Nigeria fintech OPay sees valuation bumped up

OPay’s products in Nigeria, its largest market, are a bank account for faster online money transfers than traditional banks provide, and a point-of-sale device that enables vendors to accept card payments and offer cash withdrawals to customers. Nigeria’s botched currency redesign last year accelerated OPay’s growth as a major player in the country’s financial services ecosystem.

The fintech giant was OPay was founded by Chinese billionaire Zhou Yahui and valued at $2 billion in 2021 when it raised $400 million in a round led by SoftBank, with the participation of investors including Sequoia Capital China. It has remained one of Africa’s most valuable startups in the years since, drawing closer to Flutterwave’s February 2022 valuation of $3 billion. It comes at a time when some lofty valuations of African-based startups are struggling to be maintained due to the slowdown in venture funding over the last year.

Opera’s increased stake in OPay came via a transaction to buy the majority of the Asian business of Nanobank, a lender that Opera partly owned. Opera had held its OPay shares as “for sale” since 2021 until last December, signaling a change in perception of OPay’s prospects, including greater possibility of an initial public offering in the near future.