Company profile

EMTECH is empowering central banks to lead the future of finance through critical digital infrastructure that modernises monetary systems. Designed for scalability and regulatory agility, EMTECH delivers a robust, regulatory-grade suite spanning CBDCs, digital wallets, regulatory sandboxes, currency management, and real-time transaction monitoring. As advanced economies race to build instant, sovereign-grade digital money, EMTECH brings that frontier capability to emerging markets, equipping central banks to navigate an increasingly complex landscape with strengthened oversight, innovation, and compliance across the core rails of monetary policy.

Why we invested

Most financial innovation is built for markets that already work. EMTECH was built for the institutions that make the markets work.

As fintech reshaped how money moved across emerging markets, the regulators meant to govern it were being left behind. Carmelle saw that gap and built EMTECH to close it, starting not with flashy digital currency but with the unglamorous core: digitising how a central bank regulates, supervises, and, in time, issues money. We backed her to rebuild that infrastructure for the emerging markets where the technology matters most and reaches least.

What moved us was watching Carmelle do the thing almost no founder can. Central banks are the most conservative buyers on earth; paying for innovation, let alone adopting it, is a wall most companies never get over. Carmelle walks through it. On our first call she wasn’t pitching us so much as showing us how she sells – so much so that she’d sold us on a thesis we’d walked in sceptical of. That ability stems from her deep knowledge and expertise in the market.

She spent a decade at IBM and served as Deputy CFO of its blockchain division at launch. She has lived through the industry’s evolution, understands the underlying technology, and demonstrates that expertise the moment she speaks on the subject.

That conviction pulled us somewhere we rarely ever go. As a rule, we back proven ideas – and yet Carmelle had convinced us that she was the exception. We invested pre-MVP, before the market had confirmed a single thing, because one founder’s command of her space was enough to override our own playbook. It is the clearest case we have of an exceptional founder moving the needle for us.

That bet has since been validated where it matters most, with central banks in Ghana, Nigeria and the Bahamas coming on board.