Opera payment startup, OPay, raises $50 million to expand in Nigeria and across Africa

Opera’s payment startup, OPay, has raised $50 million in funding.

The lead investors included IDG Capital, Sequoia China, Source Code Capital, Meituan-Dianping, GSR Ventures and Opera Limited

Launched in 2018, OPay intends to use the capital to strengthen the company’s position in Nigeria, expand to additional African markets and leverage its brand and app into adjacent verticals, including motorbike ridesharing and food delivery services.

OPay launched its mobile payment service in August 2018, creating an infrastructure on which the company is now also adding new services. The agent-centric mobile payment operation focused on reaching the massive unbanked population of Nigeria. Within less than a year, by June 2019, OPay had more than 40,000 active agents and saw daily transaction volumes in excess of $5 million, propelling the company to become the largest mobile transaction provider in the country.

Recently, OPay has expanded its ecosystem to include new verticals, including the motorbike ridesharing service ORide and food delivery service OFood. OPay is already experiencing demand far in excess of its capacity and is rapidly adding to its motorbike fleet, ensuring a highly visible physical presence in its core market, Nigeria.

Chairman and CEO of Opera Limited, Yahui Zhou, commented, “By incubating OPay and supporting the company through its rapid acceleration, Opera has also demonstrated its ability to leverage its brand and consumer reach to create attractive, fast-growing businesses on the African continent. We are highly pleased by the team’s results and are excited to continue supporting OPay as the journey continues.”

“OPay has successfully built a leading mobile payment business in Nigeria in a short period of time. We are excited to be part of its continued growth, as it provides access to better mobile banking services for Nigeria’s 200 million population, and expands into new areas,” said Qingsheng Zheng, Partner of Sequoia China.

“We are thrilled that IDG Capital, Sequoia China, Source Code Capital and others are coming onboard as investors in OPay. The additional capital will allow OPay to accelerate its growth in mobile payment services and the growth into new verticals, such as motorbike ridesharing and food delivery,” said Yahui Zhou, Chairman and CEO of Opera Limited. “Further, the strength of Opera’s brand and OPay’s emerging position will benefit both companies’ and their visions to lead many internet verticals across Africa.”

Opera currently has significant reach in Africa. At the end of the first quarter of 2019, there were nearly 120 million people across Africa and more than 350 million worldwide using Opera products, including browsers, the standalone news app and fintech offerings. This represented a fast double digit growth for the company in the African region in comparison with the prior year. The increase is due to Opera launching new products, the addition of new mobile browser features, and its partnerships with smartphone manufacturers across Africa. Further, this scale enabled Opera to incubate OPay into a strong company that has significant ambitions beyond its current offerings and geographical footprint.