Nigeria’s fintech unicorn Interswitch has secured a sizeable investment from LeapFrog Investments and Tana Africa Capital.

Startup platform Magnitt and TechCrunch reported that Interswitch secured $110 million form the funding. However, Interswitch told Zawya that the size of the funding has not been disclosed.

Existing shareholders, including Helios Investment Partners & TA Associates, had also participated in the round and retained their position as ‘controlling shareholders’, a statement from the company said.   

The fresh funds are expected to help boost the company’s pan-African strategy and expand its operations in more sub-Saharan countries, according to the statement.  

In 2002, Mitchell Elegbe founded Interswitch to introduce electronic payments in Nigeria’s cash-dominated society. In 2019, the company had reached the unicorn status following a $200 million-investment from Visa.

Currently, Interswitch operates two brands including Verse, a debit card scheme and Quickteller, a multi-channel consumer and business payment platform. The company is also present in other African countries including Kenya and Uganda.  

In recent years, the fintech sector has been growing rapidly and attracting most of the venture capital invested in Africa’s most populous country. Earlier this year, the industry closed another two mega deals.

In March, the Lagos-based vehicle-financing fintech Moove raised $105 million. In February, Flutterwave raised $250 million in a Series D round, which accounted for 70% of all capital invested in fintech and 57% of the total funding raised in Nigeria in the first quarter of 2022, according to Magnitt.

(Writing by Noha El Hennawy; editing by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@lseg.com)