Nigerian Fintech Companies, OnePipe, Payhippo Get N2.67bn from Foreign Investors to Expand their Products
- Nigerian Fintech firms have received over N2 billion in funding from investors to help them grow their operations
- OnePipe will receive N1.44 billion, while N1.23 billion will go to Payhippo as investors continue to express confidence in the Nigerian tech sector
- In the first 10 months in 2021, foreign investors stake N412bn direct investment on 35 Nigerian startups
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OnePipe and Payhippo, two Nigerian financial technology companies, have received considerable money from overseas investors in order to expand their services.
OnePipe got $3.5 million in seed funding (N1.44 billion) to expand its embedded finance service, while Payhippo received $3 million (N1.23 billion).
For OnePipe, the funding was co-led by Atlantica Ventures, Tribe Capital, and V&R associates. Other participants in this round include Canaan Partners, Saison Capital, Norrsken, The Fund, Two Culture Cap, Chris Adelsbach, Techstars, Ingressive Capital, Acquity, P1, Raba, and DFS Lab alongside a few angel investors.
Source: Facebook
OnePipe's founder, Ope Adeoye, describes service embedded finance as the seamless integration of financial services into a typically non-financial business.
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He explains further on its service:
"Through our embeded service, OnePipe partners with non-financial institutions to help them launch and cross-sell a variety of financial services such as credit, accounts, and payments.
"When we started the company in 2018, our objective was to serve as an API platform for open banking but owing to low demand, it shifted to embedded finance. But will switched business model to embedded finance."
Adeoye told TechCrunch that since switching to embedded services, the firm has completed over 6.3 million transactions, totalling $46.3 million.
He stated that these figures come from over a million individual accounts and 138 different businesses, ranging from FMCG and retail to finance and agriculture.
Payhippo also gets foreign investors backing
For Payhippo, a digital lending company, the $3 million (N1.23 billion) investment secured will help in sourcing the talent required to optimize its technology.
Payhippo co-founder and chief operations officer Chioma Okotcha confirms this recruiting plan, prioritizing engineers and data scientists.
Source: Facebook
She said:
“We capture our data from the loans we issue, and more talent in the team would allow us to optimize our technology to serve our customers better.
The company has disbursed about 5,000 loans since inception, valued at $1 million and with a repayment rate of 97%, earning them $64,000 in revenues.
"The demand for credit is high, fueling its current 25% month-on-month growth and we are really focus on keeping this under three hours, and making sure that businesses can get the money they need when they need it. Ours is also a product that works for the SMEs in terms of a flexible repayment structure.”
Payhippo funding is coming from Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled, the co-founders of the African cross-border payments company Chipper Cash; Olugbenga Agboola of the San-Francisco based payments firm Flutterwave; Bolaji Balogun, the CEO of investment banking firm Chapel Hill Denham; and Hakeem Belo-Osagie, the founder of Metis Capital Partners.
Three Nigerians, Ikenna, Chidi, Oghenetega Get N197.7m
Meanwhile, three young Nigerians recently won nearly half a million dollars from Chinese billionaire, Jack Ma.
Legit.ng reported that the funds were given to startups across Africa that set out to solve major problems within their countries.
Among the 10 finalists listed, Nigeria's Ikenna Nzewi came 2nd as Jack Ma foundation disclosed over 12,000 applications were submitted.
Source: Legit.ng
