(Bloomberg) -- Moniepoint, a Nigerian cash-transfer startup, raised $110 million in an equity sale to expand in home market and across Africa, the chief executive said.
The Series C funding round, backed by an Africa investment fund owned by Google and Development Partners International LLP, will enable the firm start cross-border remittances and extend banking services into francophone African countries, Tosin Eniolorunda, founder and chief executive said.
“We are at different levels of engagement for approvals to do remittances,” Eniolorunda said in an interview. “We want to deploy banking to other countries.”
Founded in 2015 to provide infrastructure and payment solutions in Africa’s most populous nation, Moniepoint has seen rapid expansion taking advantage of Nigeria central bank’s cashless drive and widespread insecurity that has promoted the use of digital platforms for payments, according to Eniolorunda.
The Financial Times earlier reported that the funding round gives the company so-called unicorn status, or a value of more than $1 billion, citing unidentified people familiar with the company. That puts the firm in the ranks of other players like Flutterwave, OPay and Jumia Technologies AG that have all achieved or surpassed the elusive valuation by exploring the Nigerian market.
Read: Cash Crisis Proves a Boon for Mobile-Money Startups in Nigeria
Moniepoint processes 800 million transactions, worth about $17 billion every month, according to Eniolorunda. The company is looking to start inventory management “soon” to complement other banking services including debit cards, savings, lending and payments, he said.
--With assistance from Antony Sguazzin.
(Updates all through with CEO’s comments)
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