Private equity firm Africa Capital Alliance has invested $20m in Nigeria-focused financial services company Accelerex as it pursues a continent-wide expansion plan.
In subsidiary Global Accelerex, Mauritius-based Accelerex owns one of the largest payment terminal service providers in Nigeria, which works with over 95% of Nigerian banks and 90,000 merchants. Its agency banking arm, AccelerexNetwork, active since 2013, offers services to financially underserved Nigerians through a network of 9,000 agents and plans to reach 40,000 agents by the end of 2021.
Accelerex, which commenced operations in Ghana in 2019, intends to use the $20m investment to expand into Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa over the next 24 months and drive new product development across the group.
The investment, which gives ACA three seats on the Accelerex board, was made through CAPE IV, a $567m ACA fund established to invest in financial services, technology, media and telecoms, FMCG, energy and other emerging sectors in West Africa. ACA runs private equity and real estate funds targeting investments on the continent.
“I am very excited by the ACA investment…This partnership will help Accelerex to aggressively expand into Africa and accelerate product development. I see our vision becoming a reality with this move,” said Tunde Ogungbade, CEO of Global Accelerex.
Accelerex has also acquired a majority stake in SLS Microfinance Bank to boost its agent banking business. In 2019, it acquired a significant minority stake in Connected Analytics (also known as ThankUCash), a fintech platform provider that enables merchants to offer loyalty rewards to their customers.
“Accelerex’s strong business model and its agile and dynamic management team make it the ideal African fintech group to back. We are thrilled about this alliance and are happy to bring our experience to the board,” says Paul Kokoricha, partner at ACA.
Culled from Africanbusiness
