Brands/Products
Tony Elumelu-Backed Redtech Ranks 32nd in FT Africa Fastest Growing Companies List
By Adedapo Adesanya
Redtech, a technology company backed by Heirs Holdings, has been named in the Financial Times (FT) Africa’s Fastest Growing Companies 2026 list.
The Tony Elumelu-backed startup ranked 32nd out of 130 high-growth companies and also secured a position among Africa’s top 15 fastest-growing fintech companies in its debut appearance on the annual FT/Statista ranking.
Produced by the FT in research partnership with Statista, the ranking identifies Africa’s fastest-growing companies based on compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in revenue between 2021 and 2024. Companies also had to meet additional criteria, including minimum revenue thresholds, independence and primarily organic growth. Redtech’s inclusion provides independent validation of its growth as an African payment infrastructure company.
The recognition comes as Redtech’s flagship platform, RedPay, continues to scale across physical and digital payment channels. Through RedPay, the company enables businesses to collect, process, confirm, reconcile, disburse, and manage funds through secure, scalable technology built for African commerce.
Last week, the company announced a rare fintech-bank-telco alliance with MTN’s mobile fintech unit and UBA, to expand cardless payment access for consumers and merchants across Nigeria.
Speaking on the development, Mr Elumelu, the Group Chairman of Heirs Holdings, said, “Africa’s next growth era will be powered by entrepreneurs, enterprises, and the infrastructure that enables them to succeed. Redtech’s recognition among Africa’s fastest-growing companies demonstrates what is possible when we invest in solutions built for Africa’s realities. Through RedPay, Redtech is helping merchants, fintechs, and financial institutions transact with greater speed, security, intelligence, and control. This is Africapitalism in action: building profitable, sustainable businesses that create prosperity across Africa.”
The numbers have also backed up Redtech’s growth. This is visible across four strategic areas, including a boost in transaction as the company processed $27 billion (N37.2 trillion) to date, more than three times the over $8.9 billion (N12 trillion) processed by the end of 2024; it has deployed 55,000 RedPay POS terminals within 16 months across merchant locations in Nigeria, supporting payment acceptance across sectors including hospitality, energy, banking, fintech, retail, utilities, and enterprise services; while its infrastructure supports payments in five UEMOA countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal.
Redtech operates with key regulatory approvals, including licences from the Central Bank of Nigeria as a Payment Terminal Service Provider (PTSP), Payment Solution Service Provider (PSSP), and Super Agent, enabling the company to provide POS, payment gateway, and agency banking services. The company also holds relevant Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) authorisation for communications-enabled value-added services.
As part of its growth roadmap, Redtech is working to expand its payment infrastructure capabilities across African markets, with a long-term ambition to support merchant collections and financial technology services in 29 African countries within the next year.
Adding his input, Mr Emmanuel Ojo, CEO of Redtech, said: “Redtech’s inclusion in the Financial Times Africa’s Fastest-Growing Companies ranking recognises the infrastructure we are building and the African businesses that rely on it every day. At Redtech, growth is not only about transaction value or market reach; it is tied to a belief that when African businesses have payment systems they can trust, they are better placed to trade, serve customers and expand with confidence.
“That is the Heirs Holdings Africapitalism philosophy in practice – private-sector execution building the rails for African prosperity. Our focus is on strengthening the infrastructure that allows businesses across the continent to collect, pay, and grow.”
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
An institutional investor, First Ally Capital, has strengthened a leading Nigerian financial technology company, Mathesis Analytics, to scale its proprietary credit decisioning infrastructure.
It made this possible by injecting fresh capital into the firm, which specialises in AI-powered credit decisioning infrastructure, an action that will directly support the growth and scaling of Mathesis’ core mission of providing the intelligence and infrastructure needed to bridge the credit gap for millions of unscored or underscored individuals across Nigeria.
With this investment, Mathesis will enable financial institutions to confidently assess and extend credit to borrowers who lack a formal credit history by leveraging an expanded pool of alternative behavioural and transactional data.
To date, Mathesis’ systems have supported more than 8 million loans for over 2 million unique borrowers in Nigeria, and the company is actively deploying its infrastructure to establish a growing pan-African footprint.
With the investment from First Ally Capital, Mathesis is well positioned to transform how the credit ecosystem operates, driving financial inclusion in partnership with lenders across the continent.
