Nigerian Start-up Company, Paystack payment platform acquired for $200 Million

Nigerian Start-up Company, Paystack has been acquired for $200 Million Naira by Stripe as parts of plans to expand its API-based payments services into more geographies.

According to a Statement credited to the company’s CEO, Shola Akinlade explained that the deal will further give the company a lot more fuel in building out further in Nigeria and also to expand to other markets.

“Paystack was not for sale when Stripe approached us. For us, it is about the mission. I’m driven by the mission to accelerate payments on the continents, and I am convinced that stripe will help us achieve that aim faster.it is a very natural move”. Said Akinlade, Co-founder and Ezra Olubi, (CTO, Paystack).

Paystack has been on Stripe’s radar for some time prior to acquiring it. Like its U.S Counterpart, the Nigerian Startup went through Y Combinator-that was in 2016, and it was actually the first-ever start-up out of Nigeria to get into the world-famous incubator. In 2018, Stripe championed an $8 million funding round for paystack with others participating including VISA and Tencent.

A record of Stripe shows the business has made a number of investments into startup building technology in areas where Stripe has yet to move. This year, those investment have included backing an investment in universal checkout service fast and backing the Philippines-based payment platform which is called Paymongo.

Earlier this year, Stripe announced that it had picked up another $600 ,million in funding,it said one of the big reasons for the funding was to expand its API-based payments services into more geographies. Today, the company is coming out good on tht plan in the form of some M&A by acquiring Paystack, a start-up out of lagos, Nigeria which provides a quick way to integrate payments services into an online or offline transaction by way of an API which will now be referred to as Stripe of Africa.

Paystack currently has over 60,000 customers, including small business, larger corporates, fintechs, educational institutions, and online betting companies, and the plan will be for it to continue operating independently, the company said.

The term of the deal worth $200 million makes it the biggest acquisition to date coming out of Nigeria, as well as stripes biggest acquisition to date anywhere.

Stripe Co-founder and CEO, Patrick Collison said “there is an enormous opportunity. In absolute numbers, Africa may be smaller right now than other regions, but an online commerce will grow about 30% every year. And even with wider global declines, online shoppers are growing twice as fast. Stripe thinks on a longer time horizon than others because we are an infrastructure company. We are thinking of what the world will look like in 2040-2050.”

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