It was indeed a big day for the African startup ecosystem as it was distribution day for individual and corporate investors who invested in Paystack.
A lot of investors took to Twitter to express their joy in their return on investment. Jason Njoku, Founder of IrokoTV who is also an investor confirmed the distribution on social media.
The Angels who invested in the seed round of Paystack back in 2016 made approximately 1,440% ROI. That is 14.4 times their money in only 5 years, according to Njoku.
What you should know
- Paystack, the Lagos-based payments startup that helps merchants accept payments from their customers, has grown so big that it’s said to process more than half of Nigeria’s online transactions.
- And currently, over 60,000 businesses in Nigeria and Ghana use the platform to collect online and offline payments.
- Paystack was the first-ever startup out of Nigeria to get into Y Combinator (YC), a US-based seed-stage accelerator.
- Their success into YC opened the door for other Nigerian startups to get into YC, access foreign investments, and raise significant rounds.
- In 2020, Stripe, a US payment giant acquired Paystack in a deal worth over $200 million (₦76 billion). Stripe acquired Paystack to accelerate online commerce across Africa.
- In 2018, stripe led Paystacks Series A round of $8 million with participation from Visa, Tencent and others.
- The Stripe-Paystack deal has been a turning point in the Nigerian startup ecosystem. More investors will be on the lookout for the new “Paystack”. Nobody wants to be left behind.
In the coming years, more investors will sign checks as they see Nigeria as a market where startup exits are possible.
Following Paystack participation in its Accelerator, YC invested $125,000 (₦32.5 million) in Paystack for 7% equity. YC return on investment (ROI) would be about $14 million (₦5.3 billion).
In addition to YC, some early investors in Paystack include:
- Abasiama Idaresit (CEO Wild fusion & Greentree Director)
- Dr Ola Brown, Director at Greentree Investment;
- Jason Njoku, CEO of Irokotv and Partner at Spark
- Kola Aina, Founding Partner at Ventures Platform Fund
- Maya Horgan Famodu, Partner at Ingressive Capital
- Olumide Soyombo, Managing Director at LeadPath
- Leonard Stiegeler, Founder of LS;
- Comcast Ventures;
- Singularity Investments;
- Tencent Holdings
- Lauren Cochran, Managing Director at Blue Haven Initiative
- Sudeep Ramnani, CEO at Sporty Internet Group
- Tom Stafford, Managing Partner at DST Global
- Gbenga Oyebode, Founding Partner at Aluko & Oyebode
- Nedu Ottih, Principal at Apax Partners
- Lexi Novitske, Managing Partner at Acuity Venture Partners
- Dale Mathias, Co-Founder at Innovation Partners Africa
- Bastian Gotter, Co-Founder at irokotv
- Wale Ayeni, Investor
Why wont they cash out when they keep stealing my kid brother’s money.mtcheew.i sent them an email concerning this fraud n uptill now they havent replied that email.this caused my brother to close his account with Polaris bank when they kept trying to see where pay stack deducted the money to.