Nigerian Fintech, Oyapay Shuts Down

One of Nigeria’s promising startup fintech, OyaPay shut down its operations last week. It was first launched on December 1st, 2017 and had a very interesting approach to the problems in the Nigerian financial tech landscape.

The startup, which was less than a year old, was trying to ensure that offline businesses can accept payment and take forward orders from their customers with or without a smartphone.

The CEO, Abdulhamid Hassan and two other co-founders joined the likes of Paystack, Flutterwave and Paga to emerge as leaders of the Nigerian fintech space. Hassan, in a conversation with Techpoint explained that the decision to shut down OyaPay was not informed by issues around the product or the market.

“When I moved back to Nigeria from France in January 2018, I had a goal in mind to not raise external capital until we’d attained market fit and by so doing not hustling to get investor money. Instead, it would be on a neutral ground where we all (OyaPay and participating investors) need each other,” explained Hassan.

Hassan revealed that his relative (uncle) pushed back from investing into OyaPay at the point of product market fit. Complications arose from the initial seed funding from his uncle and most of the issues that led to its shut down had to do with funding.

Prior to the interview, it was rumored that Paystack had acquired the asset and liabilities of OyaPay. Paystack debunked the rumor but stated that some members of OyaPay have now joined Paystack.

“We think extremely highly of the crew because they are some of the best operators in fintech we’ve encountered and we are lucky to have some of them joining the Paystack family. But it is incorrect to say Paystack acquired OyaPay,” states an excerpt from an email by Paystack.