OyaPay, a Nigerian mobile-based point-of-sale startup, has shut down after a year in business thanks to a funding dispute with one of the founder’s family members.
OyaPay was one of several Nigerian startups looking to help wean the country off of cash, enabling small businesses to accept payments via mobile phones and also offering customers the chance to order ahead.
However, in a blog, co-founder Abdulhamid Hassan says that “our grand experiment is at an end”, promising to reimburse users before a complete shutdown this month.
In an interview with Techpoint Africa, Hassan says that the reason for the decision is unrelated to OyaPay’s product or market performance.
Rather, he lays the blame at a family dispute: an uncle acted as the firm’s initial seed investor and was reluctant to see his stake diluted to bring more backers in.
“For months we couldn’t resolve it, I became frustrated and decided to call it quits,” says Hassan.
Meanwhile, another Nigerian fintech firm, Paystack, tells Techpoint that rumours that it has bought OyaPay are false, although some of the latter’s staffers have been hired.
