Nigeria’s biggest mobile payments company is vying to become Africa’s next unicorn, and its ambitions now stretch beyond the continent.
Paga, whose backers include US billionaire investor Tim Draper and former Goldman Sachs Group economist Jim O’Neill, boasts 17 million unique users including tech entrepreneurs, businesses, and individuals in Africa’s most populous nation.
Modeled after PayPal, it processed $2.3 billion worth of transactions in 2020 and $8bn during the past four years, according to Tayo Oviosu, the company’s chief executive officer who founded it in 2009. Paga could reach a valuation of at least $1bn “in the next year or two,” Mr Oviosu said in an interview.
Tech unicorns -- startups with a valuation of $1bn or more -- are less of a rarity in Nigeria as companies catering to a large unbanked population revolutionise the way people transfer money and pay for goods and services. A crop of firms from Flutterwave to Interswitch has achieved that status.
Mr Oviosu, who returned to Nigeria from the US more than a decade ago with a Stanford MBA and experience at companies like Cisco Systems, wouldn’t disclose the company’s current valuation.
But he’s already setting his sights outside his home country by looking to expand to Ethiopia and Mexico, where it could similarly facilitate payments for the millions who lack access to banking services. Paga’s foray into Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation, is planned for next year.
To expand Paga’s reach, the company is counting on what it considers a game-changer of a deal with Visa. The agreement will provide merchant solutions in Nigeria from this month, allowing payments by money transfer and a QR code among others.
“It has significant potential to grow our revenue,” Mr Oviosu said.
Enlisting Agents
Central to Paga’s business is a network of agents who effectively perform the functions of a bank teller.
Deployed across Nigeria, the company’s 27,000 agents are registering new customers for Paga accounts and helping them process payments or put cash into a bank deposit. Paga is also making its programming interface available to tech entrepreneurs for payments while expanding its consumer business through the partnership with Visa.
The West African nation, where 60 million people are among the unbanked, is embracing the boom in fintech that is promoting inclusion through mobile payments. Many startups are concentrated in Yaba, a district in the commercial hub of Lagos that’s also attracted the likes of Facebook and Google.
The technology industry is also increasingly in favour with lenders in the economy of Africa’s biggest oil producer. The government has similarly taken notice, spending more on tech infrastructure to boost innovation and create jobs.
Given Paga’s growing business footprint and the prospects for additional fundraising, Mr Oviosu thinks becoming a unicorn is only a matter of time.
“We are focused on making it simple for people to pay, get paid, shop, and sell,” he said. “I know the runway to where we are projecting to be from where we are today.”
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
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WRESTLING HIGHLIGHTS
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Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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Canada
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
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'Young girls thinking of big ideas'
Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.
“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”
In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.
“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”
Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.
“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”
rpennington@thenational.ae
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Director: Paul Weitz
Stars: Kevin Hart
3/5 stars
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Indoor Cricket World Cup
Venue Insportz, Dubai, September 16-23
UAE squad Saqib Nazir (captain), Aaqib Malik, Fahad Al Hashmi, Isuru Umesh, Nadir Hussain, Sachin Talwar, Nashwan Nasir, Prashath Kumara, Ramveer Rai, Sameer Nayyak, Umar Shah, Vikrant Shetty
New schools in Dubai
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Contracted list
Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine, Matt Renshaw, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye.
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
