OPay, the startup behind one of Nigeria’s leading mobile payments services, has raised $120 million in a Series B funding round joined by a host of Chinese investors.
The round – which comes on the heels of a $50 million round in June – was joined by Meituan-Dianping, DragonBall Capital, GaoRong Capital, Source Code Capital, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Bertelsmann Asia Investments, Redpoint China, IDG Capital, Sequoia Capital China and GSR Ventures.
Incubated by Norwegian-based consumer internet outfit Opera, OPay launched its agent-centric mobile payments service in August 2018, entering a market with a large unbanked population.
The firm now has a network of over 140,000 agents and transaction volumes of more than $10 million a day and has begun branching out into motorbike ridesharing and food delivery.
The new funding will be used to continue the diversification and to move into new African markets, with Ghana, South Africa and Kenya all on the agenda.
Yahui Zhou, CEO, OPay, says: “We see ourselves as a key contributor to expanding financial inclusion in Africa, and helping local businesses and workforces to thrive from opportunities created by new, digital business models.”
Earlier this month it emerged that Visa is making a $200 million stake in another Nigerian payments player, Interswitch.
