PAGA CLOSES 13M USD INVESTMENT DEAL

Paga, arguably Nigeria’s leading mobile payments company, has completed a $13 million Series B financing round. The financing was supported by Adlevo Capital, Omidyar Network, Acumen Fund, Capricorn Investment Group and Goodwell West Africa. Co-Founder and CEO of Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman, is also interested in joining the list of investors.

Founded in 2009, Paga allows users deposit money in bank accounts in Nigeria, pay bills, and top-up airtime from their mobile phones. With its service offerings tailored to suit SMEs, Paga is rather popular among merchants looking to sell their goods and services online and collect debit card or mobile money payments securely.

“We are very excited about Paga. When Adlevo first invested in Paga in 2012 the company had processed only about 270,000 transactions totaling just over $15 million in value. The company has experienced an impressive compounded annual growth rate of about 150% since Adlevo invested – today, having processed over 17 million transactions worth over a billion dollars”, said Folabi Esan, Managing Partner at Adlevo Capital.

Paga has over 3,600 SME clients and 3.4 million users for payments; offering its services through a network of over 8,850 agents across Nigeria.

Commenting on the investment deal, founder and CEO of Paga – Tayo Oviosu, had this to say: “Our recent financing will help us continue to build towards our vision and support the strengthening of our agent network. Of course, we must continue to innovate on our payment offerings for small and medium enterprises and consumers. In addition, through our agent network today, we already offer more physical service points than all the bank branches in Nigeria put together, so we are actively working on partnerships with banks to offer our agent network for use by their customers. Effectively, Paga agents will act as human ATMs and bring significant convenience to customers of the banks who need to deposit or withdraw cash from their bank accounts without traveling far or waiting in long lines. This will support the banks in achieving their critical goal of truly reaching the mass market.”

SOURCE:TECHPOINT