QED Investors, a U.S. fintech-focused venture capital firm, has led a new investment in TeamApt, a Nigerian fintech that provides business payments and banking platforms. The investment was over $50 million, according to sources familiar with the matter, though neither QED nor TeamApt would confirm the figure.
Existing investors from the company’s Series B last year
(Crunchbase pegs it at $30 million+) — Novastar Ventures (co-lead), Lightrock
and BII — all participated in this round.
While TeamApt wouldn’t prescribe any “letter” to this latest
round, it can perhaps be described as a pre-Series C round because sources say
the company is still in the market to raise a Series C next year.
“We always approach our fundraising effort opportunistically
and want to make sure the market context, cash needs of the business and
investor profile match our strategic growth views,” said the company’s Tosin
Eniolorunda when quizzed whether the current market downturn affected the
company’s Series C fundraising efforts initially planned for this year.
“Given the overarching cautious market environment, we were
not in active fundraising mode. As a profitable company, we did not need the
cash, but we were happy to take an opportunity to add a new high-profile
investor.”
With almost $5 billion in assets under management (AUM) and
a recently closed $1.05 billion seventh fund, QED has backed more than 180
companies (of which 27 are unicorns).
In a move rarely made by Western VCs, QED announced the
hiring of Gbenga Ajayi and Chidinma “Chid” Iwueke to lead its investments in
Africa this January. Nigel Morris, the firm’s co-founder and managing partner,
in an interview with TechCrunch, said Africa was the final piece of the puzzle
for transforming QED into a global fintech-specialist VC firm.
TeamApt operates one of Nigeria’s largest business payments
and banking platforms and processes a $100 billion annualized run-rate
transaction value via its products Moniepoint and Monnify.
Moniepoint now serves 400,000 small and medium-sized
businesses across Nigeria, allowing them to access various features to manage
operations: working capital, business expansion loans and business management
tools such as expense management (business payments cards), accounting and
bookkeeping solutions and insurance.
In TeamApt, QED finds a company that bootstrapped for four
years before raising a venture round in 2019 but has grown 300% annually to
build one of the largest fintechs in Africa (in revenue and market cap) — and
is profitable.
The company generated over $100 million in annualized
revenue last year and saw its valuation jump almost four times from its
previous priced round, according to sources.
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