TeamApt anticipates unicorn bells on the back of $16bn agent banking blitz

TeamApt has change into a frontrunner in Nigeria’s agent banking industry and that would possibly perchance perchance presumably force it to the envied space of a thousand million-buck startup in the coming months.

Headquartered in Lagos Nigeria, the firm started off in 2015 constructing applications for banks. By the tip of 2018, it processed an average of $160 million transactions per thirty days by supporting the operations of 26 banks. 

A year later, it launched Moniepoint, a platform for agent banking.

As one of many “Enormous Agents”  licensed by the Central Monetary institution of Nigeria, TeamApt’s Moniepoint powers hundreds of retailers the keep typical banking transactions – deposits, withdrawals, story opening and more – are if reality be told performed in Nigeria the usage of level-of-sale devices. 

Nonetheless facing competitors from diversified avid gamers, how properly is Moniepoint performing?

Main the pack

Tosin Eniolorunda, TeamApt’s founder and CEO, is confident that it’s a long way the industry’s number 1. 

His audacity is primarily primarily based on files from SANEF, the physique empowered by the Central Monetary institution of Nigeria to oversee agent banking in Nigeria. In step with this files, TeamApt accounts for 74% of the agent banking industry primarily based on the quantity of transactions processed month-to-month. 

SANEF’s agent banking files is no longer public. It’s sent confidentially to startups in the field. TechCabal has no longer independently verified ranks of performance amongst these companies.

Eniolorunda elements to the firm’s transaction worth numbers as yet every other measure of TeamApt’s maturity in the fintech sector – and future valuation.

In March 2021, TeamApt processed over ₦1trillion ($2.4 bn) for the first time, in conserving with the CEO. The worth for Would possibly maybe fair changed into ₦1.4 trillion ($3.5 bn) from a depraved of 68 million transactions. Total worth of transactions TeamApt has processed between April 2020 and April 2021 is $16 bn. 

These transactions are from four use conditions: deposit, withdrawal, as properly as airtime and bill payments. Moniepoint, the firm says, has 14 million strange prospects month-to-month.

Unicorn calling?

Eniolorunda doesn’t specify what the firm’s most recent valuation is. Nonetheless primarily based on the above numbers and these of diversified Nigerian fintechs, he believes TeamApt seats conveniently amongst the continent’s most valued startups.

“We quiz the firm to realize unicorn-form valuations quickly,” he advised TechCabal earlier in June.

In March, Flutterwave said it had processed over 140m transactions worth over $9bn since its founding.

On hand numbers for Opay are from 2020; the Opera-backed firm claimed to maintain processed $1.4 bn in October and $2bn in December of that year. Paga, on the diversified hand, processed $2.3 billion in 2020 and $8 billion over the final observe four years in conserving with CEO Tayo Oviosu. 

No longer unparalleled is identified about Firstmonie, furthermore in the agent banking heavyweight category. Observers allege it’s more internal most due to its ownership by First Monetary institution.

Unless TeamApt is got for a thousand million bucks or goes public, the utterly accessible formulation to estimate its valuation will advance after a funding round. 

Rumors of an announcement circulated quickly in Would possibly maybe fair nevertheless the firm has yet to officially express a round. Its ultimate fundraise changed into $5.5m Sequence A in February 2019, led by Jim Ovia’s Quantum Capital.

At a media event this week Thursday, Eniolorunda confirmed the round – “a few tens of millions” – has been closed. Yet every other – “a lot more” – is in development. 

When these are announced, a clearer portray will emerge of the firm’s valuation, direction and, more broadly, investor dash for food for prime-rising fintech companies in Africa.

Flutterwave and Chipper Money maintain made headlines in the first half of of the year with $100-million-plus rounds that catapulted them to unicorn space. OPay is reported to maintain a $400 million deal in the works which would possibly perchance perchance presumably worth it at $1.5bn, and Paga expects to be a unicorn in a year or two. 

Is TeamApt next in line?

Digital bank on the horizon

Meanwhile, the firm is evolving to a more user-facing firm. 

“As of at present time, we’re directing our industry towards changing into a digital bank,” Enioolorunda says. 

On this contemporary direction, Moniepoint will continue to energy agent banking nevertheless will furthermore be unparalleled as an app by folks as a digital bank. Eniolorunda says this “hybrid methodology” is awfully important to in actuality abet underserved of us in Africa who, for beautiful motive, back a maintain to bodily talk over with service companies when quality falls quick.  

The diversified expansion on the firm’s playbook is geographical; TeamApt plans to originate working in the “third-biggest francophone country” in Africa by the third quarter of the year, the CEO says.

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