Stanbic Bank Backs African Fintech Startup MFS Africa In New $100M Funding Round
MFS Africa, a pan-African digital payments network, has raised $100 million in equity and debt capital to bolster its previously received $200 million Series C fund.
The fresh round was led by Admaius Capital Partners, an African investment manager, with participation from Vitruvian Partners and AXA Investment Manager. Stanbic IBTC Bank and Symbiotic provided debt funding.
The freshly secured financing, according to the digital platform, would enable the company to expand beyond Africa into Asia while building cross-border payments synergies with Africa via a joint venture with LUN Partners as it executes its expansion plans for BAXI, a startup it purchased late last year.
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Global Technology Partners (GTP), based in the United States, was recently acquired by MFS Africa for $34 million as part of its global expansion efforts.
Last year, it also reached a deal to acquire Baxi’s parent company, Capricorn Digital, for an unknown amount.
The 100% cash acquisition is designed to expand MFS into Africa’s largest economy, where its presence has been hampered by the country’s small number of mobile wallets. Capricorn will now be known as MFS Africa, but Baxi will remain its flagship product.
In November, the company raised $100 million in Series C financing, with $70 million in equity and $30 million in debt.
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The corporation stated that it is establishing interoperability between payment networks in the Asian nation and Africa, beginning with Nigeria and then expanding to other regions.
“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,” Dare Okoudjou, the founder and CEO said.
MFS Africa Stanbic MFS Africa Stanbic
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
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