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  Nigerian fintech beacon, Paystack, has now been acquired by Stripe, an international counterpart. The exit is a big one and has been rumoured to be well over 200 million dollars. This may now be the biggest acquisition to ever happen in Nigeria as of yet pending the confirmation of the actual value of the transaction.
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Currently valued at over 36 billion dollars and still privately held, Stripe is an American financial software service platform providing payment solutions that can be licensed across e-commerce platforms and other mobile applications. The company has become a leader in its market and in spite of its huge market cap is still very much run as a start-up. Since beginning under Peter Thiel’s Y Combinator incubator programme in 2010, it has grown into the start-up that invests in smaller start-ups in other geographic locations from North America as part of its growth strategy. In acquiring Paystack, Stripe is doubling down on its previous investment in the Nigerian start-up in 2018 when it led a funding round of $8million. Other investors at the time, Chinese conglomerate, Tencent and financial services giant, Visa. As we know, Visa already has a foothold in Nigeria having acquired Interswitch earlier this year.
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Paystack has grown exponentially and said to service over 60,000 customers including traditional banks and other financial service players in Nigeria. The position of the start-up in Nigeria’s budding tech scene means that this is coming at a very great time for the tech community that has now taken the lead in the civil society space thanks to #EndSARS. Founded by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi in 2015, the start-up has been a shining beacon for other tech outfits and the exit does a lot for the confidence of tech practitioners in an especially difficult time in the political and economic life of Nigeria. One would be remiss not to construe this as a win for Nigeria’s Gen X. Featured Image Source: Tech Startups
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This article was first published on 15th October 2020 and updated on February 4th, 2022 at 1:46 pm

david-okwara

Some call me David. Others, Emerie. Others, (unfortunate fellows) Biggie. I like to think that I have sense and that is why I write too. Otherwise, I draw and paint and sing (in the bathroom) and love to make people laugh. I love to understand how things work and that’s why I love DIY videos and YouTube of course. Follow me on Twitter @EmerieOkwara

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