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OPay’s latest round of financing values the company at over $2 billion, just three years after the company’s launch
Back in May, it was reported that Africa-focussed fintech company OPay was in talks to raise up to $400 million from new investors. Today, it has been announced that it has done just that, raising the full $400 million, with SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 among the new investors. The latest round of financing reportedly values the company at $2 billion.
OPay was founded in 2018, with the platform offering various digital services including mobility and logistics, as well as e-commerce and fintech.
While many of these various services have failed to grow at scale, the widespread adoption of its mobile money platform in Nigeria has seen the company enjoy a meteoric rise. Earlier this year, OPay’s parent company Opera claimed that the platform had seen monthly transactions increase by 4.5% in the last year, reaching over $2 billion in December 2020.
According to Bloomberg, the company’s monthly transaction volumes have grown yet further, currently exceeding $3 billion per month.
The company claims to process around 80% of bank transfers among Nigerian mobile money operators, and 20% of the country’s non-merchant point of sales transfers.
Having found such success in such a short space of time, it is perhaps unsurprising that the company’s latest round of financing has seen such success. Perhaps most notably among the new investors is SoftBank, who appear to have been motivated by OPay’s expansion into new markets, including Egypt.
“We believe our investment will help the company extend its offering to adjacent markets and replicate its successful business model in Egypt and other countries in the region,” said Kentaro Matsui, a SoftBank Group Corp. managing director and former managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, which oversees Vision Fund and Vision Fund 2.
Other investors include Sequoia Capital China, DragonBall Capital, Meituan, Redpoint China, Source Code Capital, and 3W Capital.
This is the third round of funding for the company, with OPay having previously raised around $170 million back in two rounds back 2019, primarily from Chinese investors keen to cash in on Africa’s increasing digitalisation.
In related news, Airtel Africa recently secure an additional $200 million in investment from Qatar Holding for its mobile money platform earlier this month.
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