QED Investors, a U.S. fintech-focused venture capital firm, has led a new investment in TeamApt, a Nigerian fintech that provides business payments and banking platforms. The investment was over $50 million, according to sources familiar with the matter.
“We always approach our fundraising effort opportunistically and want to make sure the market context, cash needs of the business and investor profile match our strategic growth views,” said the company’s Tosin Eniolorunda when quizzed whether the current market downturn affected the company’s Series C fundraising efforts initially planned for this year.
“Given the overarching cautious market environment, we were not in active fundraising mode. As a profitable company, we did not need the cash, but we were happy to take an opportunity to add a new high-profile investor.”
TeamApt operates one of Nigeria’s largest business payments and banking platforms and processes a $100 billion annualized run-rate transaction value via its products Moniepoint and Monnify. Moniepoint now serves 400,000 small and medium-sized businesses across Nigeria, allowing them to access various features to manage operations: working capital, business expansion loans, and business management tools such as expense management (business payments cards), accounting and book-keeping solutions and insurance.
The new financing round would help TeamApt widen its credit offerings. The company’s lending portfolio is still small as it continues to lend from the balance sheet of its microfinance bank subsidiary. But as its portfolio expands, the company plans to leverage multiple lending partnerships, including banks, development finance institutions, and securitization structures, to access debt facilities.
From: Techcrunch
