MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: SoftBank Leads $400m Equity Funding Round for Fintech OPay of Nigeria as it Eyes International Expansion

The SoftBank Vision Fund 2, a vehicle of the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, recently led an investment package totaling USD 400 million in the Nigeria-based financial technology (fintech) firm OPay, a mobile platform for sending payments. The funding round values OPay at USD 2 billion. Additional investors active in this round include DragonBall Capital, Redpoint China, Sequoia Capital China, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Source Code Capital and 3W Capital. The levels of participation by each investor have not been disclosed.

SoftBank managing director Kentaro Matsui stated, “We believe our investment will help the company extend its offering to adjacent markets and replicate its successful business model in Egypt and other countries in the region.”

OPay was created in 2018 when the internet services firm Opera acquired PayCom from the “digital transformation company” Telnet Nigeria. Opera was founded in Norway and bought by a Chinese consortium in 2016. It is listed on the US-based NASDAQ stock exchange and reported net income of USD 28.1 million during the third quarter of 2019. While OPay is only active in Nigeria, Opera is based in Norway and has offices in four other European countries as well as China. Opera’s offerings include: game development software, a mobile debit card, a news app and a mobile application that allows users to chat within the Opera browser.

Established in 1981, SoftBank Group is headquartered in Tokyo and is active in the technology and energy sectors. The firm reports total assets of JPY 12.2 trillion (USD 111 billion) as of March 2021.

By Harriet Ritchie, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

Bloomberg press release
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-23/softbank-bets-on-fintech-startup-opay-at-2-billion-valuation

OPay homepage
https://opayweb.com/

SoftBank Group homepage
https://global.softbank/

Softbank 2020 fiscal year report
https://cdn.softbank.jp/en/corp/set/data/ir/documents/financial_reports/fy2020/pdf/sbkk_financial_report_20210511_en.pdf

Yahoo finance data on SoftBank; February 13, 2020
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SFTBY/

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