Kippa, the financial management and payments platform for Nigerian small businesses, has announced that it has raised $8.4 million in a new financing round. The funding, the startup said, was backed by international investors to develop products that will help SMEs grow their businesses.
Founded in June 2021, Kippa raised pre-seed funding of $3.2 million in November 2021 with the idea of onboarding merchants to a simple-to-use mobile bookkeeping app to help them digitize bookkeeping and recover customer debt. Today, the company has further expanded its offerings. It provides a suite of financial services that enable small-sized business owners to incorporate their businesses legally, open bank accounts, receive and send payments, builds online web stores, and manage their entire business from one platform.
The new funding round had participation from global investors, including Goodwater Capital, TEN13 VC, Rocketship VC, Saison Capital (the venture arm of Credit Saison), Crestone VC (led by Inanc Balci, Co-founder and former CEO at Lazada), VentureSouq, Horizon Partners and Vibe Capital.
What they are saying
Commenting on the fundraising, Kippa CEO Kennedy Ekezie-Joseph, said: “We expect the number of digitally active small businesses to grow exponentially over the next three to five years. As more small businesses come online, Kippa will own the money button on the devices of these merchants.”
He noted that since the pre-seed announcement in November 2021, the company has made tremendous progress in recruiting ex-regulators and former senior executives at top startups, including OPay, BharatPe, Khatabook, TeamApt, OKCredit, NIBSS, and Unified Payments, amongst others. Some key appointments, according to him, include hiring immediate past Deputy Managing Director at the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), Niyi Ajao as Chairman; Toyin Albert as Executive Director of Payments Services; and Osagie Alonge as Director of Marketing,” he added.
“Our mission is to make it easy for anyone to start and run profitable small businesses in Africa. It is why we are building a full suite of software and financial services that enables this ambition, thereby empowering African business owners. We say this because we’ve spent time understanding their most significant needs,” he stated.
What you should know
- Spread across all 774 local governments in Nigeria, serving over 500,000 merchants within its network, the company has seen the annualized transaction recorded on the platform exceed $3 billion.
- Kippa has also obtained a license from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to operate as a Super Agent under the Payment Solution Service license category.
- The license allows Kippa to leverage its explosive merchant distribution to turn everyday neighbourhood shops into a one-stop shop for essential financial services such as cash withdrawals and deposits, bank account opening, bills and utility payments, and insurance.
- The EFInA “Access to Financial Services in Nigeria 2020 Survey” estimates that about 49.3 million business owners are running SMEs in the country. Ekezie-Joseph believes Kippa is well positioned as these SMEs’ go-to financial service provider.
