Tony Elumelu’s Startup, Redtech, To Raise $100m For Expansion Across Africa

Redtech Ltd, a Nigerian financial-technology company backed by tycoon Tony Elumelu is considering a plan to raise about $100 million in the next two years as the startup expands across Africa.

Emmanuel Ojo Chief Executive Officer of the Lagos-based Redtech, which offers payment services and agency banking in Nigeria, said the fintech firm planned to expand into 29 African countries in the first half of the year, and later consider the Series A funding round.

“We have been scaling up very fast. The business has now gotten to a mature stage we need to expand with more equity and new products across continent,” Ojo said.

Redtech gives Elumelu a foothold in Nigeria’s thriving payments business that’s been buoyed by the Central Bank’s policy to push cashless transactions.

The startup deployed more than 30,000 point of sale devices and started a payment gateway, lining it up for competition with unicorns including Moniepoint and Flutterwave.

The startup is unit of Heirs Holdings, which has interest across energy, hospitality and banking, and is owned by Elumelu, who’s also the single largest investor and chairman of United Bank of Africa Plc,

The company will have to contend with intensifying competition.

Flutterwave, which operates in about 35 African countries, earlier this month said it will acquire open-banking platform Mono Technologies Nigeria Limited to boost earnings.

Chipper Cash and Moove are other rivals that have been expanding on the continent.

Redtech will integrate its infrastructure with United Bank for Africa’s cross-border operations and other institutions to enable it to conduct transactions in 54 countries in Africa by the end of the year.

“We’ll be deploying over a 100,000 POS machines before the end of this year,” Ojo said.

It projects yearly transactions on its platform to reach N100 billion within the next two years from N25 billion last year, while transactions value is expected to reach N100 trillion ($73 billion) from N30 trillion in 2025 in the same period.

Bloomberg