OPay Gets Fresh $400m to Raise Valuation to $2bn

By Ashemiriogwa Emmanuel

Nigeria-based fintech company, OPay, has raised fresh $400 million in its latest funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, increasing the company’s valuation to $2 billion.

The existing investors who took part in the funding round included Sequoia Capital China, Redpoint China, Source Code Capital, and Softbank Ventures Asia. It was also supported by other investors like DragonBall Capital and 3W Capital.

The round, which is actually the Fund’s first investment in an African startup, is coming three months after the fintech firm announced its plans to raise “up to $400 million at a $1.5 billion valuation” from a group of Chinese investors.

This also showed more interest in the firm from investors after OPay announced two funding rounds in 2019 — $50 million in June and a $120 million Series B in November.

This feat makes OPay the fourth Unicorn in Nigeria, joining the likes of Interswitch, Jumia and Flutterwave. It also becomes the fifth African unicorn with Fawry, the Egyptian electronic payment startup, the only non-Nigerian among them.

Speaking on the latest funding round, Opay CEO, Mr Yahui Zhou, noted that the company was focused on supporting emerging markets in reaching a faster economic development.

In his words, “We want to be the power that helps emerging markets reach a faster economic development.”

In a statement, Kentaro Matsui, a managing director at SoftBank Group Corp, said, “We believe our investment will help the company extend its offering to adjacent markets and replicate its successful business model in Egypt and other countries in the region.”

The Opera-owned fintech-oriented company said its monthly transaction volume now exceeds $3 billion, with more than 300,000 agents and over 5 million users across Nigeria.

After headwinds in diving into different segments of the Nigerian market in the past, OPay has now grown at an exponential rate by simply allowing unbanked and underbanked users in Nigeria to send, receive money and pay bills through a network of thousands of agents.