A significant barrier to credit access in Nigeria, which prides itself on being Africa’s largest economy, is data fragmentation. Borrowers frequently build positive financial behaviours across multiple digital platforms by repaying microfinance loans, saving through fintech wallets, or servicing Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) facilities.
However, under traditional credit infrastructure, these achievements remain invisible to new lenders.
Mathesis addresses this challenge through the concept of Personal Equity—the quantified expression of an individual’s financial behaviour aggregated across every institution with which they have transacted.
By translating these disparate signals into a precise, portable measure of creditworthiness, Mathesis creates a comprehensive credit identity that reflects the full breadth of a person’s financial life.
“True financial inclusion cannot be achieved in a vacuum; it requires structural collaboration in which lenders and fintech companies work as partners within the ecosystem.
“This investment from First Ally Capital validates our approach to reshaping credit infrastructure. By quantifying Personal Equity, we empower lenders to safely look beyond the constraints of formal credit histories and recognise a borrower’s true creditworthiness. This capital enables us to accelerate our pan-African expansion while maintaining the robust, institutional-grade infrastructure our partners rely on,” the chief executive of Mathesis Analytics, Winston Osuchukwu, stated.
On his part, the chief executive of First Ally Capital, Mr Ebenezer Olufowose, said, “At First Ally Capital, we pride ourselves on being a one-stop destination for financial solutions, offering a diverse portfolio of services ranging from investment banking and asset management to trusteeship, inclusive banking, and real estate.
“Our investment in Mathesis Analytics reflects our strong belief in the company’s vision and our commitment to supporting forward-thinking enterprises that deliver excellence.”
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The chief executive of Canal+ Africa, Mr David Mignot, has disclosed that MultiChoice is now fully integrated into the media group.
Mr Mignot disclosed this via a statement issued on Thursday, noting that this development marks a new phase in the evolution of one of Africa’s leading pay television operators.
He noted that the integration positions MultiChoice within a global media organisation with an extensive international footprint.
“MultiChoice is now a full subsidiary of a truly international media group operating in 70 countries. The group was founded in France, is listed in London and Johannesburg, and has a strong African presence with operations in more than 45 countries,” Mr Mignot said.
The statement underscores the scale of the combined business, highlighting Canal+’s global reach alongside its significant investments across Africa.
The completion of the transaction is expected to strengthen MultiChoice’s position in the African media and entertainment market by giving it access to the broader resources, expertise and international capabilities of the Canal+ Group, while reinforcing the group’s commitment to the continent.
MultiChoice operates across sub-Saharan Africa through platforms including DStv and GOtv, serving millions of subscribers with entertainment, sports and news content.
By Adedapo Adesanya
FoodCourt, a Nigerian cloud kitchen startup backed by Y Combinator, has suspended operations after months of unpaid salaries and mounting debts to vendors triggered a staff strike and forced the company to halt customer orders, according to a report by TechCabal.
The publication reported that customers first noticed on March 4 that they could no longer place orders through the FoodCourt app after the company disabled ordering as kitchen workers, delivery personnel and branch staff embarked on strike over unpaid wages. The company also owed outstanding payments to vendors.
By April 19, FoodCourt had temporarily shut its last operating branch after suspending activities across its Lagos and Abuja locations while seeking fresh funding and restructuring the business, according to the report.
The company’s chief executive, Mr Henry Nneji, said the decision to pause operations was not caused by a single issue but by a combination of operational, organisational and working-capital challenges.
“It’s important to clarify that the decision to pause operations wasn’t driven by one single issue. We reached a point where it became clear that continuing to patch those issues while operating wasn’t the right long-term decision,” he said.
“The objective is to build a stronger business than the one that existed before the suspension. We fully intend to bring FoodCourt back,” he added in an emailed response.
The company acknowledged outstanding obligations to employees, vendors, riders and service providers, but declined to disclose the number of affected workers or the total amount owed. It said efforts were underway to resolve the liabilities as part of its restructuring process.
It was also reported that the startup’s financial difficulties worsened after expansion into additional locations increased operating costs, while its cloud kitchen model came under pressure from rising labour, logistics, food and marketing expenses.
Despite the shutdown, Mr Nneji said FoodCourt intends to relaunch after completing its restructuring, adding that the company believes demand for its products remains strong.
Founded in 2021 by Henry Nneji and Paul Adokiye Iruene, FoodCourt operates cloud kitchens under multiple virtual restaurant brands through its consumer app. According to TechCabal, the startup had previously disclosed raising $1.7 million, delivering more than one million meals and reaching $4.3 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2024.
