ZirooPay raises fund in Series A to expand team and infrastructure
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
ZirooPay, based in Lagos and Helsinki, has just raised $11.4 million in Series A round to enlarge both its workforce and quarry of payment infrastructure to accelerate overall growth.
The funding was led by Zrosk Investment Management, a venture capitalist based in Lagos, with participation from existing investors Nordic Venture Fund. Other private and institutional participants include Fedha Capital and Exotix Advisory.
Individual investors include
- Petri Kivinen, former Managing Director at Deutsche Bank
- Morgan Stanley
- Renaissance Capital
- Abiodun Ajai, Director, Sub-Saharan Africa of Bank of America
- Kurt Bjorklund, Managing Partner at Permira
- Stephane Kurgan, Venture Partner at Index Ventures
- Jonas Dromberg, former Bureau Chief at Bloomberg
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Digitising offline economy at lower cost
ZirooPay enthused the funding will help expand its product suite and include additional payment channels and options as it looks to build out an omnichannel system for merchants.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Omoniyi Olawale said one of the obstacles to mass adoption of card payments at retail locations is transaction failure because of poor internet connection.
He explained that ZirooPay mobile application allows small businesses – across retail, agency banking, hospitality, and services sectors – to perform similar tasks, such as tracking sales and managing business operations.
“Think about everything that the cash registers seen in big supermarkets can do; with an Android application and a mobile point-of-sale card reader, we provide that same functionality to small businesses,” he said, according to reporting by Nairametrics.
Samson Esemuede, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of Zrosk, noted that the growth in the online economy of Africa has been remarkable.
“ZirooPay has a patented technology advantage (that works without an internet connection) and distribution model that significantly increases the odds of digitising the offline economy at a unit cost that makes the story particularly compelling.
“The payment space has become well-resourced and competitive, but the white space we see in the digitisation of cash is the reason we are optimistic about the outlook for this investment,” Esemuede explained.
