# Emilian Popa

> Emilian Popa is a seed investor at Ilara Health (Nairobi) backing Financial Services and Apps. See 4 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Ilara Health](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ilara-health)
- Location: Nairobi, Kenya
- Total investments: 4
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilianpopa
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/emilianpopa
- Website: http://www.digameinvestment.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emilian.popa.75

Emilian Popa is a seed investor at Ilara Health in Nairobi focused on Financial Services and Apps. Investor and Entrepreneur with 10+ years of successful launching, fund raising, growing, and exiting more than 20 technology ventures in Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Russia. Present focus on Africa. Extensive process and strategy consulting experience with leading consulting firm in Europe, US, Africa. Joint MBA Columbia Business School /London Business School.

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Financial Services | 2 | 50% |
| Apps | 1 | 25% |
| Travel | 1 | 25% |
| Banking | 1 | 25% |
| FinTech | 1 | 25% |

12 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 1 | 25% |
| Series A | 1 | 25% |
| Series B | 1 | 25% |
| Funding Round | 1 | 25% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Egypt | 1 | 25% |
| South Africa | 1 | 25% |
| United States | 1 | 25% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 25% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Swvl | Swvl offers an app that allows customers to book fixed-rate rides on buses and vans in their network. It allows people to share a ride in a van or bus during morning and evening commutes for a fixed flat fare with no surge pricing. Through an app, one can book a ride at an affordable rate. Launched in 2017, Swvl has its headquarters in Dubai,United Arab Emirates. | $30M | Series B | Nov 22, 2018 |  |
| Curve | Curve is a banking platform that consolidates cards and accounts into one smart card and app.It allows customers to supercharge their legacy banks to the 21st century without leaving their bank or topping-up. Curve offers a host of benefits to its customers; it makes cards fee-free when spending abroad, get instant notifications andcategorization of spend, earn an instant 1% cashback at the likes of Amazon, Uber, Netflix and Sainsbury’s and Time Travel enables customers to swap spend to a different card in the app for up to two weeks after the purchase was made. Curve also offers Curve Customer Protection, a policy that covers all credit and debit card payments made via the Curve card up to £100,000, giving cardholders an extra layer of protection for disputes with merchants and any unauthorised use of their Curve card. IDC Ventures backs Curve with Fuel Venture Capital, Vulcan Capital, OneMain Financial, and Novum Capital backs Curve.Shachar Bialick, Anna Mostyn Williams, and Tom Foster-Carter established the company in London, England in 2015. | $10M | Series A | Jul 11, 2017 |  |
| MPOWER Financing | MPOWER is a US-based lender offering student loans to international students studying in the US or Canada without requiring a co-signer, collateral, or US credit history because our proprietary credit algorithm focuses on future potential.MPOWER disburses payments directly to the university on behalf of the students to pay for tuition oruniversity-sponsored services like housing, meal plans, or health insurance. Students start paying back the loan within 6 months after graduation. The loan comes with interest discounts, free personal finance education courses, credit-building, and a job placement service for the students. | $500K |  | Jun 01, 2017 |  |
| Click2Sure | We started in 2015 with the “Problem to Solve” of buying insurance as an embedded experience. Traditionally customers will buy an item in-store or online, and then try to find the appropriate insurance product, and make a decision of which is the right one to get. We took that cumbersome and inefficient process and offer the solution that improvesthe process for both customers and businesses selling insurance – with minimum friction, completing the buying process in minutes, and not hours or days. We also enable you to engage with your customer across multiple touchpoints, which advances accessibility, making the process simpler through the automation aspect. This is a huge opportunity for insurers to communicate better with customers, and deliver a clear and simple product, as well as automate many internal outdated manual administration processing |  | Seed |  |  |

4 of 4 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [1776 Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/1776-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Santander](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/banco-santander) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [BECO Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/beco-capital) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [BREEGA](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/breega-capital) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Connect Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/connect-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [DASH Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dash-ventures-2) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## About Ilara Health

VC Fund · Nairobi, Kenya

Ilara Health brings accurate and affordable diagnostics to rural Africans through miniature, AI-powered diagnostic devices that are integrated via a proprietary technology platform and distributed directly to primary care doctors.

3 contacts available at Ilara Health.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Emilian Popa | CEO & Co-founder | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/emilian-popa |
| Maximilan Mancini | Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/maximilan-mancini |
| Sameer Farooqi | COO & Co-founder | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sameer-farooqi |

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## FAQ

### What does Emilian Popa invest in?

Emilian Popa invests primarily in Financial Services, Apps and Travel startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 4 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in Egypt. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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