Moniepoint started out as TeamApt, a company that builds software for financial institutions. In 2019, the company decided to build software for itself and morphed into Moniepoint, one of Nigeria’s foremost fintech companies.
On, October 29, 2024, Moniepoint became Africa’s latest unicorn with a $110 million dollar funding from investors, including Development Partners International (DPI) and Google.
In a blog post, Moniepoint CEO, Tosin Eniolorunda, said the company is now the “largest merchant acquirer and in-person payments platform, with 2 out of 3 adults in Nigeria making payments via a Moniepoint terminal.”
But how did Moniepoint get here?
*The early days*
Eniolorunda left Interswitch in 2015 to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams and then saw a gap in financial services which he decided to fill.
Not too long after, Felix Ike and Odun Adeboye — colleagues from his Interswitch days — joined him and they created TeamApt.
TeamApt’s mission was simple: provide end-to-end service as well as full system automation, credit/debit reconciliation, and any other digital products to help banks accelerate their activities and set them on the same pedestal with the digital age.
*Solving the PoS problem*
The team found a major pain point in banks’ bulk PoS settlement system — merchants couldn’t tell which customer paid for what and the amount paid.
They launched a PoS acquiring solution, their first product, in 2016 to address this issue and by 2018, 26 of Nigeria’s 30 banks were using the solution.
*Bootstrapping*
Eniolorunda and the team were deliberate about not taking investments early on. In his interview with Techpoint Africa, he explained that businesses are more focused on pleasing their investors than pursuing their mission. Consequently, companies are risk averse in the beginning, when it is important for them to be open to risks.
“Since people will jump on you when you have value, it’s better to prove that you have value first, then come back to place demand on that value.”
His funds were key to getting TeamApt off the ground. He revealed to Techpoint Africa in December 2018 that he had ₦15 million in total savings when he decided to leave Interswitch.
The company also took on numerous side projects to stay afloat.
*An inexpensive go-to-market strategy*
TeamApt did not spend a lot on marketing when it started because as a B2B company, it wasn’t necessary.
“In B2B solutions, you don’t need so much money to close deals. In B2C, you need to do marketing, go out, and make noise. [For us,] it was more of showing the banks the problem they had and how we could solve it.”
One way TeamApt did this was to give banks the solution for free. This strategy was key to the deals they closed because it was a hassle-free way to build use cases for their product.
Fidelity Bank was their first customer, picking them over Interswitch which had been around for longer.
Fidelity Bank then recommend then to Wema Bank and they just kept going from there.
Plough back revenue
TeamApt became profitable in its first two years and was making seven figures in annual revenue (in dollars), which was always reinvested in the business.
This is similar to the strategy used by Deimos, a bootstrapped South African startup that makes $20 million in yearly revenue.
According to Deimos CEO, Andrew Mori, customers are investors, and their investments should be used wisely.
*The pivot*
By 2018, Eniolorunda knew what was next for TeamApt. They’d spent years building for banks, indirectly creating great financial products for people to use, but it was time to build directly for the market.
In 2019, TeamApt raised $5.5 million and that same year, launched a product called Moniepoint, a mobile money agent network.
By 2021 Moniepoint had onboarded over 30,000 agents who did 23m transactions per month valued at ₦400b.
It is no surprise that Moniepoint became a flagship product, and by 2023, TeamApt rebranded to Moniepoint to tie into an identity that existing customers already knew and trusted.
Today Moniepoint is one of Nigeria’s largest financial institutions.
In 2023, it processed over $150 billion in transactions, and with its latest fund injection, we can only expect big things from the new unicorn.
