Palmpay, an African Digital Bank Fintech, is in conversation to collect between $ 50 million and $ 100 million in a series B round, according to several sources that are familiar with the issue.
It is unclear what appreciation it hopes to get, but the final round, in 2021, rank to the most valuable startups of the continent, just estimated to unhuman status.
While Palmpay refused to comment on fundraising details, a spokesperson said that the six -year -old Fintech is “in a strong financial position and explores growth opportunities.”
The company, which has collected nearly $ 140 million in its sperm and series A rounds, is now profitable, according to people who are familiar with its finances.
The new capital, which is expected to include both equity and debts, will feed the expansion of Palmpay: deepening his footprint in Nigeria, scaling up its newer business -oriented offer and rolling out both products in new markets in Africa and Asia.
Last month, Palmpay announced that it had hit 15 million daily transactions, driven by its 35 million registered users. According to the company, these transactions are now annually in value “dozens of billions of dollars” in value.
The income has also risen. The turnover of Palmpay – $ 64 million in 2023, according to the Financial Times – has since more than doubled, say people who are familiar with the financial data of the company.
Palmpay was launched in 2019 and started in Nigeria, the most densely populated country in Africa and a big fintech hub. At the time, more than half of the adults had come loose in the country, and traditional banks were primarily focused on clients as an employee or formal sector, often with requirements that exclude mass market users.
Palmpay saw an opportunity to turn that model upside down: rebuild a digital bank, but optimize it for the reality of the informal economy of Africa. The company launched an app with Instant Onboarding, zero transfer costs and a growing series of services (including credit, savings, insurance and invoice payments) all tailor -made for the needs of subjects and small companies.
It is crucial that Palmpay was not only dependent on digital acquisition. The FinTech built a huge network in the field of more than 1 million small companies and agent traders, who now serve more than 10 million customers every month via the Palmpay Business App and Point-of-Sale devices (for cash-in, cash-out services).
Other big fintechs in the country, including Opay, Moniepoint, and Pagahave also taken over the hybrid model, where digital apps are combined with physical contact points.
Palmpay claims to process more transactions than any traditional bank in Nigeria, and 25% of its users report that it was their very first financial bill. For credit products, offered in collaboration with recognized lenders, that number jumps to 60% among borrowers, it claims.
Part of Palmpay’s strong distribution and marketing benefit comes from its collaboration with Transsion, the Chinese telephone maker who dominates the sale of smartphones in Africa, with a market share of more than 40% in his brands (Tecno and Infinix).
Via the partnership, Palmpay installs its app in advance on selected funded smartphones, which helps to stimulate the acquisition and involvement of users.
Palmpay has settled as one of the most used fintech apps in the country and is now preparing to replicate his model in new markets abroad.
The Neobankings platform has been extended to Tanzania and Bangladesh (the first trip outside Africa), where Palmpay arrives with device financing and consumer credit as wedges before he has made more services. (Other African digital banks, including Fairmoney, Mnt-Halan and Tymebank, have extended their financial services to Asia with different degrees of success.)
The company is also planning to introduce device financing in Nigeria, the spokesperson confirmed.
While Transsion, who led Palmpay’s seed round, remains a strategic partner, the company’s spokesperson that is actively investigating the FinTech is investigating collaborations with more original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
GIC (Singapore’s Sovereine Wealth Fund) and MediaTek, one of the world’s largest mobile chipset makers, are some of his other investors.
On the side of the business -oriented side, Palmpay offers cross -border payments for traders who want to send and collect payments to Africa via a single API, a recurring pain point (even with the promise of Stablecoins). This newly launched business function, which is currently live in Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania (with South Africa in the pipeline), already processes “hundreds of millions of dollars monthly,” confirmed the company’s spokesperson.
