Nigerian startups continue to score big on the international stage. The latest to join this trend is the prominent Fintech Startup, Paga, that has just received $10 million in funding from the Global Innovation Fund.
Excited to announce @mypaga $10m Series B2 led by @GlobalInnovFund. Welcome on board & looking forward to partnering on the next phase of Paga's future as we look to scale our impact beyond Nigeria and indeed Africa! #makinglifepossible #JustPagaithttps://t.co/0ceesdQ6Yy
— Tayo Oviosu (@oviosu) September 6, 2018
CEO of Paga, Tayo Oviosu made this known in a chat with TechCrunch at Disrupt San Francisco. He disclosed that the company is planning an international expansion to release its payments product in Ethiopia, Mexico, and the Philippines. And with this round of funding, Paga’s total funding goes up to $35 million.
This move would see Paga tow the path of international expansion like prominent regional and global payment processing companies such as Paypal, Alipay, and Safricom’s M-Pesa.
On his part, Tayo Oviosu said that Paga is not planning to compete with these players, but to build something that would surpass them. “Our goal is to build a global payment ecosystem across many emerging markets,” he said.
People sit in California and listen to Spotify that was developed in Sweden. And Uber started somewhere before going to different countries and figuring out local market. The team behind this business has worked globally for some of the top tech names. This platform can stand shoulder to shoulder with any payments company built somewhere else.
Founded in 2012, Paga works as a platform to transfer money, pay bills, and buy things digitally. Using its 17, 167 agents and money transfer mobile apps that further simplifies the P2P payment process from mobile devices, Paga is able to currently serve over 9 million customers in Nigeria with over 6,000 businesses as customers and have processed over 57 million transactions worth $3.6 billion.
Paga products work on iOS, Android and the increasingly accessible USSD option and have remittance partnerships with the likes of Western Union and Moneytrans; with an added service of allowing third-party integration its apps.
With a $10 million round, Paga Targets Ethiopia, Mexico & Philippines for Global Expansion https://t.co/9GjqGHcFgk
— Lagos Fintech Week : Nov 10th-13th (@FintechWeekLag) September 6, 2018
As part of the $10 million dollars round, Global Innovation partners will take a board seat. Other investors in the round include Goodwell, Adlevo, Capital, Omidyar Network and Unreasonable capital.
The recent influx of investments on the Nigerian Fintech startup scene shows that the industry is offering innovative payment solutions and growing rapidly. As a startup like Interswitch is expanding across borders and pursuing an IPO, Paystack and Flutterwave continue to gain global investments as well.
Technext Newsletter
Get the best of Africa’s daily tech to your inbox – first thing every morning.
Join the community now!
