Tunisia in 2017, Selma helped set up AfricInvest Cathay Innovation Fund, and has been working as an advisor for global impact investors such as KfW, FMO and Jack Ma Foundation. Selma has been actively investing over the last seven years, having built a well-performing fintech portfolio, names such as Qonto, Expensya, Ilara Health, Bamboo, Valify and others.
Selma serves on boards of several fintech businesses in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Selma lived and worked in eight countries so far, speaks six languages, and is passionate about using technology to drive economic development.
