Nigerian fintech startup raises $1.3m from abroad

Forbes Business Magazine reported that ” Paystack, one of Nigeria’s most hotly anticipated tech start-ups, has just secured $1.3M Seed investment from both international and homegrown investors. The company, founded by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, initially caught the eye of industry commentators as it was one the first Nigerian tech company to be accepted into the world-famous Y Combinator progam, based in Silicon Valley. Since then, having taken Paystack through Private beta, and securing $120,000 early-stage investment from Y Combinator, Akinlade [CEO] and Olubi [CTO] have quietly been building the company, working to secure this Seed investment round, whilst also building a network of partner merchants in Nigeria, over 1,500, who are now using the platform to accept online payments.”

The statement said Paystack’s platform solved the considerable challenges of online payment transactions in Nigeria by seamlessly connecting all multi-channel payment options with merchants across the country. It allows merchants to accept payments from around the world via credit card, debit card and bank transfer on web and mobile.

Paystack is “platform agnostic”, meaning it does not favour one payment platform over another, which the company said was unique in the “very fragmented” African fintech landscape.
Merchants who sign up for Paystack can receive live payments from customers within 30 minutes of integration and the product allows for recurring billing, it added.

Launched in 2015 by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, the company runs its operations from Silicon Valley and Lagos, Nigeria. The statement said plans for the funding included building the engineering team in Lagos, expanding sales and marketing operations and accelerating product development.

Akinlade, Paystack chief executive, said: “We have built and refined a product for Africa that we hope will act as a catalyst for the continent’s online economy.“We know Africa’s digital economy has potential, many billions of dollars of potential, we simply need to unlock it and make businesses work better, faster and more effectively. Paystack will do this.”

Many Nigerian youths are making breakthroughs on technology starups and innovations. The bright side of Nigeria’s declining economy attracted Facebook founder Zuckerberg to Nigeria earlier this year.

“As Techpoint, a Nigerian tech blog, reported, more than fifteen managers and executives of Nigerian background work with and around Zuckerberg at the world’s largest social networking site, occupying a range of high-profile roles. Among the most prominent are Emeka Afigbo, who handles strategic product partnerships for Facebook in sub-Saharan Africa and Ime Archibong, Facebook’s director of strategic partnerships. Back in May, Archibong and Afigbo led a Facebook delegation to launch the company’s Free Basics—a service that aims to help more people access the internet at no cost—in Nigeria. Afigbo, in particular, is said to be one of Zuckerberg’s trusted advisers on growing the company in Africa. He’s believed to have influenced Zuckerberg’s decision to back Lagos-based coder training center Andela. Before Facebook, Afigbo and Archibong worked at Google and IBM respectively.”

credits: ANA, Forbes, Quartz