QED Investors, one of the world’s largest venture capital (VC) funds with over 312 investments in the global fintech space, has made its first investment in the African fintech sector. Founded in 2007 by Nigel Morris and Frank Rotman, the VC firm has almost $5 billion in assets under management and has exited 27 unicorns across 14 countries. QED recently announced a 50 million investment in TeamApt, one of Nigeria’s largest fintechs. FT Partners, an investment banking firm, served as the exclusive financial and strategic advisor to TeamApt in the financing round.
Founded in 2015 by Tosin Eniolorunda, TeamApt has helped over 400,000 businesses get paid and has processed transactions worth over $100 billion on a yearly run-rate run-rate transaction value via its products – Moniepoint and Monnify. Since its launch, it has gotten 14 million monthly users and conducted a monthly average of 72 million transactions, as well as a 100% monthly growth rate in transaction value from $2bn to $4bn. According to Shared Agent Network Expansion Facilities (SANEF), Nigeria’s regulating organisation for agency banking, TeamApt is Nigeria’s largest agency banking provider.
“With this financing round, TeamApt is widening our credit offerings,” said TeamApt CEO Tosin Eniolorunda in a statement shared with TechCabal. “QED’s investment proves TeamApt’s opportunity for exponential growth as a world-class financial institution at the forefront of Africa’s economic revolution.”
On how TeamApt and QED would work together to expand, he added: “As core fintech operators, QED is bringing the fintech expertise we need to scale in Nigeria and as we plan to expand our offering across Africa. With QED’s operator expertise and TeamApt’s excellent management team, TeamApt will continue digitising Africa’s economy and enabling growth, inclusion and access to financial services.”
QED’s investment in TeamApt can be traced back to the VC firm hiring Gbenga Ajayi as a partner and Chidinma Iwueke as principal earlier in the year. Speaking as QED’s Head of Africa, Ajayi said, “I am proud to bring Africa to QED and QED to Africa. I could not think of a better way to enter the continent than with our investment in TeamApt. Tosin and his team have steadily built an impressive payment and distribution network across Nigeria over the past five years. Their strong and positive unit economics, coupled with a deep customer focus, will enable them to continue to build out an even more expansive network.”
He also added: “Enabling a growing digital form of payments for merchants and consumers in Nigeria is exciting, but being able to deepen the financial capability of these merchants, providing them with the everyday tools and credit they need to run their businesses, will be profoundly impactful.”
