Stripe To Acquire African Payments Processor Paystack

Stripe is acquiring Paystack, a company that says it processes more than half of online payments in Nigeria.

“More than 60,000 businesses in Nigeria and Ghana use Paystack to securely collect online and offline payments, launch new business models, and deepen customer relationships. Incredibly, Paystack already processes more than half of all online transactions in Nigeria,” Stripe said in a news release. “Paystack has ambitious plans to expand across the continent and recently started a pilot with businesses in South Africa.”

Stripe already reportedly invested in Paystack’s Series A round in 2018.

“In just five years, Paystack has done what many companies could not achieve in decades. Their tech-first approach, values and ambition greatly align with our own. This acquisition will give Paystack resources to develop new products, support more businesses and consolidate the hyper-fragmented African payments market,” Matt Henderson, Stripe’s business lead in Africa, said in a prepared statement. “We can’t wait to see what they will build next and how their growth can turbocharge the African tech ecosystem.”

Stripe said Paystack will continue to operate independently and that its services will eventually be embedded in Stripe offerings.

“Paystack is a growth engine for modern businesses in Africa, and we couldn’t be more excited to join forces with Stripe, whose mission and values are so aligned with ours, to nurture transformative businesses on the continent,” Shola Akinlade, chief executive and co-founder of Paystack, said in a prepared statement. “We believe deeply that with the right tools, African creators, developers and entrepreneurs can do incredible things. Leveraging Stripe’s resources and deep expertise, we’re excited to accelerate our geographic expansion and introduce more payment channels, more value-added services and deeper integrations with global platforms.”

Paystack Cofounder Shola Akinlade wrote in a blog post on Thursday: “Paystack merchants and partners can look forward to more payment channels, more tools, accelerated geographic expansion and deeper integrations with global platforms. We will continue to execute against an ambitious roadmap with the support of Stripe’s resources and deep expertise.”

Stripe did not disclose the terms of the acquisition.