Accelerex Holdings secures $20 million from the Capital Alliance Private Equity IV (CAPEIV) fund, having signed an investment agreement with regional private equity firm, Africa Capital Alliance (ACA) making CAPEIV a strategic partner in Accelerex and will hold three seats on the company’s board.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Global Accelerex, Tunde Ogungbade commenting on the ACA investment pronounced that “I am very excited by the ACA investment. In our quest for the right investment and strategic partner, we were looking for a company that shares our vision to empower businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa to exceed all their customers’ payment expectations.
“This partnership will help Accelerex to aggressively expand into Africa and accelerate product development. I see our vision becoming a reality with this move,” Mr. Ogungbade remarked.
Paul Kokoricha, Partner at ACA, posits that with the huge potential of Fintechs in Africa, good funding and strong expertise are crucial to scalability.
“Accelerex’s strong business model and its agile and dynamic management team make it the ideal African Fintech group to back. We are thrilled about this alliance and are happy to bring our experience to the board,” Paul added.
Accelerex was incorporated in 2008 and is the leading provider of electronic payment and business management solutions in Nigeria, delivering innovative technology solutions in a secure and reliable manner to businesses and consumers across channels. In 2019, Accelerex commenced operations in Ghana and plans to expand into Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa over the next 24 months with the new investment from ACA.
The company consistently ranked as the Number 1 Payment Terminal Service Provider in Nigeria in 2018 and 2019 and supports 95 percent of Nigerian banks and over 90,000 Merchants across the 36 states in the country continuously developing and deploying convenient, secure and innovative financial and non-financial solutions that make life easier.
Accelerex Network Limited (ANL), the agency banking subsidiary of Accelerex is a major driver of financial inclusion in Nigeria supporting the Federal Government of Nigeria and the CBN’s financial inclusion agenda, targeted at the underserved and unserved segments of the population. Within a year Accelerex Network Limited has grown its Agent network to over 9,000 agents and plans to reach 40,000 agents by the end of 2021.
Accelerex also acquired a majority stake in SLS Microfinance Bank to serve the financial needs of its fast-growing agent banking business and is an associate of Connected Analytics (also known as ThankUCash), a Fintech platform provider that enables merchants offer loyalty rewards to their customers thereby boosting their sales.
ACA is a leading pan-African investment firm, sponsoring funds and managing investments in Sub-Saharan Africa since its establishment in1997. ACA has an over 23-year history of investing across multiple market cycles, through five private equity and real estate funds. Its international structure and strong local expertise enable it to raise funds from investors across the globe for investment in specific sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa.
CAPE IV is a $567m fund established by ACA to invest in companies with strong fundamentals and a growth track record in the financial services, technology, media and telecoms, energy and various emerging sectors in West Africa.
