By Adedapo Adesanya
An investment group led by Paystack, with participation from PiggyVest, Ventures Platform, and P1 Ventures, have acquired troubled fintech, Brass.
Angel investors, Mr Oo Nwoye and Mr Olumide Soyombo, also participated in the takeover facilitated by Ventures Platform.
The co-founder and CEO, Mr Sola Akindolu and Mr Emmanuel Okeke, cofounder and CTO will leave the business. Also exiting would be Mr Tolulope Saba, the head of Product.
However, it was gathered that all other Brass employees would keep their jobs pending the time that a new leadership team would be formed by the consortium which stepped in to help the company.
Since last year, Brass has been embroiled in troubled waters which started with delays in processing customer withdrawals, raising concerns about the health of the fintech and prompting rumours of a shutdown.
In a brief statement on Tuesday seen by Business Post, it was stated that each member of the investment group will bring “several years’ worth of experience financing and building reliable financial service products, and together with a new infusion of capital.”
In a Medium post, Mr Akindolu claimed that the company saw a growth of up to N10 billion monthly within six months, but didn’t provide a timeline to ascertain whether this was in the early days of the company.
“In 12 months, we recorded astonishing growth, growing our transaction volume almost 100% month-on-month, from N400m to N10B monthly in less than 6 months, signing up 5000 businesses every month, adding more businesses than our team could onboard. Our biggest customer support issue was not responding to sign-ups quickly enough,” he wrote.
“We alongside a very small team with what we had, embarked aggressively on our roadmap, pioneered an entire fintech category, made it exciting and in a very short time, we built arguably the finest and most extensive business financial operation products on the continent today, and I am so grateful for that opportunity and to the community for their support.
“As I look back, I am incredibly proud of the work we did and its legacy. It was just beautiful. We alongside a very small team with what we had, embarked aggressively on our roadmap, pioneered an entire fintech category, made it exciting and in a very short time, we built arguably the finest and most extensive business financial operation products on the continent today, and I am so grateful for that opportunity and to the community for their support,” he quipped.
Modupe Gbadeyanka