MFS Africa has announced that it has secured an additional $100 million in its series C extension to $200 million. The equity and debt funding was led by African investment manager Admaius Capital Partners while existing investors like AfricInvest FIVE and CommerzVentures participated.
New investors who participated in the new round are: Vitruvian Partners and AXA Investment Managers. Debt financing came from Stanbic IBTC Bank, a Lagos-based bank, and Symbiotic.
Dare Okoudjou, founder and CEO of MFS Africa, said the new funding will further accelerate MFS Africa’s expansion plans across Africa, and boost its integration into the global digital payment ecosystem, its expansion into Asia through its joint venture with LUN Partners to enable cross-border digital payments between Africa and China, and its ambitious growth plans for the BAXI network, a startup it acquired last year.
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“With this US$100 million extension of our Series C fundraise we are thrilled to have the support of world-class investors Admaius, Vitruvian and AXA IM Alts, and for the continued support of existing investors, on our journey to making borders matter less when it comes to payments.
“The strength of our business model is grounded on building a lasting digital infrastructure that unleashes and simplifies economic activities across the continent through any-to-any interoperability. Our multiple initiatives and solutions are providing access to Africans, at home and in the diaspora. We are building MFS Africa into a safe, sound, scalable and high impact pan-African payment infrastructure that will facilitate Africa’s rapidly growing commerce, both now and in the future,” he said.
TechCrunch reported that Okoudjou had made similar plans last November when the company announced its first $100 million tranche. But then, the Baxi acquisition was still pending approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
But the past six months have come with a significant change – BAXI now possesses two licenses to operate in Nigeria following the regulator’s approvals. The Payment Service Solution Provider (PSSP), which allows BAXI to build gateways that process payments for third-party merchants, and Payment Terminal Service Provider (PTSP) license, empowers BAXI to deploy its point-of-sale terminals for agency banking.
MFS Africa has been bold in its acquisition playbook for a startup. TechCrunch mentioned its purchase of U.S.-based Global Technology Partners (GTP) in a cash-and-shares deal worth $34 million. With its rapidly expanding business base that connects over 320 million mobile money wallets across 35+ African countries and 700 corridors, the Africa-focused and London-based company sees an untapped market of millions of Africans who can’t use their mobile money accounts to pay for subscription-based services run by international companies such as Netflix and Amazon. This is due to cross-border payment bottlenecks.
The acquisition of GTP, which integrates prepaid cards with a single bank account and incorporates them into its mobile payment platforms, gives MFS Africa an avenue to issue prepaid cards to its customers so they can perform these tasks — and also serve the African diaspora market in the U.S.
“The strength of our business model is grounded on building a lasting digital infrastructure that unleashes and simplifies economic activities across the continent through any-to-any interoperability,” Okoudjou said in a statement. “Our multiple initiatives and solutions are providing access to Africans, at home and in the diaspora. We are building MFS Africa into a safe, sound, scalable and high-impact pan-African payment infrastructure that will facilitate Africa’s rapidly growing commerce, both now and in the future.”