A Nigerian fintech company has plans to expand into new markets across Sub-Saharan Africa, after receiving a USD 20 million investment.
The parent company of Nigerian e-payment company Global Accelerex has received a USD 20 million investment from private equity firm Africa Capital Alliance (ACA).
Under the agreement, the Capital Alliance Private Equity IV (CAPE IV) fund will gain three seats on the board of A ccelerex Holdings , headquartered in Mauritius, in return for the investment.
Headquartered in Lagos, Global Accelerex provides payment services to 95% of Nigeria’s banks and 90,000 merchants. The company expanded into Ghana in 2019 and the new funding will support new operations in Ivory Coast, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa in the next two years, as well as new product development.
In a statement, chief executive of Global Accelerex, Tunde Ogungbade , said: “This partnership will help Accelerex to aggressively expand into Africa and accelerate product development.”
CAPE IV has USD 567 million for investment in companies in the financial services, fast-moving consumer goods, energy, and technology, media and telecommunications sectors, as well as other emerging industries.
ACA partner Paul Kokoricha added that funding and expertise are important when scaling up fintech businesses , saying: “Accelerex’s strong business model and its agile and dynamic management team makes it the ideal African fintech group to back.”
In addition, Accelerex has purchased a majority stake in Abuja-based SLS Microfinance Bank , giving it additional capabilities in the agent banking market.
United Kingdom development finance institution CDC Group is an anchor investor in ACA’s funds, including CAPE IV, to which it invested USD 50 million in 2015.
CDC Group recently provided USD 75 million in debt finance for Nigeria-based Stanbic IBTC , a subsidiary of the South African Standard Bank .
Other recent CDC Group activities include investing USD 100 million in trade finance support through Standard Chartered and another USD 100 million through a European branch of Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation .In 2019, fintech company Cash Plus was sold to fellow Moroccan company Groupe Richbond , while in April this year, Vodafone sold M-Pesa to South African and Kenyan companies Vodacom and Safaricom .
